We have a real advantage in being a small, independent company that does not have to blindly follow a corporate strategy – where it is not unknown for large companies to compromise the safety and well-being of employees and customers in favour of financial reward.
Having the responsibility of creating our own strategy for the pandemic has made us think about what is most important during these difficult times.
We quickly realised that the safety and protection of everyone had to be our top priority so for example, we are going to leave all holiday homes vacant for at least 5 days after every family has departed.
This allows plenty of time for the virus to completely die out in every known circumstance and on every surface. Only then will we go in and do a thorough clean so that our fantastic housekeeping team, as well as our next visiting family can be assured there is absolutely no risk of cross-infection anywhere inside the accommodation.
However, this means that for each booking we must allow 2 weeks and we therefore must reduce our available booking capacity by 50% should we have the opportunity to re-open this year.
The difficulties around shared facilities
Then there is the thorny subject of opening shared facilities. Again, to ensure the safety and protection of everyone – staff and customers alike, it became clear that by opening some of them we would be compromising this vital principle.
Included in this list of potentially hazardous locations are the swimming pools, the launderette, sportsground, crazy golf and the children’s playground. The reception is one area where folk also tend to congregate and spend time together, therefore we have decided to keep reception closed. We have worked out simple ways for customers to check-in and check-out, plus report maintenance issues and other requests using freefone numbers & text messaging.
Cruisers Club is one facility which we are trying very, very hard to keep open. By reducing our booking total, it remains potentially feasible, Government ruling permitting, to open this with strict social distancing and hygiene disciplines. If we are allowed to do this, we believe most of our customers will come away having had a great time, in spite of the ongoing pandemic.
So keep safe, take care and do keep in touch – any and all developments will be on our Covid-19 update page here
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