Interview Sebastien Emonet director Gîtes de France. In this interview Sebastien gives us the elements which for him are the keys to success in short-term rentals, some advice for concierge services who are getting started and details his concrete method for selling additional services and products.
To find Sébastien: www.gites-cotedazur.com
Or on his website: https://www.enjoyandstay.com/
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Hello and welcome to the J'poster Complet channel, the channel which helps seasonal rental companies, professional sub-renters, and seasonal rental concierge services to increase their turnover. Today, I am delighted to welcome a distinguished guest. I'm going to give you three super interesting key points about his career. The first thing is that he created a travel agency which, in less than three years, became number one in Rhône-Alpes on the Marmara agency network. That's the first thing. The second thing is that he was director of a network of 35 travel agencies, and he increased the margin of these travel agencies by 800,000 euros in less than two years. It's truly extraordinary. The last important point is that he supports people with absolutely phenomenal results, I must say, and frankly, you will see that with the figure that I am going to give you right after, it is not exaggerated. as qualifications. He helped someone get into the field of seasonal rental, someone who was a farmer by trade, therefore, who did not come from that field, and who had, in 2020, 110%. profitability, and will have, in 2021, 130% profitability. I am delighted to welcome Sébastien Emonet with me today.
− Hello Sébastien.
− Hello Élise. Thank you for welcoming me.
− Please. It's really a pleasure to have you today. What I suggest to you, to start, is that you tell us about your journey.
− Yes. I have a somewhat atypical background. I have been working in tourism for around twenty years, and I have alternated between experiences in traditional distribution, travel agent, in digital distribution, and in accommodation, since I worked in a hotel chain international, and on more local structures. Today, I am general manager of Gîtes de France des Alpes-Maritimes, i.e. seasonal rental accommodation, and I found, some time ago, a company which is responsible for supporting furnished rental companies, but not that. We work on all types of accommodation to help them optimize their turnover, their management, and the entire operational side.
− Top. So, you just said it, you manage the Gîtes de France in Alpes-Maritimes. Can you share with us the perspective of the Gîtes de France? How was 2020? What were the lessons of this year that we can describe as a little crazy? Since it was such a crazy year.
− It was a crazy year. It was complicated, we had to be very agile, like many people. We were able to learn some important lessons from this situation, particularly the brand reference aspect. In any case, for the gîtes de France, it was super important. People took refuge in brands they knew, in accommodations where there was no doubt about their safety. We saw, at times, obviously, when people could come, explosions of reservations in Alpes-Maritimes, but even elsewhere. My colleagues, moreover, had the same remark. For certain areas, this is the best turnover in the last fifteen years during the summer period. And that really because we were able to guarantee services, to guarantee quality, to guarantee safety to all our customers. So that was really the lesson, that is to say that today, the qualitative side is going to be the number one thing that clients will look at, in my opinion, over the coming years.
− Yes. What you also need to know about your career path is that you created your seasonal rental concierge service. So that’s extremely interesting. With the experience you have today, do you have any advice to give to those who are starting out? Because there are a lot of people who are starting out, and who are watching us. Do you have any advice to give them on this subject?
− Indeed, I created, let’s say, a concierge service. It's quite wide. I mainly created, in fact, a semi-concierge, let's say, since we manage the concierge part for some of our clients, those who cannot manage the reception, cleaning, etc. part. But the very principle is to manage the entire “before” part. We coordinate the cleaning and reception team, but it's not us who do it. Afterwards, we still remain in the classic concierge scheme, that is to say we will manage everything for the customer, even if in the end, we do not have a complete management contract on the apartment, except for a few private clients. The advice I could give, if we're just talking about the concierge part, is to select your accommodation carefully. You should not hesitate to refuse accommodation which risks being time-consuming, and which does not save the structure anything. Today, we tend, when we start out, to say to ourselves: “I need customers, I’m going to take on everyone. » Except that for everyone, we quickly realize that it is time-consuming, it is not qualitative. We spend more time dealing with problems. And for what it brings in terms of profitability, it's not at all what's needed. So really, don't hesitate to have self-confidence when starting out, and to select quality properties with strong rental potential. Today, in certain areas, we are fortunate to be able to do this. For others, it's a little more complicated, but you still have to say, and not forget, that this is the future image of the brand, of your concierge service. People will look at the properties you have for rent. So, your first assets will be your brand, and your showcase, and what will get you started.
