Some American or French thing, Club Cadet or something like that. It’s a couple of years old. Normally I’m not interested unless something has a V8
There’s 7 acres so a bit of land management will be needed even if it isn’t huge and isn’t a camp site. It’s why I wanted to keep the lawnmower thing, though I’d still love to get my hands on an old tractor and some implements for other stuff.
7 acres = about a day or more on one of those smaller mowers, better a tractor pulling the cutter. No idea of your layout but takes me a full day and a half on a Kubota ride on about 9-10 acres .Some American or French thing, Club Cadet or something like that. It’s a couple of years old. Normally I’m not interested unless something has a V8
Internal living space is 10,000sqare feet - more than the total land area we owned in the UK
After completion this time. But it ain’t a campsite - our target market is going to be a very different cohort. Rich Frenchies from Paris who want to get together as a group for a party
. It’s called ‘Gite de Group’ and is lucrative. It isn’t gites, it’s more like a boutique hotel that is always privately booked. Our punters will be paying €1750 per night.
Sounds too good to be true, especially if it includes water and electricity to the room.
I can believe that but can't really comment until full specs are revealed. Occupancy etc. What your planning on offering? Until you say, we won't knowAfter completion this time. But it ain’t a campsite - our target market is going to be a very different cohort. Rich Frenchies from Paris who want to get together as a group for a party
Some American or French thing, Club Cadet or something like that. It’s a couple of years old. Normally I’m not interested unless something has a V8
Internal living space is 10,000sqare feet - more than the total land area we owned in the UK
You just wanna play with the lawn mower don't ya!I’m sure with all that land you’ll find space for a little one (moi) tucked away….
Do you still want me to come over and level it with the diggerAfter completion this time. But it ain’t a campsite - our target market is going to be a very different cohort. Rich Frenchies from Paris who want to get together as a group for a party
Congratulations with your offer accepted. I look forward to knowing where it is when you feel able to let us know.This morning we heard that a slightly revised version of our offer has now been accepted. Perversely enough, it had come down to a fancy ride on lawnmower called a zero turn. It’s strange what people get attached to. Our quite generous offer was rejected just because we had firmly indicated we were not prepared to let them cherry pick the stated business inventory of a few choice things they wanted to take with them. It seems that the old boy really, really wanted to keep his lawnmower…
Anyway, it looks like his wife has persuaded him they can buy another lawnmower with all the money they are going to be paid, and perhaps they don’t need a semi-professional thing with a smaller plot of land.
Things are going to move quick now because we are cash buyers. Compromis (exchange) will be early March, and acte finale (completion) will be April.
Helga is therefore finally now up for sale. She’s a tad more used and battered than she was last summer when I did the listing, most notably the damaged bumper from the park bench that hit us during storm Kieran, and more dings in the table due to stuff falling from cupboards. The aftermarket cruise control and the front fog lamps have stopped working, maybe I can fix before the sale, but it won’t be our priority. Countering this, she now has four new Michelins. I’ve dropped the price - don’t tell anyone but £20k will secure her. The advert you can all already see at £21k will go on ebay and autotrader next month.
This time I think you are dead right, scope for all year opening, camping sites are going to be hammered with this CCP thing,
In other words we ain't posh enough!
Well well, praise indeed
Not praise just common sense.Well well, praise indeed
I’m ashamed to say you’re right. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Well I won’t be doing it a third time.You must be a glutton for punishment to do it twice.
- we will provide it all.
Sounds a great opportunity , really hope you can bring it home this time, as great as it is an opportunity , I don’t envy you, I have seen what damage big groups can do, they can behave like complete animals, their excuse……. We paid a lot of money for this placeWhen we moved the last of the cars into storage c/w our mattress and last bits of the house stuffed in the back of the stored car, then jumped in the camper and onto the ferry, all on the same day we completed the sale of our house in Kent, 27 October 2022 we had this idea of buying either land with permissions or buying and developing (via glamping) an existing camping/glamping operation. Also, after having seen so many of those paid for aires operated by the likes of CCP in France I wanted to also develop as part of our operation a simple secure aire de camping car along the same lines as CCP. Just an automated barrier, water and elec hook ups. Minimal maintenance and work. These initial thoughts and ideas were first outlined in posts #27 and #42.
Well, finding such a unicorn proved to be tricky. A decent house, ideally a manoir, plenty land, enough secure space for a large aire and room and the space (trees, a selling point like location etc) for glamping, and sufficient turnover to justify borrowing and the required investment if necessary. The closest we found was the huge thing we nearly bought, but we really had to withdraw from that as the required investment was enormous. 20-30years of deferred maintenance and minimal investment creates a certain ‘feel’ to a place - one does see that a lot in France.
While we had always tried to find pure ‘aire de camping car’ type operations, including looking at old municipals coming up for sale, they seem to come to market rarely. I don’t know how the CCP group identify their acquisitions - maybe there are back channels or they are very pro-active. We never saw a sniff. The closest we came to a decent aire for sale was on on the med coast near montpelier. It was a 100 space aire, hot as hell with its treeless ugly, low maintenance giant concrete car park. It looked busy though, we saw it in April and it had about 40 giant campers on it already. All plugged in and AC working already. The business model was fishing in nearby enclosures on its 10Ha. 300k turnover but the price was €1.3milliion. It just looked like hell to Bea and me, we couldn’t imagine how hot it would be in July. So we went first for the gold panning thing on the river north of Montpelier in Gard, then the one in Vienne when that offer was rejected.
