All of the visitors, 99% of whom are gay or lesbian, to Villa Ralfa are independent travellers, that is, they have not booked a package with a travel agent.
During the course of the 'booking season', I get many enquiries from prospective guests asking for much general information, much of which can be found on the web site, and some of which cannot. Being very efficient here at Villa Ralfa, I usually follow up on these after a while to see what is going on.
Usually I find that the guests have booked a 'package' through a travel agent.
I don't know why this should be, but many gay and lesbian travellers seem to be less than confident about using the Internet, and so they will not get the holiday they want, they will get the one that the travel agent wants them to have. Usually the one that pays the agent the highest commission. Of course the travel agents will deny this, but I am sorry it is true.
At this stage you may wonder why I am writing this....Well I have just been looking at the web site belonging to 'The Leading Organisation for LGBT Tourism Industry' which has a whole section devoted on why you should use a travel agent and not do it yourself.
Having a look through the web site I find that, apparantly, none of the people listed on it are actually nitty-gritty suppliers like me. Yea sure, they have all the airlines listed as being partners, and they have the big chain hotels listed, although Radisson Edwardian would never occur to me as the place to stay as a gay venue, and neither would any of The Hilton chain.
A quick look at their search results for 'Accommodations' (why do these people insist in putting the spurious 's' on the end?) for the UK reveals that three of the entries are for accommodation agencies letting a number of properties, admittedly they do list themselves as 'Exclusively G/L' and the rest are all hotel chains.
Not one single actual gay/lesbian hotel is listed, and there dozens in the UK!
Searching for 'everything' in the UK produces 40 results, some of which do not have anything to do with travel it appears, but we get the same chain hotels, and what is this? Behold a lot of the entries are travel agents.
Now call me an old cynic if you want, and you can see where this is going.....It now becomes obvious why this web site promotes using travel agents instead of doing it yourself. Some of these travel agents listed have paid a lot of money to be on the site, so the site is hardly going to even suggest that you can do it yourself, is it?
Now why do you suppose the listings have all these travel agents and no actual accommodation providers?
Money.....The travel agents get commission, so they can afford to pay the fees to be on the site, the traveller pays this commission, and wouldn't it be nice if when the agent gives you the invoice, the commission you are paying to him was listed as a separate item?
And it is YOU, the traveller, who is paying it. Paying it in higher prices and with less choice than if you booked it all yourself.
So be independent, spend some time surfing and finding a place that you want to go, not the place that the travel or accommodation agent has on his/her books.
Of course you if you want to come to Crete you can book direct with me, and you can even find a flight through my web site, and I will gaily admit that if you do book a flight through my web site from the UK, I actually get up to £1 in commission. Wow!
And with my accommodation from €20 per night, with no booking fee, and no card fee, (because I pay it!), you can have yourself a real nice stay!
Saturday 24 October 2009
Some Reflection on Gay Travel in 2009 and Some Good Reasons to Book Early for 2010
As the autumn crocuses come into bloom in the garden here at Villa Ralfa, they act as a reminder that it is time to start a review of the past year, and what needs to be done in time for next year’s tourist season.
This year has seen some difficulties in the tourist industry, not just here on Crete, Greece, but in other parts of the Europe also. The tour companies and airlines, expecting lower demand, reacted by reducing the availability of holidays and flights, with the result that prices were not actually as low as some expected. Certainly there were reasonable price packages available in very limited supplies, but many of those taking them found that they were housed in ‘all-inclusive’ resorts which cater for thousands of guests rather than a score or so of apartments.
This is fine if you do not mind going to breakfast, lunch, and dinner when the gong goes, and if you do not really want to sample some real Greek food, or experience real Greek hospitality in family run apartments, but we are gay or lesbian and fiercely independent and because we don’t have children (well most of us don’t!), we are not tied to school holidays. And we don’t need to follow the flock!
Surprisingly for a sector of the population that likes to think itself ‘avant-garde’ and adventurous, many gay and lesbian people still follow the crowd and book package holidays and continue to perpetuate the myth that some destinations are ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’. Two examples in Greece are Mykonos and Lesbos, both of which appear in ordinary package holidays brochures and at peak times are overrun with families and children. Another is Sitges in Spain which back in the late 70’s was the place for gay people to go in Spain.
Back then we were trailblazers in so many ways, but sadly the days when these destinations were exciting and distinctly gay has gone, and they have become just another destination, and in many resorts the sight of same sex couples holding hands by the pool would be distinctly unwelcome ‘in front of the children’. Sorry guys, but in the end there were just not enough of us to run and entire Greek island!