− Yes. It's true that I agree with you on that, because if we have a property that is of poor quality, the decoration is not very pretty, we have an owner who is not necessarily in favor of putting a little more Money to have something of quality is something you carry around for a long time. Because no matter how much we take the most beautiful photos in the world, if the good is not at all qualitative or in a somewhat average condition, the most beautiful photos in the world will not solve that at all. It's the same with pricing, we have to consider it, and the notes are felt. Agree with you. Basically, you have to make the right choices so that the rest also flows smoothly.
− Yes. You have to make the right choices, indeed, on accommodation, because future customers will look at the reviews. Often, before entrusting a property, customers ask to have examples of the property in question. And if they see that the goods are not well rated, there will inevitably be a negative brand image. Afterwards, the other advice to give is to rationalize the sector. I see too many concierge services, particularly in the maritime sector, which, for fear of not having enough customers, will spread out across the country. Except that once the season is in full swing, and we have apartments that are 20 kilometers apart, it becomes unmanageable, and the service suffers. So, we must choose the goods and rationalize the area of intervention.
− Absolutely. Very good point. There is also something on which you are very strong, I think. It’s about marketing additional services: offering food, activities. I find that this is something that you do extremely well, and it is also, I find, in seasonal rental, something that is poorly exploited, in general, which is not necessarily done well. More and more people are talking about it, so people are interested in it, but it's still a bit of a thing that we don't really know how to go about it. Can you tell us how you launched this, and what performance it brings to the activity?
− I think I started this from my experience with travel agencies. Because I worked for years on the package, on assembly with additional and complementary services, and gradually, I also did that on the hotel part, since I piloted for a while a part where I I was sales director of a hotel, part of which involved events where I had to package and invent things. So, it came naturally to seasonal rentals. And in fact, for me, especially today, seasonal rental is no longer an end in itself. A few years ago, that was the goal. Today, in seasonal rentals, where we make the difference is by offering experience. If we want to stand out, the customer must have an experience. And to live an experience, he sometimes needs more than the apartment itself. So, we will create a need in relation to a marketing strategy, promotion, website, and we will also respond to this need by offering additional services. So, we will succeed in offering romantic candlelit dinners directly in the apartment, with partnerships with a restaurateur. We're going to offer romantic decor with candles, rose petals, things like that. We are also capable of creating, in fact, completely unusual activities. We can, if we are on accommodation close to a torrent, offer activities. In fact, we have integrated into our structures an integrated activity reservation engine which will allow, in fact, to make additional sales on an entire typology without necessarily having a precise axis, because each customer has different tastes. So, there are the great classics, that is to say breakfast, meal, bottle of champagne, etc. Please note, on bottles of wine and bottles of champagne, they must go through a restaurateur who has a license. You, as the owner of a furnished tourist accommodation, are not far from selling a bottle of wine or a bottle of champagne. The regulations are very strict: you need a catering license, and a license 4, and a license 3 if you sell it with a meal. On the other hand, for other services, it can be massages if we have a masseur nearby, it can be decoration for the birthday decoration, if people come for a special occasion, we can sell a particular decoration. And all of these are things on which we manage to get a very interesting margin, since overall, a decoration pack, you will buy it for around 5 euros. You are going to buy artificial petals, it costs around 1.50 euros or 2 euros; small candles, balloons, and you will sell them for 20 euros. So, there's a high margin on it, and it's something that sells quite easily. So, in fact, the strategy is really to create the need. Depending on the type of apartment, we create a need for activities, we create a need for experience to increase profitability, and make additional sales.