Then of course the whole summer was wasted, but at least we saw first hand over an extended period how a large campsite runs and operates through the season.
When we went back to square one 6 months ago we thought we’d better expand the remit a little, look at including gite complexes and operations focussed purely on glamping, as well as the more traditional campsites with land and potential, the thinking on the camping aspect had evolved. Having seen it up close, all the problems, the cleaning, the kids and all the kids entertainment, bouncy castles and entertainers, fishing food and ice cream (and worse) out of the swimming pool, the flies and insects, the drunken arguements between the french occupants of the statics, the problems with staff (remember the cook?) and the gypsies we wondered if that really was for us…
After we started again in August we saw lots of traditional gite complexes and even some pure high end glamping operations. Places with maybe 2-10 accommodations. We looked at hotels and restaurants. We discovered that the old fashioned ‘gites’ were old hat, both figuratively and literally. Most last saw a proper overhaul 20yrs ago. Cheap n cheerful seems to be how many French, especially the oldies, like them. But income is always marginal, and only made in those 6 weeks of summer when you could rent out a pigsty in France.
Glamping has many flavours, from your el cheapo teepee tent through your various safari tents and cabins right up to luxury tree houses with full kitchen and bathroom and hot tub on the balcony at €400+ per night. The top end stuff really makes money. We saw one near Sarlat where the owner was pulling €150k a year from one treehouse and one hobbit house, even though they were very tired. Shame that both were at end of life, about 15yrs and about to fall down (much of structure was rotten). Didn’t stop him wanting big money for it though. The French often only seem to want to sell something only when it is completely knackered.
On the way we discovered something interesting - the Gite de Groupe thing. We started to investigate and go to see the various models and the stuff on the market.
Gite de Group or ‘Grand Gites’ are giant accommodations that if done right are like luxury houses designed for a family of 30 or more people who are very social... It means everything has to be supersized, from the lounge, the dining room, the kitchen, all reception areas etc. Ideally there needs to be a band/dancing area, swim pools (ideally indoor) and gyms, huge lounges and games rooms etc. They are not holiday accommodations - they are rented to ‘groups’ who want to come together to socialise at any time of year.
The english would just go to the pub…
In France, extended families often book such places if strategically positioned and come together from all points for a couple of days. It can be parents and grandparents anniversaries, major birthdays 50th 60th etc, graduation celebrations etc. Then there are work groups, hobby clubs, seminars etc.
It’s always been regulated. Much more than the typical gite. If you accommodate more than 16 people you must have a ‘ERP’ (establishment recieving the public) licence. It’s the same level a hotel has to have, relates to width of doors and corridors, fire doors and fire escapes, handrails, annual inspections and certifications, marie and pompier approval and much more. It has to be professional and safe.
We found that 80-90% of these places advertised as ‘gites de group’ are not as they should be. They are generally just normal gite clusters (a group of gite as opposed to a Gite de Groupe…) where the owners, sick of earning maybe 30-40k a year from 6 weeks of individual family bookings in summer have, ahem, heard of the group idea and decided that they will try it. However, with 5 gites, 5 tiny kitchens, lounges, dining rooms etc it’s very often very sub optimal. The group more often than not has to eat together outside, in a barn.. These tend to be the ‘budget option’. Prices therefore range from €800 a night for 20 folks in such a place (a collection of knackered old gites with a barn) to €2500 a night for the properly done, fully licenced luxury place with indoor pools that can sleep 30 people in 15 rooms etc. One is what it is, one is really a private, boutique hotel.
Few of these places actually have the ERP license. They fly under the radar, pretending to be just ‘gites’ but offering the possibility for all to be booked together.
Many wouldn’t get the license without being pulled down and rebuilt, or at the very least extra fire escapes, multiple rooms knocked together, all doors replaced and a complete rewire to accommodate all the alarms etc. Even if they did, they wouldn’t get the required permission from the local Marie due to noise concerns (groups often want to party..)
Lastly, there was an accident last year in one of these not fully compliant places where some kids sadly lost their lives in a fire. There will naturally be a reaction, far greater enforcement of the rules.
What we have found has been designed from the ground up as a Gite de Groupe. It is the only one we have seen with all the licences, all the permissions, all the facilities, and all the inspections. It does resemble a boutique hotel on the interior. It’s been done properly, by the book, by Brits. They have sunk a fortune into it, which to me was immediately obvious. The place is enormous with 5 giant communal areas, lounge room, bar, dining room, party room, spa/gym etc. They made one mistake - not enough individual bedroom rooms. The bedrooms are enormous all are ensuite, and sleep 4 or 5, but there are only 8 of them. It’s OK for close families, but not all groups want to be sharing 4 or 5 to a room so it restricts their market a bit… we plan to add another 4 rooms to increase flexibility by converting the last remaining unconverted small barn. In that way, and with far better marketing (they barely advertise as they aren’t interested, they have made enough and are ready to retire) we think we can double turnover.