Naturally these destinations do have all gay resorts and entertainment, but as is quite common these days they tend to be expensive, presumably because they are working on the value of the ‘Pink Dollar’. Visitors to Villa Ralfa are, of course, independent travellers ‘doing the islands’ and when I get reports that a bottle of beer in a club in Mykonos costs €8 and accommodation cost €150 per night, then I start to wonder for which sector of the gay and lesbian population they cater. I personally think that estimates of the amount of ‘pink’ money are wildly over-estimated (as I have said elsewhere!). And that many think that if they open a gay resort or accommodation they will have a captive audience.
A good example of this is here on Crete, where I opened Villa Ralfa as gay lodgings in Summer 2004. At that time if you ‘Googled’ ‘gay’ and ‘Crete’ together nothing that made any sense came up in the results. Of course the Villa Ralfa web site changed that because Google loves things that are new, and it was a matter of about 3 weeks before searching for the same terms produced Villa Ralfa in the first ten places! Almost immediately someone else decided to do the same as me, and three years later a German couple took an entire apartment block and tried letting it out as a gay resort. Since then I have had English people staying with me who were planning to actually build a small gay resort way out in the back of beyond.
The German couple stayed open for one season, and the planned resort as far as I know never got off the ground, if it did then their web site designer needs a kick in the arse as none other than me ever appears in search results!
So why did they fail? Because they didn’t do their homework and were trying to cater to the wrong people, that’s why. Gay and lesbian visitors who come to Crete don’t come expecting gay nightlife although there is quite a definite scene here, they come for the history, the archaeology, the scenery on this beautiful island, the food, and perhaps a few days on the famous Hersonissos nudist beach!
Here at Villa Ralfa we understand this as all of our guests are independent travellers, people who have got up off their butts and done a few minutes work on the Internet and discovered just how easy it is to do it yourself! Which is why we are here to help! Our web site, which is about as consistent and eccentric as ‘Craigslist’, contains a wealth of information to help the independent traveller and because we know the island we can tell you how long it will take you to get to somewhere and what time the buses run, and how to get from the airport for €3 rather than €35 in a cab.
But in spite of all this, we still get prospective guests who ask for the information and availability but get no further because they don’t book flights soon enough! I forget how many times I have said this now, but I am saying it again, book your flight as early as possible, in fact for next summer now is a good time because once it is booked the price is fixed. Gone is the time when you could get a standby flight cheap at the airport, gone are the days when prices went down as the flight date approached. The carriers realised a long time ago with the advent of Internet booking that passengers tended to search for flights but not book them until later, so of course they increase the prices as time goes on!
And naturally there are still many living in the past and conveniently forget that oil and aviation fuel prices have risen dramatically over the last few years.
Even as I write this in October, the majority of the budget and charter airlines across Europe already have the flights for next summer up for sale on their web sites, and it will come as no surprise to anyone I am sure to find that the number of seats on an aircraft is actually limited! Our links page is possibly one of the most underused on our web site, possibly because many links pages are totally irrelevant, but ours actually contains a wealth of USEFUL links, including one to Attitude Travel which collates all the budget airlines in one place.
An additional facet is that Villa Ralfa only takes a maximum of 6 guests, a fact which is quite clear from the web site, and prospective guests often try and book a room in July for an August arrival date when all the August dates have been booked since January! You would be surprised how often guests ask me about availability in January but do nothing more and are disappointed to find that it is taken when they try and book 4 or 5 months later.
All this amounts to one thing, book early! Doing so guarantees your flights are available and at a reasonable price, and once you have booked and paid all your costs are fixed and final,and you get to go where you want to go not the leftovers that the travel agents have on offer.
Hey Presto, holidays done in a flash all through the power of the Internet!
This year has seen some difficulties in the tourist industry, not just here on Crete, Greece, but in other parts of the Europe also. The tour companies and airlines, expecting lower demand, reacted by reducing the availability of holidays and flights, with the result that prices were not actually as low as some expected. Certainly there were reasonable price packages available in very limited supplies, but many of those taking them found that they were housed in ‘all-inclusive’ resorts which cater for thousands of guests rather than a score or so of apartments.
This is fine if you do not mind going to breakfast, lunch, and dinner when the gong goes, and if you do not really want to sample some real Greek food, or experience real Greek hospitality in family run apartments, but we are gay or lesbian and fiercely independent and because we don’t have children (well most of us don’t!), we are not tied to school holidays. And we don’t need to follow the flock!
Surprisingly for a sector of the population that likes to think itself ‘avant-garde’ and adventurous, many gay and lesbian people still follow the crowd and book package holidays and continue to perpetuate the myth that some destinations are ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’. Two examples in Greece are Mykonos and Lesbos, both of which appear in ordinary package holidays brochures and at peak times are overrun with families and children. Another is Sitges in Spain which back in the late 70’s was the place for gay people to go in Spain.