− And so, I ask myself a question. Regarding decoration, for example, is it the person in charge of cleaning who comes to install the decoration before the guests arrive? Concretely, how does it work?
− Yes. Generally, we ask the person in charge of reception. Depending on the rentals, the person responsible for reception is not the same person who is responsible for cleaning. In fact, to give you a concrete example, we have certain rentals that are really positioned at the very high end. For example, we manage an apartment, in a luxury residence, priced at 1,500 euros per night. And there, we need to have a very specific welcome. So, we go through service providers who have the capacity to welcome a very high-end clientele, in four or five different languages, with the notion of luxury. So here, these people are responsible for setting up the decor, because the decor must be related to the apartment. We cannot offer hasty decoration on a high-end apartment. In these apartments, it is the person responsible for reception who will come in advance to prepare the apartment for decoration. In others, for something more classic, more basic, it is the person who is responsible for cleaning who also does the reception, and who has been trained, we have explained to him how to install the decoration, how to put all the elements in place. And there, before the reception, she prepares everything. She puts everything in place. And for others, it's the owner, because it's annoying.
− Ok. And so, when you want to market, for example, an evening at a restaurant, do you concretely – I think these are questions that people will ask themselves – do you collect the money, and you pay it back to the restaurateur, or is it just a somewhat fictitious taking of reservations, and then people contact the restaurateur directly?
− No. In fact, on this kind of option, it's not even an evening at the restaurant. If they want to go to a restaurant, in this case, we establish a connection, and in this case, in relation to the restaurateurs, we are business providers. On the other hand, most often, people want to have a restaurant in the rental. That is to say that in fact, we actually offer the pre-ordered meal. We send them a daily menu with different choices of dishes, different choices of desserts. They order, and in the evening, in fact, they are delivered directly with all the packaging, the dinner which comes directly to the rental. In this case, we are on a direct service, so the customer pays the owner who purchased from the restaurateur. But each time, there is the restaurateur who guarantees the cold chain, who guarantees the hygiene conditions, and who guarantees the license with the alcohol part.
– Okay, great. And for the activities, for example, how does it go? Is it the same thing?
− In fact, it depends on the activity. We really adapt to the sites and needs. There are certain activities for which we will go through a general activity platform which lists different activities for which we have set up an automatic reservation engine. In other locations, we have activities nearby with very specific service providers. In these cases, we actually make an agreement with them. For example, I'm thinking of a rental that we manage in the Paris region: we have an agreement with the masseuse, who has a spa and well-being institute which is right next door. And there, suddenly, we sell the service, and then, we make the link with it. So, it really varies depending on each rental. There are certain regions, in the Alpes-Maritimes, we go through a connected platform which does the job for us. We are just intermediaries. We put the link, and we get a commission on the sales. But otherwise, on others, we are directly with the service provider. It really depends on what you want to do, actually, and where you are.
− Yes. Maybe we can still share a point of vigilance, and I'm sure it's a point that you already have in mind, but for people who are starting out, or who are really interested in this subject , who would be new to them in terms of food, you have to be careful not to be reclassified as a parahotelier. So this is a point of legal vigilance, particularly for VAT which can also have an impact. So maybe we can tell people to be careful about that.
− Yes, you really have to be very careful. This is why I insist on always being under the guise of a restaurateur. And in fact, it must be offered as an additional service, and not as a full service in the pack. This is not something obligatory. We don't have a restaurant. It's a restaurateur, nearby, who offers these services, and we are a business owner. There are nuances that are super important.
− So, with your twenty years of experience in tourism, for you, today, what are the keys to success in short-term rental?