We’ve already met the mayor, and consulted the broader Marie and the local specialist architect on the plans for the barn (it’s a little informal process where they can let prospective buyers know what is likely to be approved and what isn’t). We have had meetings with the community de commune and with the typically decentralised French equivalent of the UK environment agency on what we possibly can and absolutely can’t do with the land. Much of the land is heavily protected as there is a very special natural and hence protected micro-environment and visitor attraction on the doorstep of this place (which we see as an advantage). We have already started the process to change the category of some of the land from agricultural to leisure having already agreed it with the Mayor and CdC. The change is happening in January next year. It’s very handy having a native for a wife…
Our future glamping plans beyond the conversion of the barn will increase capacity further. We know the youngsters absolutely love high end glamping - they all want to take pics and post on social media to show off to their pals…. and for that they are willing to really pay, especially where there is a spa or a high end or indoor pool and ideally a gym. The oldsters just want underfloor heating, a clean bathroom, lots of space, nice high end crockery and a comfy bed
Things are moving quick now. We are creating the business, setting up the mutuels, becoming French tax resident (sigh) changing £ to € while the £ (for now..) rides relatively high due to investors believing the UK interest rates (and gilt yields) will remain higher for longer than US and EU.
Ahhh, the end of living off 5% UK interest rates.. Signature of CdV is planned for end of the month and the €180 for the SAFER (in french, ça-ferre, they must OK the sale of all agricultural land) is being paid this week. This is for them to wave through the sale of the bits of the land classed as agricultural to us - instead of the current owners being forced to offer to their farmer neighbours their sliver of agricultural land (via a torturous 3 month consultation process).
Hopefully the local farmers won’t take it too personally, French farmers as some of you may know can get a bit bolshie when provoked. We don’t want to get welcomed to our new place with a pile of steaming manure on the doorstep
Our target 1st € earnings is an existing 2-day group booking at end April - €3500. Then there is a €4500 wedding in May…
We won’t have time to move our stuff from UK to here before the booking as it’s just a few days post target completion. But we will earn the cash to pay for a company to move our stuff in the days after. We were going to rent a couple of Luton vans for the run. Though I can drive a 7.5t, all the rental companies will no longer allow you to take one from UK to EU anymore. Just another of the many, many little brexity ‘benefits’ that we’ve been so happily discovering woohoo
On the same thorny subject that got my original thread deleted, while getting permission for me to come and live in France has been a bit of hassle, I’m expecting it to pale in comparison to the bureaucratic nightmare I am reliably informed that importing, registering and insuring my four modified classic and sports cars is going to be. It used to be a matter of just bringing them here and enjoying. Not any more. As with everything else post Brexit, it’s now much more time, hassle, cost and expense.
We absolutely would not consider this in the UK, where yes too many (of any age group) absolutely can behave like animals when heavily imbibed. It’s the flip side of all that politeness we have when we are sober.Sounds a great opportunity , really hope you can bring it home this time, as great as it is an opportunity , I don’t envy you, I have seen what damage big groups can do, they can behave like complete animals, their excuse……. We paid a lot of money for this place
I sold my brothers kit car to some french guys in 2018, as it was just over 30 years old, registration they told me was easy and the only reason they bought it. So if your cars are over 30 years old it might be easier than you think.When we moved the last of the cars into storage c/w our mattress and last bits of the house stuffed in the back of the stored car, then jumped in the camper and onto the ferry, all on the same day we completed the sale of our house in Kent, 27 October 2022 we had this idea of buying either land with permissions or buying and developing (via glamping) an existing camping/glamping operation. Also, after having seen so many of those paid for aires operated by the likes of CCP in France I wanted to also develop as part of our operation a simple secure aire de camping car along the same lines as CCP. Just an automated barrier, water and elec hook ups. Minimal maintenance and work. These initial thoughts and ideas were first outlined in posts #27 and #42.
Well, finding such a unicorn proved to be tricky. A decent house, ideally a manoir, plenty land, enough secure space for a large aire and room and the space (trees, a selling point like location etc) for glamping, and sufficient turnover to justify borrowing and the required investment if necessary. The closest we found was the huge thing we nearly bought, but we really had to withdraw from that as the required investment was enormous. 20-30years of deferred maintenance and minimal investment creates a certain ‘feel’ to a place - one does see that a lot in France.
While we had always tried to find pure ‘aire de camping car’ type operations, including looking at old municipals coming up for sale, they seem to come to market rarely. I don’t know how the CCP group identify their acquisitions - maybe there are back channels or they are very pro-active. We never saw a sniff. The closest we came to a decent aire for sale was on on the med coast near montpelier. It was a 100 space aire, hot as hell with its treeless ugly, low maintenance giant concrete car park. It looked busy though, we saw it in April and it had about 40 giant campers on it already. All plugged in and AC working already. The business model was fishing in nearby enclosures on its 10Ha. 300k turnover but the price was €1.3milliion. It just looked like hell to Bea and me, we couldn’t imagine how hot it would be in July. So we went first for the gold panning thing on the river north of Montpelier in Gard, then the one in Vienne when that offer was rejected.
Then of course the whole summer was wasted, but at least we saw first hand over an extended period how a large campsite runs and operates through the season.