Back then we were trailblazers in so many ways, but sadly the days when these destinations were exciting and distinctly gay has gone, and they have become just another destination, and in many resorts the sight of same sex couples holding hands by the pool would be distinctly unwelcome ‘in front of the children’. Sorry guys, but in the end there were just not enough of us to run and entire Greek island!
Naturally these destinations do have all gay resorts and entertainment, but as is quite common these days they tend to be expensive, presumably because they are working on the value of the ‘Pink Dollar’. Visitors to Villa Ralfa are, of course, independent travellers ‘doing the islands’ and when I get reports that a bottle of beer in a club in Mykonos costs €8 and accommodation cost €150 per night, then I start to wonder for which sector of the gay and lesbian population they cater. I personally think that estimates of the amount of ‘pink’ money are wildly over-estimated (as I have said elsewhere!). And that many think that if they open a gay resort or accommodation they will have a captive audience.
A good example of this is here on Crete, where I opened Villa Ralfa as gay lodgings in Summer 2004. At that time if you ‘Googled’ ‘gay’ and ‘Crete’ together nothing that made any sense came up in the results. Of course the Villa Ralfa web site changed that because Google loves things that are new, and it was a matter of about 3 weeks before searching for the same terms produced Villa Ralfa in the first ten places! Almost immediately someone else decided to do the same as me, and three years later a German couple took an entire apartment block and tried letting it out as a gay resort. Since then I have had English people staying with me who were planning to actually build a small gay resort way out in the back of beyond.
The German couple stayed open for one season, and the planned resort as far as I know never got off the ground, if it did then their web site designer needs a kick in the arse as none other than me ever appears in search results!
So why did they fail? Because they didn’t do their homework and were trying to cater to the wrong people, that’s why. Gay and lesbian visitors who come to Crete don’t come expecting gay nightlife although there is quite a definite scene here, they come for the history, the archaeology, the scenery on this beautiful island, the food, and perhaps a few days on the famous Hersonissos nudist beach!
Here at Villa Ralfa we understand this as all of our guests are independent travellers, people who have got up off their butts and done a few minutes work on the Internet and discovered just how easy it is to do it yourself! Which is why we are here to help! Our web site, which is about as consistent and eccentric as ‘Craigslist’, contains a wealth of information to help the independent traveller and because we know the island we can tell you how long it will take you to get to somewhere and what time the buses run, and how to get from the airport for €3 rather than €35 in a cab.
But in spite of all this, we still get prospective guests who ask for the information and availability but get no further because they don’t book flights soon enough! I forget how many times I have said this now, but I am saying it again, book your flight as early as possible, in fact for next summer now is a good time because once it is booked the price is fixed. Gone is the time when you could get a standby flight cheap at the airport, gone are the days when prices went down as the flight date approached. The carriers realised a long time ago with the advent of Internet booking that passengers tended to search for flights but not book them until later, so of course they increase the prices as time goes on!
And naturally there are still many living in the past and conveniently forget that oil and aviation fuel prices have risen dramatically over the last few years.
Even as I write this in October, the majority of the budget and charter airlines across Europe already have the flights for next summer up for sale on their web sites, and it will come as no surprise to anyone I am sure to find that the number of seats on an aircraft is actually limited! Our links page is possibly one of the most underused on our web site, possibly because many links pages are totally irrelevant, but ours actually contains a wealth of USEFUL links, including one to Attitude Travel which collates all the budget airlines in one place.
An additional facet is that Villa Ralfa only takes a maximum of 6 guests, a fact which is quite clear from the web site, and prospective guests often try and book a room in July for an August arrival date when all the August dates have been booked since January! You would be surprised how often guests ask me about availability in January but do nothing more and are disappointed to find that it is taken when they try and book 4 or 5 months later.
All this amounts to one thing, book early! Doing so guarantees your flights are available and at a reasonable price, and once you have booked and paid all your costs are fixed and final,and you get to go where you want to go not the leftovers that the travel agents have on offer.
Hey Presto, holidays done in a flash all through the power of the Internet!
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Want to be Adventurous and Surprise Your Friends? Consider Athens and Crete, Greece for that Winter Break!
Mention Greece and the Greek Islands and most will think of hot summer days basking on a sun bed by the pool or on a beach by a sparkling turquoise sea, few would imagine such a destination for the winter traveller who would think Canary Islands or North Africa at least! So how many people do you know who can say they have been to Crete in the middle of winter?
