Whether you are planning a family holiday or an adventure with a group of friends, we have a selection of large holiday cottages in Devon to choose from. Suitable for all occasions, book one of these large and luxurious Devon cottages for a glorious summer holiday, a weekend country house party with friends, a special reunion, a celebration or simply because you have fallen in love with it! Here are a few of our favourites, from the lush river estuaries of South Devon to the rugged North coast and mysterious landscapes of Exmoor National Park.

 

Blue Horizon, Woolacombe – Sleeps 8     Airy holiday cottage overlooking sand, dunes and Atlantic waves

Watch Atlantic Waves crashing ashore from the Deck at Blue Horizon in Woolacombe in North Devon

This architect-designed luxury holiday home is so close to the beach you can fall asleep to the sound of the ocean and check the tide in the morning. Perfect for a break on the

Many of us will likely have gotten used to enjoying a good swim while on holiday, whether from the beach or in a holiday cottage with a private pool in its sun-drenched garden. 

Come to the onset of shorter days with the arrival of autumn and winter, there’s no reason to assume that all thoughts of swimming on holiday must be put aside until next summer. There are plenty of holiday cottages with private indoor pools all over the UK.

Why not plan a weekend break with friends or another family to chase away the winter blues by booking a large holiday cottage with a private indoor pool?

We’ve selected our favourite top ten holiday homes that offer exclusive use of an indoor heated pool for large groups of 10 or more guests. Many are in areas nicely suited for walking holidays, making the prospect of a weekend away a healthy one—and who cares about the weather?

From remote corners of the UK in the Highlands of Scotland and The

News From The Homefront for Holiday Cottage Owners: August 2018

Well, as I write, it's the height of summer and what a glorious summer it is proving to be. Let's hope that the sun will linger long into a golden autumn. Links to seven helpful articles are set out below, but for owners with a property listed on My Favourite Holiday Cottages, please note these updates:

1. Add your prices: Don't forget that you can now add your property prices to your listing. These can be indicative or exact prices. Being able to see your prices means that bookers will feel confident about submitting an enquiry when they can see that they can afford the dates they have in mind.

2. SuperControl Users: We have better integrated the site with SuperControl so that when you add the link to your booking calendar, your prices will automatically appear. If you use SuperControl (an excellent online booking software) and haven't added it to your listings, 

Fingers crossed, it will never happen, but given that accidents in the home account for well over half of admissions to A&E, sooner or later, someone will injure themselves in your holiday cottage.

This raises three issues: 

First and foremost, what part can you play in caring for your guest and minimising their worries by stepping in to look after them? A little TLC can work wonders. Mitigation: What can you do to make your home safer - or make guests aware of possible risks? For instance, that kids' trampoline in the garden, or the 'character' staircase perhaps... Addressing the whole liability issue: handy dos and don'ts: You should be insured, but is there anything you are doing - or not doing - that would invalidate your policy in the event of a claim? Read the small print!

Don't hope it will never happen. Read this article, and take appropriate action; if it does, at least you'll be prepared, and the problem will be much reduced!

There are a surprising number of weeks (or weekends) in the low season that, with a bit of care and attention, can be filled with guests. It is almost half a year from the onset of autumn to the arrival of Easter. 

Granted, the returns aren't as great as in the summer, but if your holiday cottage is costing you money even when empty, welcoming more guests keeps your cottage warm, dry and cosy, contributing to the bottom line.

Read these six tips from Guesty.com on things you can do to make your cottage stand out from the crowd to people planning a low season break in self-catering accommodation.

Feel free to contribute your own suggestions for attracting more low-season bookings in the comments section below.

READ MORE...

Right now is a very good time to review how you describe your holiday cottage online. With most weeks booked until well into the autumn, you should focus on filling bookings for next year. As well as reviewing prices, what can you say that will have more guests reaching for that 'Contact Us' button?

While we all hope the popularity of self-catering holidays continues to grow, tread cautiously. In 2022, with travel restrictions likely to have been eased, the temptation to holiday abroad may well prove irresistible to many. With so many more holiday cottages available, bookings may be harder to come by. So, when people do find your advert, make sure it is as convincing as it can possibly be. Make the best use of the summer months, following the recommendations in these two articles on the best way to describe your holiday home. Above all - move from merely listing their contents to describing their benefits to guests. Turn good content into truly eye-catching

Getting bookings for peak weeks is easy! Or, if not, some serious revising of your marketing and advertising plan is required.

The main challenge all owners face when marketing their holiday property is getting bookings outside the school holidays. That’s about 38 weeks in the year -  a huge potential revenue source.

Getting bookings for shoulder seasons, i.e. the weeks on either side of the school holidays between March and the end of October requires careful planning. 

Read this list of 5 marketing goals from Guesthook to help you decide who and how you'll market your cottage to attract more bookings between Easter and the summer and autumn holidays.

If you would like to recommend another proven tip - add it to the comments below.

 

Here’s a summary:

Buddy up with your local tourism bureau.

Buddy up with your local tourism bureau.

Build your social media following.

The best house rules for a holiday cottage ensure guests can relax and enjoy their holiday without being confined by draconian terms or doing something unwittingly naughty. Having a clear set of do's, don'ts, and responsibilities also makes it much easier to deal with possible problems. Use this template of 'acceptable' rules from Lodgify to identify those that you feel will be relevant to your own holiday cottage.

A good policy to adopt is working to create a set of house rules that, if anything goes wrong, don't leave a good relationship between an owner and their guest still intact (and likely to return) without either party feeling hard done by. It's not easy - but this list may help! Above all, they apply to an owner's expectation of guest behaviour and set out what the guest can rightfully expect from a property's owner.

Read More: Holiday Cottage House Rules To Avoid Guest Trouble and Attract Excellent Reviews Instead.

When deciding where to invest your advertising budget for your holiday cottage, the aim for independent holiday cottage owners is to get the maximum amount of bookings for the least amount of money.

Put aside Google Adwords and Facebook for the moment and concentrate on the main sources of revenue for most independent holiday cottage owners: Adverts on directory sites.

These fall into two camps: the mega-international sites, owned mainly by USA-based Expedia, such as VRBO, Holiday Rentals, and AirBnB, and then the smaller, mainly UK-based sites, such as My Favourite Holiday Cottages.

You’ll get – or you should get – a goodly number of bookings from advertising on the mega-sites, but so you should, given the amount of money you pay in charges, fees and commissions for each booking.

Then there are those in the middle of the pack – such as My Favourite Holiday Cottages, Independent Cottages, and Country Cottages Online. You’ll probably