− For me, there are mainly two. The first is quality. Today, short-term rental is at the same level as traditional hotels. Basically, we are on booking, on Expedia, at the same level as hotels. A customer will expect exactly the same service in a seasonal rental as in a hotel. So, you really shouldn't neglect the services, the decor, the atmosphere, etc. That's number one, especially today, marketing, and that's point number 2, it's 100% digital. I'm nuanced though, because there is still a big human element, and that's really what really makes the difference between rentals that work, and those that don't work well. That is to say that everything is first done digitally, so we have to master the algorithms, we have to master marketing, we have to master all the techniques that are at our disposal. Seasonal rental, today, is much more a technician's job than a host's job, contrary to what one might think, because it is essential, it is necessary to give a perception of quality-ratio. price, because customers do not know our accommodation, so we have to show them, and demonstrate to them that it is the best, that it is exactly what they are looking for, while playing with the Airbnb, booking, etc. platforms . On the other hand, the human side remains essential, and it is responsiveness that will take precedence. That is to say that the offer is so substantial, and today's customer is so volatile, that if you are not ultra-reactive, you lose the customer. A pre-authorization request on Airbnb, if you do not respond within five to ten minutes, you have already almost lost the customer, unless you have a product that is out of the ordinary, which is extraordinary, and which is really the one he wants. But if it is in the classic framework, it is the immediacy that is everything. For us, this is part of the services that we have put in place, which is that we focus on reactivity on our response to customers. As soon as there is a request, we respond to it, that way, we keep the customer. In fact, we keep our attention on the good that interests us. If we don't answer him, he will continue to scroll. Then he'll click, then he'll message someone else, and so on until someone responds. And perhaps it's the first one who responds who will get the sale. So basically, for me, the right strategy to make a seasonal rental work today is quality, a very good marketing strategy, using all the tools: channel manager, website, SEO, referencing, algorithms, platforms. And then, responsiveness must be on point to continue to attract customers.
− Interesting. If we want to find you, if we want to see your activity, what do you do, and where can we find you? Tell us.
− What am I doing? In fact, if you are in the Alpes-Maritimes, and if you have accommodation that corresponds to gîtes de France, you can find us on gîtes de France: www.gites-cotedazur.com . There, we will be delighted to welcome you, to explain the concept of Gîte de France, and everything that takes into account. If you are outside the Alpes-Maritimes, or if you are in the Alpes-Maritimes and you do not feel the soul of a gîte de France, or you have the impression that something else is right for you, we have the company “Enjoy and Stay” which allows us to support, in fact, the marketing strategy, and which allows us to implement everything I have just explained. We optimize the ads, we create the websites, we read the marketing strategy with natural referencing, with everything that goes with it, and we offer a pre-sales and after-sales customer management service to answer questions. for responsiveness; and coordination of operations. Basically, we are going to offer customers the opportunity to professionalize the entire process of promoting and selling their accommodation to use all the professional techniques that will make it possible to increase occupancy, increase profitability, with occupancy studies. operation by taking into account their fixed costs, their variable costs to achieve the maximum point of profitability.
− So, you can help people who haven't started yet, and even people who have already started. Both.
− That’s it. There, at the moment, for example, we are working with two project leaders. One has just bought a building in a poor state, so for the moment, there is nothing; and the other, which just has land. And in fact, we start from zero, and we support the project leader in projects that will work, and indeed, we also have clients who have already started, and who would like to improve their results, or who have not the time to take care of it properly, and delegates this whole part to us.
− Top. I will put the link to all the sites you spoke about: the link to the site of the gîtes de France Alpes-Maritimes, the link to the site of your enjoy and stay company.
And besides, if you also want to find Sébastien, he is an administrator, with me, of the Facebook group seasonal rental prices and maximization of turnover. So you can also find it in our Facebook group. By asking your questions, you can also benefit from their feedback and expertise.
− Thank you very much, Sébastien, for everything you shared with us. This was extremely interesting, and I have no doubt that it will help a lot of people in the Full community. Thank you so much.
− Thank you.