When we went back to square one 6 months ago we thought we’d better expand the remit a little, look at including gite complexes and operations focussed purely on glamping, as well as the more traditional campsites with land and potential, the thinking on the camping aspect had evolved. Having seen it up close, all the problems, the cleaning, the kids and all the kids entertainment, bouncy castles and entertainers, fishing food and ice cream (and worse) out of the swimming pool, the flies and insects, the drunken arguements between the french occupants of the statics, the problems with staff (remember the cook?) and the gypsies we wondered if that really was for us…
After we started again in August we saw lots of traditional gite complexes and even some pure high end glamping operations. Places with maybe 2-10 accommodations. We looked at hotels and restaurants. We discovered that the old fashioned ‘gites’ were old hat, both figuratively and literally. Most last saw a proper overhaul 20yrs ago. Cheap n cheerful seems to be how many French, especially the oldies, like them. But income is always marginal, and only made in those 6 weeks of summer when you could rent out a pigsty in France.
Glamping has many flavours, from your el cheapo teepee tent through your various safari tents and cabins right up to luxury tree houses with full kitchen and bathroom and hot tub on the balcony at €400+ per night. The top end stuff really makes money. We saw one near Sarlat where the owner was pulling €150k a year from one treehouse and one hobbit house, even though they were very tired. Shame that both were at end of life, about 15yrs and about to fall down (much of structure was rotten). Didn’t stop him wanting big money for it though. The French often only seem to want to sell something only when it is completely knackered.
On the way we discovered something interesting - the Gite de Groupe thing. We started to investigate and go to see the various models and the stuff on the market.
Gite de Group or ‘Grand Gites’ are giant accommodations that if done right are like luxury houses designed for a family of 30 or more people who are very social... It means everything has to be supersized, from the lounge, the dining room, the kitchen, all reception areas etc. Ideally there needs to be a band/dancing area, swim pools (ideally indoor) and gyms, huge lounges and games rooms etc. They are not holiday accommodations - they are rented to ‘groups’ who want to come together to socialise at any time of year.
The english would just go to the pub…
In France, extended families often book such places if strategically positioned and come together from all points for a couple of days. It can be parents and grandparents anniversaries, major birthdays 50th 60th etc, graduation celebrations etc. Then there are work groups, hobby clubs, seminars etc.
It’s always been regulated. Much more than the typical gite. If you accommodate more than 16 people you must have a ‘ERP’ (establishment recieving the public) licence. It’s the same level a hotel has to have, relates to width of doors and corridors, fire doors and fire escapes, handrails, annual inspections and certifications, marie and pompier approval and much more. It has to be professional and safe.
We found that 80-90% of these places advertised as ‘gites de group’ are not as they should be. They are generally just normal gite clusters (a group of gite as opposed to a Gite de Groupe…) where the owners, sick of earning maybe 30-40k a year from 6 weeks of individual family bookings in summer have, ahem, heard of the group idea and decided that they will try it. However, with 5 gites, 5 tiny kitchens, lounges, dining rooms etc it’s very often very sub optimal. The group more often than not has to eat together outside, in a barn.. These tend to be the ‘budget option’. Prices therefore range from €800 a night for 20 folks in such a place (a collection of knackered old gites with a barn) to €2500 a night for the properly done, fully licenced luxury place with indoor pools that can sleep 30 people in 15 rooms etc. One is what it is, one is really a private, boutique hotel.
Few of these places actually have the ERP license. They fly under the radar, pretending to be just ‘gites’ but offering the possibility for all to be booked together.
Many wouldn’t get the license without being pulled down and rebuilt, or at the very least extra fire escapes, multiple rooms knocked together, all doors replaced and a complete rewire to accommodate all the alarms etc. Even if they did, they wouldn’t get the required permission from the local Marie due to noise concerns (groups often want to party..)
Lastly, there was an accident last year in one of these not fully compliant places where some kids sadly lost their lives in a fire. There will naturally be a reaction, far greater enforcement of the rules.
What we have found has been designed from the ground up as a Gite de Groupe. It is the only one we have seen with all the licences, all the permissions, all the facilities, and all the inspections. It does resemble a boutique hotel on the interior. It’s been done properly, by the book, by Brits. They have sunk a fortune into it, which to me was immediately obvious. The place is enormous with 5 giant communal areas, lounge room, bar, dining room, party room, spa/gym etc. They made one mistake - not enough individual bedroom rooms. The bedrooms are enormous all are ensuite, and sleep 4 or 5, but there are only 8 of them. It’s OK for close families, but not all groups want to be sharing 4 or 5 to a room so it restricts their market a bit… we plan to add another 4 rooms to increase flexibility by converting the last remaining unconverted small barn. In that way, and with far better marketing (they barely advertise as they aren’t interested, they have made enough and are ready to retire) we think we can double turnover.
We’ve already met the mayor, and consulted the broader Marie and the local specialist architect on the plans for the barn (it’s a little informal process where they can let prospective buyers know what is likely to be approved and what isn’t). We have had meetings with the community de commune and with the typically decentralised French equivalent of the UK environment agency on what we possibly can and absolutely can’t do with the land. Much of the land is heavily protected as there is a very special natural and hence protected micro-environment and visitor attraction on the doorstep of this place (which we see as an advantage). We have already started the process to change the category of some of the land from agricultural to leisure having already agreed it with the Mayor and CdC. The change is happening in January next year. It’s very handy having a native for a wife…
Our future glamping plans beyond the conversion of the barn will increase capacity further. We know the youngsters absolutely love high end glamping - they all want to take pics and post on social media to show off to their pals…. and for that they are willing to really pay, especially where there is a spa or a high end or indoor pool and ideally a gym. The oldsters just want underfloor heating, a clean bathroom, lots of space, nice high end crockery and a comfy bed
Things are moving quick now. We are creating the business, setting up the mutuels, becoming French tax resident (sigh) changing £ to € while the £ (for now..) rides relatively high due to investors believing the UK interest rates (and gilt yields) will remain higher for longer than US and EU.