Crete, however, is one of the Greek Islands that still receives visitors during the winter months, from cruise ships that stop for the day in Heraklion, and from visitors arriving by air or ferry to stay at one of the time-share hotels, or who just like to come to Crete during the winter months. And with a permanent population in excess of 500,000 people, (and several million olive trees!), Crete has more places open to eat, drink, and be merry, than other Greek island during the winter months.
So what does Crete have to offer during this off peak period particularly for the gay or lesbian traveller?
As you will have read elsewhere no doubt, there is not a large gay scene on Crete, but of course there are some of us that live here all year round, both Greek and foreign, but for many gay travellers their visit to Crete is not centred around gay nightlife, but around visiting the island itself and to explore the archaeology on the island. Yes, Eros Bar in Malia is open during the winter at weekends and also Villa Ralfa, the only proclaimed gay accommodation on Crete, is open for most of the winter (we do like to go on holidays ourselves sometimes!).
One ‘barrier’ to visitors during the winter months is getting here, but this is not as difficult as it sounds as transport links with Athens are available all year round not only by air, but by ferry as well, and Athens is well served by air links around Europe and indeed, worldwide, all year round, so why not a winter break in Athens with a side trip to Crete for a weekend. Time enough to see Knossos, the museums, (which stay open all year round), drive around the island at leisure, view some of the sights, enjoy some famous Cretan hospitality, and some Cretan food!
So where to start?
A good place to start is at the Athens International Airport web site. From here you can see which destinations/air lines fly in and out of Greece. Then you can visit the relevant air line web site and book your ticket on line. Yes, it really is that simple! No more queuing in travel agents and being sent somewhere that THEY want you to go rather than where YOU want to go, no more fruitless searching on travel web sites looking for dates that don’t exist!
On the link at the end of this article you will find the links to some of the relevant web sites.
But for instance, did you know that there are three Greek airlines that fly in and out of the UK everyday with scheduled flights from various airports? And then there is Easyjet as well from Luton and Gatwick. As an example Aegean Airlines are offering flights from London Heathrow through to Crete via Athens from €120 plus taxes, and Easyjet have return flights to Athens in December and January for around €120 return including taxes. Even Birmingham and Manchester are served with flights to Athens in winter and one thing is virtually guaranteed – Even if it rains, Athens and Crete will be warmer than Northern Europe!
Even if you are not in the UK you can find airlines that fly to Athens during the winter months!
And if you fancy a bit of cruising, fly to Athens, and then take the overnight ferry from Piraeus to Heraklion, about €70 return plus a cabin if you want one.
So what will the weather be like? Well from experience as I live on Crete, I can tell you that very often up until Christmas you can get day time temperatures up in the mid 20’s. After then it can be cooler and often in February we can have three or four days when it is only 8C day and night. Yes, we get rain and very heavy rain at that, but in return you get to see Crete when it is green, and even on the shortest days the clarity of light is a delight for photographers and painters, none of the grey overcast light when at 3pm it cannot decide if it is day or night! You can check the weather for yourself through the link at the end of the article. And it is not an unusual sight to see snow on the mountains a few kilometres from the beach, a source of wonder for many winter visitors who thought we bathed in eternal sunshine. To put this into a little more perspective Crete is slightly south of the state of Colorado in the USA! Even in Athens which is to the north can be gloriously sunny in mid-January; I stay there for a few days every year and have only experienced heavy rain for half a day two years ago.
So what can we do when it rains? Summer visitors will know that activities on Crete revolve around the beach and the pool, but of course, at Villa Ralfa we are here all year round so we have books, games, and other indoor entertainment, TV and DVD players, and you are welcome to sit in front of the big log fire that we have most days and sip a glass of sherry before you head off out for something to eat.
And what can you do on Crete? Well we are talking a relatively short stay, although we do get visitors who come for all of the winter. So you can visit the main archaeological site at Knossos, the museums are also open (ideal for the rainy days), and with the aid of a rental car you can get away from it all up into the hills and watch for the vultures, and stop for lunch (sometimes only €14 for two) at many of the small tavernas that are open for us locals. If you are here at the right time you can watch the olives being picked, but forget romantic notions as this is highly mechanised process these days. Evenings you can find bars and restaurants that are open, mostly serving good Greek food, but forget about moussaka, you rarely see it on the menu in a ‘meze house’! Above all you can RELAX.
So be the intrepid traveller and think about Athens and Crete as a winter destination, you friends will be surprised when you tell them where you have been.
For more information and links to relevant web sites visit http://www.villaralfa.com/winter.html where you will also find details of our winter special weekend which includes breakfast and one evening meal.
