Dear owners,

Spring is a gorgeous season in Cornwall; from daffodils prettying the hedgerows to blue sky beach walks, at last Spring is in the air!

With new beginnings in mind, I thought it would be a great idea to start a quarterly ‘Member’s Newsletter’ informing you of all the latest news and reviews from Unique Home Stays HQ here in Cornwall. Please feel free to take this regular opportunity to reply with any ideas, tips, questions or even just to say ‘hi’! Consider it an opportunity to voice any thoughts on what you think we’re doing great, what you think we can do better and generally just to let us know how you and your properties are getting along. Drop me an email anytime at claire@uniquehomestays.com

PRESS

Press

We have had lots of great press coverage already this quarter; please see examples of some of these below:

Remember, you can view the news and press anytime by going to the news and press section on our website.

Journalists love a bit of background information about your properties as it makes them more interesting to the reader and more likely for editors to accept the pitch. For those of you who still haven't filled in a 'PR Questionnaire', you can download it here and hope that you can all return them with as much as information as possible to help whet the appetites of journalists!

PROMOTIONS

Promotions
  • Last week we launched our latest Facebook competition which has been generating a great response so far (full breakdown in next quarter's newsletter). View details of the competition. Don't forget to "Like" us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter (@uniquehomestays) and ask all your friends to do the same so that we can increase our social media precence and tell the internet community all about your great properties.
  • In April we are due to launch a competition in collaboration with that great company Dorset Cereals who will promote UHS to their database of 95,000 people through their 'Spin The Bottle' competition. We are looking forward to this generating lots of great interest and increasing booking levels for yourselves!
  • There's lots more in the pipeline so watch this space (and "Like" us on Facebook) to stay abreast of future promotions. If you have any interesting ideas for competitions, prizes or promotions then we’d love to hear from you.

NEW PROPERTIES

Welcome

We'd like to extend a warm welcome to the new properties that have joined the UHS portfolio over the past quarter and introduce them to you all. Please see our newbies below:

Self-Catering

Bed & Breakfast

FACTS & FIGURES

UHS is going from strength to strength and the figures below speak for themselves:

Facts and Figures
  • January to March 2011 saw an increase of 36% in the number of confirmed bookings compared to the same time frame last year.
  • Our top performing properties, which includes "sleeps two" bolt holes as well as grand "sleeps twenty" country piles, have individually achieved revenues between £80,000 and £150,000. Which just goes to show size doesn't matter!
  • The website is increasingly popular with a whopping 3.9 million pages viewed between January and March of this year. Breaking it down; this figure was made up of 171,567 unique visitors making 297,919 visits which shows that people visit the site repeatedly and spend on average 6 minutes per visit browsing our impressive portfolio.
  • Approximately 15% of bookings are repeat clients; this shows that guests are having great experiences at your properties and love the ethos and customers service provided by UHS and come back to UHS time and time again.

A note from Jim, our Finance and Administration Manager

I have received confirmation from Visit Cornwall that the requirement for Energy Performance Checks (EPCs) for rental property has now been extended to include holiday lets and will become mandatory for all holiday accommodation (including private homes) that are let for 4 months of the year or longer; this change to existing rules was confirmed on 7th March 2011.

This is an extension to existing rules regarding rental property and EPCs will be required with effect from 30th June 2011.

For information, non-compliance will be enforced by Trading Standards.

Prices vary, and the advice to owners would be to shop around – expect to pay around £50 depending on property size and negotiating skills.

A good place to start looking would be the Energy Performance Check Register.

STAFF

Staff

We have worked with Unlocking Cornish Potential (UCP) over the past 18 months to help us to find the best graduates to join our team. UCP provided the following comment about Unique Home Stays which we think is testament to our success as a small business:

"Under our new programme (April 2011 – December 2014), it is only the businesses that are growing and/or have the capability for future growth that will be awarded our graduate support packages. In addition to this, the business needs to demonstrate good business management. Clearly, Unique Home Stays satisfy these requirements."

We have two recent additions to the team:

  • Emma De-La-Hunty who is our new House Party Co-Ordinator. Emma joins us from Dorset and is very happy to be back in Cornwall where she was raised. Emma loves Cornwall, loves dogs, and has taken to her new role like a duck to water!
  • Danielle Henwood who joins the accounts team in a part time role and will be helping Jim and Lucy out. Danielle has a great love for horses and when not at work can be found down at the stables.

A huge welcome to them both!

To keep up-to-date with who's who in the office you can see all our smiling faces (!) on our meet the team page.

General Manager Kahdine is doing her bit for charity and running in the London Marathon this year! If you'd like to offer your support, you can sponsor her through Just Giving

END BIT

End Bit

Should there be anything I've missed that you would like updates on, or should you have any questions about anything at all please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Wishing you all a happy and prosperous April!

Claire





Claire Ray
Marketing Manager
Unique Home Stays

www.uniquehomestays.com
claire@uniquehomestays.com

Direct Line: +44 (0) 1637 882014
Main Office: +44 (0) 1637 881183
Fax: +44 (0) 1637 882019


Unique Home Stays (UHS) is dedicated to coordinating the ultimate in
"Luxury Private House Accommodation" offering privileged access to some of the most luxurious and grandest private houses in the UK and overseas.

We like to keep you up-to-date with the latest UHS Luxury Private House Accommodation, if you do not want to be informed of new UHS properties and prefer not to be included on receiving any up-dates please let me know.

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