Ahhh, the end of living off 5% UK interest rates.. Signature of CdV is planned for end of the month and the €180 for the SAFER (in french, ça-ferre, they must OK the sale of all agricultural land) is being paid this week. This is for them to wave through the sale of the bits of the land classed as agricultural to us - instead of the current owners being forced to offer to their farmer neighbours their sliver of agricultural land (via a torturous 3 month consultation process).
Hopefully the local farmers won’t take it too personally, French farmers as some of you may know can get a bit bolshie when provoked. We don’t want to get welcomed to our new place with a pile of steaming manure on the doorstep
Our target 1st € earnings is an existing 2-day group booking at end April - €3500. Then there is a €4500 wedding in May…
We won’t have time to move our stuff from UK to here before the booking as it’s just a few days post target completion. But we will earn the cash to pay for a company to move our stuff in the days after. We were going to rent a couple of Luton vans for the run. Though I can drive a 7.5t, all the rental companies will no longer allow you to take one from UK to EU anymore. Just another of the many, many little brexity ‘benefits’ that we’ve been so happily discovering woohoo
On the same thorny subject that got my original thread deleted, while getting permission for me to come and live in France has been a bit of hassle, I’m expecting it to pale in comparison to the bureaucratic nightmare I am reliably informed that importing, registering and insuring my four modified classic and sports cars is going to be. It used to be a matter of just bringing them here and enjoying. Not any more. As with everything else post Brexit, it’s now much more time, hassle, cost and expense.
Really interesting, thanks. Although your comments about what we “oldies “ require, like all stereotypes, miss a lot. We also need to be able to watch “The Crown” without pushing too many buttons; and little ice cube makers for our G&T that can be used without resorting to a hammer.When we moved the last of the cars into storage c/w our mattress and last bits of the house stuffed in the back of the stored car, then jumped in the camper and onto the ferry, all on the same day we completed the sale of our house in Kent, 27 October 2022 we had this idea of buying either land with permissions or buying and developing (via glamping) an existing camping/glamping operation. Also, after having seen so many of those paid for aires operated by the likes of CCP in France I wanted to also develop as part of our operation a simple secure aire de camping car along the same lines as CCP. Just an automated barrier, water and elec hook ups. Minimal maintenance and work. These initial thoughts and ideas were first outlined in posts #27 and #42.
Well, finding such a unicorn proved to be tricky. A decent house, ideally a manoir, plenty land, enough secure space for a large aire and room and the space (trees, a selling point like location etc) for glamping, and sufficient turnover to justify borrowing and the required investment if necessary. The closest we found was the huge thing we nearly bought, but we really had to withdraw from that as the required investment was enormous. 20-30years of deferred maintenance and minimal investment creates a certain ‘feel’ to a place - one does see that a lot in France.
While we had always tried to find pure ‘aire de camping car’ type operations, including looking at old municipals coming up for sale, they seem to come to market rarely. I don’t know how the CCP group identify their acquisitions - maybe there are back channels or they are very pro-active. We never saw a sniff. The closest we came to a decent aire for sale was on on the med coast near montpelier. It was a 100 space aire, hot as hell with its treeless ugly, low maintenance giant concrete car park. It looked busy though, we saw it in April and it had about 40 giant campers on it already. All plugged in and AC working already. The business model was fishing in nearby enclosures on its 10Ha. 300k turnover but the price was €1.3milliion. It just looked like hell to Bea and me, we couldn’t imagine how hot it would be in July. So we went first for the gold panning thing on the river north of Montpelier in Gard, then the one in Vienne when that offer was rejected.
Then of course the whole summer was wasted, but at least we saw first hand over an extended period how a large campsite runs and operates through the season.
When we went back to square one 6 months ago we thought we’d better expand the remit a little, look at including gite complexes and operations focussed purely on glamping, as well as the more traditional campsites with land and potential, the thinking on the camping aspect had evolved. Having seen it up close, all the problems, the cleaning, the kids and all the kids entertainment, bouncy castles and entertainers, fishing food and ice cream (and worse) out of the swimming pool, the flies and insects, the drunken arguements between the french occupants of the statics, the problems with staff (remember the cook?) and the gypsies we wondered if that really was for us…
After we started again in August we saw lots of traditional gite complexes and even some pure high end glamping operations. Places with maybe 2-10 accommodations. We looked at hotels and restaurants. We discovered that the old fashioned ‘gites’ were old hat, both figuratively and literally. Most last saw a proper overhaul 20yrs ago. Cheap n cheerful seems to be how many French, especially the oldies, like them. But income is always marginal, and only made in those 6 weeks of summer when you could rent out a pigsty in France.
Glamping has many flavours, from your el cheapo teepee tent through your various safari tents and cabins right up to luxury tree houses with full kitchen and bathroom and hot tub on the balcony at €400+ per night. The top end stuff really makes money. We saw one near Sarlat where the owner was pulling €150k a year from one treehouse and one hobbit house, even though they were very tired. Shame that both were at end of life, about 15yrs and about to fall down (much of structure was rotten). Didn’t stop him wanting big money for it though. The French often only seem to want to sell something only when it is completely knackered.