Crete, however, is one of the Greek Islands that still receives visitors during the winter months, from cruise ships that stop for the day in Heraklion, and from visitors arriving by air or ferry to stay at one of the time-share hotels, or who just like to come to Crete during the winter months. And with a permanent population in excess of 500,000 people, (and several million olive trees!), Crete has more places open to eat, drink, and be merry, than other Greek island during the winter months.
So what does Crete have to offer during this off peak period particularly for the gay or lesbian traveller?
As you will have read elsewhere no doubt, there is not a large gay scene on Crete, but of course there are some of us that live here all year round, both Greek and foreign, but for many gay travellers their visit to Crete is not centred around gay nightlife, but around visiting the island itself and to explore the archaeology on the island. Yes, Eros Bar in Malia is open during the winter at weekends and also Villa Ralfa, the only proclaimed gay accommodation on Crete, is open for most of the winter (we do like to go on holidays ourselves sometimes!).
One ‘barrier’ to visitors during the winter months is getting here, but this is not as difficult as it sounds as transport links with Athens are available all year round not only by air, but by ferry as well, and Athens is well served by air links around Europe and indeed, worldwide, all year round, so why not a winter break in Athens with a side trip to Crete for a weekend. Time enough to see Knossos, the museums, (which stay open all year round), drive around the island at leisure, view some of the sights, enjoy some famous Cretan hospitality, and some Cretan food!
So where to start?
A good place to start is at the Athens International Airport web site. From here you can see which destinations/air lines fly in and out of Greece. Then you can visit the relevant air line web site and book your ticket on line. Yes, it really is that simple! No more queuing in travel agents and being sent somewhere that THEY want you to go rather than where YOU want to go, no more fruitless searching on travel web sites looking for dates that don’t exist!
On the link at the end of this article you will find the links to some of the relevant web sites.
But for instance, did you know that there are three Greek airlines that fly in and out of the UK everyday with scheduled flights from various airports? And then there is Easyjet as well from Luton and Gatwick. As an example Aegean Airlines are offering flights from London Heathrow through to Crete via Athens from €120 plus taxes, and Easyjet have return flights to Athens in December and January for around €120 return including taxes. Even Birmingham and Manchester are served with flights to Athens in winter and one thing is virtually guaranteed – Even if it rains, Athens and Crete will be warmer than Northern Europe!
Even if you are not in the UK you can find airlines that fly to Athens during the winter months!
And if you fancy a bit of cruising, fly to Athens, and then take the overnight ferry from Piraeus to Heraklion, about €70 return plus a cabin if you want one.
So what will the weather be like? Well from experience as I live on Crete, I can tell you that very often up until Christmas you can get day time temperatures up in the mid 20’s. After then it can be cooler and often in February we can have three or four days when it is only 8C day and night. Yes, we get rain and very heavy rain at that, but in return you get to see Crete when it is green, and even on the shortest days the clarity of light is a delight for photographers and painters, none of the grey overcast light when at 3pm it cannot decide if it is day or night! You can check the weather for yourself through the link at the end of the article. And it is not an unusual sight to see snow on the mountains a few kilometres from the beach, a source of wonder for many winter visitors who thought we bathed in eternal sunshine. To put this into a little more perspective Crete is slightly south of the state of Colorado in the USA! Even in Athens which is to the north can be gloriously sunny in mid-January; I stay there for a few days every year and have only experienced heavy rain for half a day two years ago.
So what can we do when it rains? Summer visitors will know that activities on Crete revolve around the beach and the pool, but of course, at Villa Ralfa we are here all year round so we have books, games, and other indoor entertainment, TV and DVD players, and you are welcome to sit in front of the big log fire that we have most days and sip a glass of sherry before you head off out for something to eat.
And what can you do on Crete? Well we are talking a relatively short stay, although we do get visitors who come for all of the winter. So you can visit the main archaeological site at Knossos, the museums are also open (ideal for the rainy days), and with the aid of a rental car you can get away from it all up into the hills and watch for the vultures, and stop for lunch (sometimes only €14 for two) at many of the small tavernas that are open for us locals. If you are here at the right time you can watch the olives being picked, but forget romantic notions as this is highly mechanised process these days. Evenings you can find bars and restaurants that are open, mostly serving good Greek food, but forget about moussaka, you rarely see it on the menu in a ‘meze house’! Above all you can RELAX.
So be the intrepid traveller and think about Athens and Crete as a winter destination, you friends will be surprised when you tell them where you have been.
For more information and links to relevant web sites visit http://www.villaralfa.com/winter.html where you will also find details of our winter special weekend which includes breakfast and one evening meal.
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