Will It Be A Bumper Year?

[Meantime]

Easter is early this year so extending the traditional hire season. Herbert Woods are reporting a 55% increase in bookings so far compared to the same period last year and they are building an additional 5 new picnic boats. So could this be a bumper year for The Broads?

http://www.edp24.co.uk/business/herbert-woods-invests-350-000-in-building-new-picnic-boats-1-5365421

[BroadAmbition]

Probably due to the poor exchange rate of the Euro / Dollar to our wonderful £

Griff

[Meantime]

4 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

Probably due to the poor exchange rate of the Euro / Dollar to our wonderful £

Griff

The Dollar still has a way to go, but currently at 1.40 compared to 1.22 last march, although the Euro is still dire.

[Guest]

Good news regarding bookings, although I will be there over the Easter holidays so it may be another week darn sarf

[Gracie]

18 hours ago, Jayfire said:

Good news regarding bookings, although I will be there over the Easter holidays so it may be another week darn sarf

Do you need crew? I'll bring chocolate

It's great to hear that bookings are up for whatever reason, long may it continue, it's part of what keeps our Broads alive

Anyone thinking of a boating holiday, remember the smaller yards too, use em or lose em as they say

Grace

[ChrisB]

Without trying to be a killjoy but putting on my business hat:-

Bookings are just that. They are prospects who have paid a deposit, it is the conversion at six weeks prior to hard cash that matters.

We have seen this story told every year recently but have also seen the tellers offer huge discounts as the height of season approaches. I do wonder what folk feel when they see their holiday that they have paid for offered 25% cheaper.

The time to judge a season is 31st October not January. Carillion used to count their chickens!

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Gracie said:

Do you need crew? I'll bring chocolate

No thanks you are too unreliable  

[Vaughan]

3 hours ago, ChrisB said:

I do wonder what folk feel when they see their holiday that they have paid for offered 25% cheaper.

This is why the two letting agencies never gave discounts for either early or late booking and neither did Crown Blue line, until the "tour operators" came along.

The price published in the brochure was what you paid, and it should still be like that, in my view.

[Londonlad1985]

I'm on Siesta for 3 nights easter weekend. Hopefully see you all out and afloat. 

[C.Ricko]

4 hours ago, ChrisB said:

Without trying to be a killjoy but putting on my business hat:-

Bookings are just that. They are prospects who have paid a deposit, it is the conversion at six weeks prior to hard cash that matters.

We have seen this story told every year recently but have also seen the tellers offer huge discounts as the height of season approaches. I do wonder what folk feel when they see their holiday that they have paid for offered 25% cheaper.

The time to judge a season is 31st October not January. Carillion used to count their chickens!

we don't discount which is why we book early, if we discount a holiday you have booked we will give you 110% of the difference, we have only done this once a few years ago when we priced a boat wrong, the few customers who had booked were most pleased when they got the call!

 

[Meantime]

30 minutes ago, C.Ricko said:

we don't discount which is why we book early, if we discount a holiday you have booked we will give you 110% of the difference, we have only done this once a few years ago when we priced a boat wrong, the few customers who had booked were most pleased when they got the call!

 

Seems a very fair policy. It must be hard to do a price match type policy such as high street retailers use, due to the difference in internal fit out of similar boats and also the quality of fit out etc.

[Broads01]

11 hours ago, C.Ricko said:

we don't discount which is why we book early, if we discount a holiday you have booked we will give you 110% of the difference, we have only done this once a few years ago when we priced a boat wrong, the few customers who had booked were most pleased when they got the call!

 

And you're spot on with that policy Clive. Anyway, you don't need to offer discounts because your prices are already better than everybody else's, especially when you take the loyalty scheme into account. 

[Chelsea14Ian]

On 24/01/2018 at 05:49, Gracie said:

Do you need crew? I'll bring chocolate

It's great to hear that bookings are up for whatever reason, long may it continue, it's part of what keeps our Broads alive

Anyone thinking of a boating holiday, remember the smaller yards too, use em or lose em as they say

Grace

You forgot the wine Grace!

[MBA Marine]

Easter being early just means I have less time to get boats ready for it!  I had all winter, where has time gone!!

[Vaughan]

It's also bad for bookings and if you get a bad Easter, you never seem to catch it up, in the rest of the season

[batrabill]

If only there was some great publicity around how lovely the Norfolk Broads are, like a BBC-backed competition for the best NP.

That would surely increase bookings.

But since there isn't, never mind.

[Meantime]

1 minute ago, batrabill said:

If only there was some great publicity around how lovely the Norfolk Broads are, like a BBC-backed competition for the best NP.

That would surely increase bookings.

But since there isn't, never mind.

Off course any such competition would also help bring the other National Parks to peoples attention and therefore possibly divert peoples interests to other areas of the country, to the disadvantage of The Broads. It's a double edged sword that one. I'm now thinking of a summer break in Snowdonia, which I wasn't until I saw the video.

[JennyMorgan]

Snowdonia is great, as is the Broads. The 'lager louts' image of the Broads portrayed on U-Tube is a hard one to live down, hardly likely to attract the real national park aficionados! There was no argument with the Broads being marketed as being a member of the national parks family. A departure from that simple truth and a justifiable lack of trust in the Authority is not helpful. 

[Meantime]

The lager lout image is probably more closely related to The Broads than any of the National Parks. More effort should be spent on trying to correct that image and controlling the behaviour of some of those parties than worrying about trying to be something they are not.

If the executive want to work in a National Park and help shape the future of a National Park, why don't they move to a proper National Park. Simple really.

[Wussername]

4 hours ago, EastCoastIPA said:

The lager lout image is probably more closely related to The Broads than any of the National Parks. More effort should be spent on trying to correct that image and controlling the behaviour of some of those parties than worrying about trying to be something they are not.

The lager lout image is not one that I recognise. It does no favours to The Broads whatsoever to focus on an issue which simply does not exist to any great extent. 

I hope that this does not act as a catalyst to start again on stag nights, they happen but they are contained and managed with the unfortunate exception of one instance last year.

 

Andrew

Edited January 25, 2018 by Wussername
Typo

[JennyMorgan]

Andrew, the unfortunate lager lout image to which I referred is as regretfully portrayed by U-Tube and viewed by a huge amount of people.

[JohnK]

Andrew, the unfortunate lager lout image to which I referred is as regretfully portrayed by U-Tube and viewed by a huge amount of people.

Maybe if the Broads won a prestigious award it would help dispel the bad image.
Sorry, I just couldn’t resist that one


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[batrabill]

What JohnK said. 

 

Sorry I’ll stop now. 

[C.Ricko]

is this topic going to descend into another NP debate? 

(or should I say AMOTNPF?) 

 

[Maxwellian]

3 minutes ago, C.Ricko said:

is this topic going to descend into another NP debate? 

(or should I say AMOTNPF?) 

 

Wise words  Clive, I hope not please.