On the way we discovered something interesting - the Gite de Groupe thing. We started to investigate and go to see the various models and the stuff on the market.
Gite de Group or ‘Grand Gites’ are giant accommodations that if done right are like luxury houses designed for a family of 30 or more people who are very social... It means everything has to be supersized, from the lounge, the dining room, the kitchen, all reception areas etc. Ideally there needs to be a band/dancing area, swim pools (ideally indoor) and gyms, huge lounges and games rooms etc. They are not holiday accommodations - they are rented to ‘groups’ who want to come together to socialise at any time of year.
The english would just go to the pub…
In France, extended families often book such places if strategically positioned and come together from all points for a couple of days. It can be parents and grandparents anniversaries, major birthdays 50th 60th etc, graduation celebrations etc. Then there are work groups, hobby clubs, seminars etc.
It’s always been regulated. Much more than the typical gite. If you accommodate more than 16 people you must have a ‘ERP’ (establishment recieving the public) licence. It’s the same level a hotel has to have, relates to width of doors and corridors, fire doors and fire escapes, handrails, annual inspections and certifications, marie and pompier approval and much more. It has to be professional and safe.
We found that 80-90% of these places advertised as ‘gites de group’ are not as they should be. They are generally just normal gite clusters (a group of gite as opposed to a Gite de Groupe…) where the owners, sick of earning maybe 30-40k a year from 6 weeks of individual family bookings in summer have, ahem, heard of the group idea and decided that they will try it. However, with 5 gites, 5 tiny kitchens, lounges, dining rooms etc it’s very often very sub optimal. The group more often than not has to eat together outside, in a barn.. These tend to be the ‘budget option’. Prices therefore range from €800 a night for 20 folks in such a place (a collection of knackered old gites with a barn) to €2500 a night for the properly done, fully licenced luxury place with indoor pools that can sleep 30 people in 15 rooms etc. One is what it is, one is really a private, boutique hotel.
Few of these places actually have the ERP license. They fly under the radar, pretending to be just ‘gites’ but offering the possibility for all to be booked together.
Many wouldn’t get the license without being pulled down and rebuilt, or at the very least extra fire escapes, multiple rooms knocked together, all doors replaced and a complete rewire to accommodate all the alarms etc. Even if they did, they wouldn’t get the required permission from the local Marie due to noise concerns (groups often want to party..)
Lastly, there was an accident last year in one of these not fully compliant places where some kids sadly lost their lives in a fire. There will naturally be a reaction, far greater enforcement of the rules.
What we have found has been designed from the ground up as a Gite de Groupe. It is the only one we have seen with all the licences, all the permissions, all the facilities, and all the inspections. It does resemble a boutique hotel on the interior. It’s been done properly, by the book, by Brits. They have sunk a fortune into it, which to me was immediately obvious. The place is enormous with 5 giant communal areas, lounge room, bar, dining room, party room, spa/gym etc. They made one mistake - not enough individual bedroom rooms. The bedrooms are enormous all are ensuite, and sleep 4 or 5, but there are only 8 of them. It’s OK for close families, but not all groups want to be sharing 4 or 5 to a room so it restricts their market a bit… we plan to add another 4 rooms to increase flexibility by converting the last remaining unconverted small barn. In that way, and with far better marketing (they barely advertise as they aren’t interested, they have made enough and are ready to retire) we think we can double turnover.
We’ve already met the mayor, and consulted the broader Marie and the local specialist architect on the plans for the barn (it’s a little informal process where they can let prospective buyers know what is likely to be approved and what isn’t). We have had meetings with the community de commune and with the typically decentralised French equivalent of the UK environment agency on what we possibly can and absolutely can’t do with the land. Much of the land is heavily protected as there is a very special natural and hence protected micro-environment and visitor attraction on the doorstep of this place (which we see as an advantage). We have already started the process to change the category of some of the land from agricultural to leisure having already agreed it with the Mayor and CdC. The change is happening in January next year. It’s very handy having a native for a wife…
Our future glamping plans beyond the conversion of the barn will increase capacity further. We know the youngsters absolutely love high end glamping - they all want to take pics and post on social media to show off to their pals…. and for that they are willing to really pay, especially where there is a spa or a high end or indoor pool and ideally a gym. The oldsters just want underfloor heating, a clean bathroom, lots of space, nice high end crockery and a comfy bed
Things are moving quick now. We are creating the business, setting up the mutuels, becoming French tax resident (sigh) changing £ to € while the £ (for now..) rides relatively high due to investors believing the UK interest rates (and gilt yields) will remain higher for longer than US and EU.
Ahhh, the end of living off 5% UK interest rates.. Signature of CdV is planned for end of the month and the €180 for the SAFER (in french, ça-ferre, they must OK the sale of all agricultural land) is being paid this week. This is for them to wave through the sale of the bits of the land classed as agricultural to us - instead of the current owners being forced to offer to their farmer neighbours their sliver of agricultural land (via a torturous 3 month consultation process).
Hopefully the local farmers won’t take it too personally, French farmers as some of you may know can get a bit bolshie when provoked. We don’t want to get welcomed to our new place with a pile of steaming manure on the doorstep
Our target 1st € earnings is an existing 2-day group booking at end April - €3500. Then there is a €4500 wedding in May…
We won’t have time to move our stuff from UK to here before the booking as it’s just a few days post target completion. But we will earn the cash to pay for a company to move our stuff in the days after. We were going to rent a couple of Luton vans for the run. Though I can drive a 7.5t, all the rental companies will no longer allow you to take one from UK to EU anymore. Just another of the many, many little brexity ‘benefits’ that we’ve been so happily discovering woohoo
On the same thorny subject that got my original thread deleted, while getting permission for me to come and live in France has been a bit of hassle, I’m expecting it to pale in comparison to the bureaucratic nightmare I am reliably informed that importing, registering and insuring my four modified classic and sports cars is going to be. It used to be a matter of just bringing them here and enjoying. Not any more. As with everything else post Brexit, it’s now much more time, hassle, cost and expense.
Top comment. Apologies for the flippancy on the ‘oldies’, the ‘youngsters’ would no doubt be far more defensive over my characterisation of them as economically illiterate, show off, social media addicted simpletons… Such is the over sensitive and humour free world we now live in…
For a minute there I thought you said €1750 per nightAfter completion this time. But it ain’t a campsite - our target market is going to be a very different cohort. Rich Frenchies from Paris who want to get together as a group for a party
Yet again I’ve reported your blatant politicking to Jim .When we moved the last of the cars into storage c/w our mattress and last bits of the house stuffed in the back of the stored car, then jumped in the camper and onto the ferry, all on the same day we completed the sale of our house in Kent, 27 October 2022 we had this idea of buying either land with permissions or buying and developing (via glamping) an existing camping/glamping operation. Also, after having seen so many of those paid for aires operated by the likes of CCP in France I wanted to also develop as part of our operation a simple secure aire de camping car along the same lines as CCP. Just an automated barrier, water and elec hook ups. Minimal maintenance and work. These initial thoughts and ideas were first outlined in posts #27 and #42.
Well, finding such a unicorn proved to be tricky. A decent house, ideally a manoir, plenty land, enough secure space for a large aire and room and the space (trees, a selling point like location etc) for glamping, and sufficient turnover to justify borrowing and the required investment if necessary. The closest we found was the huge thing we nearly bought, but we really had to withdraw from that as the required investment was enormous. 20-30years of deferred maintenance and minimal investment creates a certain ‘feel’ to a place - one does see that a lot in France.
While we had always tried to find pure ‘aire de camping car’ type operations, including looking at old municipals coming up for sale, they seem to come to market rarely. I don’t know how the CCP group identify their acquisitions - maybe there are back channels or they are very pro-active. We never saw a sniff. The closest we came to a decent aire for sale was on on the med coast near montpelier. It was a 100 space aire, hot as hell with its treeless ugly, low maintenance giant concrete car park. It looked busy though, we saw it in April and it had about 40 giant campers on it already. All plugged in and AC working already. The business model was fishing in nearby enclosures on its 10Ha. 300k turnover but the price was €1.3milliion. It just looked like hell to Bea and me, we couldn’t imagine how hot it would be in July. So we went first for the gold panning thing on the river north of Montpelier in Gard, then the one in Vienne when that offer was rejected.
Then of course the whole summer was wasted, but at least we saw first hand over an extended period how a large campsite runs and operates through the season.
When we went back to square one 6 months ago we thought we’d better expand the remit a little, look at including gite complexes and operations focussed purely on glamping, as well as the more traditional campsites with land and potential, the thinking on the camping aspect had evolved. Having seen it up close, all the problems, the cleaning, the kids and all the kids entertainment, bouncy castles and entertainers, fishing food and ice cream (and worse) out of the swimming pool, the flies and insects, the drunken arguements between the french occupants of the statics, the problems with staff (remember the cook?) and the gypsies we wondered if that really was for us…
After we started again in August we saw lots of traditional gite complexes and even some pure high end glamping operations. Places with maybe 2-10 accommodations. We looked at hotels and restaurants. We discovered that the old fashioned ‘gites’ were old hat, both figuratively and literally. Most last saw a proper overhaul 20yrs ago. Cheap n cheerful seems to be how many French, especially the oldies, like them. But income is always marginal, and only made in those 6 weeks of summer when you could rent out a pigsty in France.
Glamping has many flavours, from your el cheapo teepee tent through your various safari tents and cabins right up to luxury tree houses with full kitchen and bathroom and hot tub on the balcony at €400+ per night. The top end stuff really makes money. We saw one near Sarlat where the owner was pulling €150k a year from one treehouse and one hobbit house, even though they were very tired. Shame that both were at end of life, about 15yrs and about to fall down (much of structure was rotten). Didn’t stop him wanting big money for it though. The French often only seem to want to sell something only when it is completely knackered.
On the way we discovered something interesting - the Gite de Groupe thing. We started to investigate and go to see the various models and the stuff on the market.
Gite de Group or ‘Grand Gites’ are giant accommodations that if done right are like luxury houses designed for a family of 30 or more people who are very social... It means everything has to be supersized, from the lounge, the dining room, the kitchen, all reception areas etc. Ideally there needs to be a band/dancing area, swim pools (ideally indoor) and gyms, huge lounges and games rooms etc. They are not holiday accommodations - they are rented to ‘groups’ who want to come together to socialise at any time of year.
The english would just go to the pub…
In France, extended families often book such places if strategically positioned and come together from all points for a couple of days. It can be parents and grandparents anniversaries, major birthdays 50th 60th etc, graduation celebrations etc. Then there are work groups, hobby clubs, seminars etc.
It’s always been regulated. Much more than the typical gite. If you accommodate more than 16 people you must have a ‘ERP’ (establishment recieving the public) licence. It’s the same level a hotel has to have, relates to width of doors and corridors, fire doors and fire escapes, handrails, annual inspections and certifications, marie and pompier approval and much more. It has to be professional and safe.
We found that 80-90% of these places advertised as ‘gites de group’ are not as they should be. They are generally just normal gite clusters (a group of gite as opposed to a Gite de Groupe…) where the owners, sick of earning maybe 30-40k a year from 6 weeks of individual family bookings in summer have, ahem, heard of the group idea and decided that they will try it. However, with 5 gites, 5 tiny kitchens, lounges, dining rooms etc it’s very often very sub optimal. The group more often than not has to eat together outside, in a barn.. These tend to be the ‘budget option’. Prices therefore range from €800 a night for 20 folks in such a place (a collection of knackered old gites with a barn) to €2500 a night for the properly done, fully licenced luxury place with indoor pools that can sleep 30 people in 15 rooms etc. One is what it is, one is really a private, boutique hotel.
Few of these places actually have the ERP license. They fly under the radar, pretending to be just ‘gites’ but offering the possibility for all to be booked together.
Many wouldn’t get the license without being pulled down and rebuilt, or at the very least extra fire escapes, multiple rooms knocked together, all doors replaced and a complete rewire to accommodate all the alarms etc. Even if they did, they wouldn’t get the required permission from the local Marie due to noise concerns (groups often want to party..)
Lastly, there was an accident last year in one of these not fully compliant places where some kids sadly lost their lives in a fire. There will naturally be a reaction, far greater enforcement of the rules.
What we have found has been designed from the ground up as a Gite de Groupe. It is the only one we have seen with all the licences, all the permissions, all the facilities, and all the inspections. It does resemble a boutique hotel on the interior. It’s been done properly, by the book, by Brits. They have sunk a fortune into it, which to me was immediately obvious. The place is enormous with 5 giant communal areas, lounge room, bar, dining room, party room, spa/gym etc. They made one mistake - not enough individual bedroom rooms. The bedrooms are enormous all are ensuite, and sleep 4 or 5, but there are only 8 of them. It’s OK for close families, but not all groups want to be sharing 4 or 5 to a room so it restricts their market a bit… we plan to add another 4 rooms to increase flexibility by converting the last remaining unconverted small barn. In that way, and with far better marketing (they barely advertise as they aren’t interested, they have made enough and are ready to retire) we think we can double turnover.
We’ve already met the mayor, and consulted the broader Marie and the local specialist architect on the plans for the barn (it’s a little informal process where they can let prospective buyers know what is likely to be approved and what isn’t). We have had meetings with the community de commune and with the typically decentralised French equivalent of the UK environment agency on what we possibly can and absolutely can’t do with the land. Much of the land is heavily protected as there is a very special natural and hence protected micro-environment and visitor attraction on the doorstep of this place (which we see as an advantage). We have already started the process to change the category of some of the land from agricultural to leisure having already agreed it with the Mayor and CdC. The change is happening in January next year. It’s very handy having a native for a wife…
Our future glamping plans beyond the conversion of the barn will increase capacity further. We know the youngsters absolutely love high end glamping - they all want to take pics and post on social media to show off to their pals…. and for that they are willing to really pay, especially where there is a spa or a high end or indoor pool and ideally a gym. The oldsters just want underfloor heating, a clean bathroom, lots of space, nice high end crockery and a comfy bed
Things are moving quick now. We are creating the business, setting up the mutuels, becoming French tax resident (sigh) changing £ to € while the £ (for now..) rides relatively high due to investors believing the UK interest rates (and gilt yields) will remain higher for longer than US and EU.
Ahhh, the end of living off 5% UK interest rates.. Signature of CdV is planned for end of the month and the €180 for the SAFER (in french, ça-ferre, they must OK the sale of all agricultural land) is being paid this week. This is for them to wave through the sale of the bits of the land classed as agricultural to us - instead of the current owners being forced to offer to their farmer neighbours their sliver of agricultural land (via a torturous 3 month consultation process).
Hopefully the local farmers won’t take it too personally, French farmers as some of you may know can get a bit bolshie when provoked. We don’t want to get welcomed to our new place with a pile of steaming manure on the doorstep
Our target 1st € earnings is an existing 2-day group booking at end April - €3500. Then there is a €4500 wedding in May…
We won’t have time to move our stuff from UK to here before the booking as it’s just a few days post target completion. But we will earn the cash to pay for a company to move our stuff in the days after. We were going to rent a couple of Luton vans for the run. Though I can drive a 7.5t, all the rental companies will no longer allow you to take one from UK to EU anymore. Just another of the many, many little brexity ‘benefits’ that we’ve been so happily discovering woohoo
On the same thorny subject that got my original thread deleted, while getting permission for me to come and live in France has been a bit of hassle, I’m expecting it to pale in comparison to the bureaucratic nightmare I am reliably informed that importing, registering and insuring my four modified classic and sports cars is going to be. It used to be a matter of just bringing them here and enjoying. Not any more. As with everything else post Brexit, it’s now much more time, hassle, cost and expense.
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