Flipkey, the vacation arm of Tripadvisor, sent me an email the other day, we’ve been rated as “Excellent” by virtue of our guest reviews and we get a little badge to prove it.
It is hard to stand out in the rental market in Turkey as with so many villas to trawl through the choice for guests is daunting. There are currently 646 villas available to rent on the Turkish Aegean section of Trip Advisor, and we’re Number 2 by guest rating.
I think we’re successful because we are a little different. There are very few rentals available just for couples and there are very few character houses like this to rent and as Trip Advisor clients and our guests are generally independent travellers we’re advertising in the right place to the right people.
It also helps that we’re incredibly flexible, because we live at the house we can cater to guests wanting anything from a single night to multiple weeks. Most of our guests stay only a few days though, they are on their grand Turkey tour and staying here is normally part of the Ephesus and Selcuk leg of their journey. They may only be staying long enough to visit the big sites and enjoy a little bit of village life before heading off to Istanbul or Cappadocia but feedback tells us that staying here comes as a welcome interlude of peace in what can often be a punishing schedule and they wish they could stay longer.
As we’re on the Grand Turkey Tour circuit we tend to be busiest in the shoulder seasons of April to the end of June and September through into November as only the truly hardy try to tour the big sites in the heat of July and August. Ephesus in August is a fiery ordeal, when the cruise ship passengers clog the site and all that marble focuses the heat to blast furnace temperatures, Priene is better option in the height of summer, it has more shade.
I like renting, I like our guests, I’m always so chuffed that they chose to come here and they have been, without exception, really lovely people. We have walked the valley with them, sat up late learning about their lives, shared with them tales of Turkey and helped them plan their travels here. We’ve learnt to cook chapattis with our Indian guests, talked about the economy and the struggle of self builds with our Brazilian guests, learnt about being an expat in Bahrain from Filipino guests, talked politics and history with our Canadian guests and generally got as much from them as they got from us.
So “thank you” to our guests for coming and “thank you” for then being nice enough to review us and to those future guests who come because other people said it was worth it, a very warm welcome.
The studio and pool early morning
Karen, that is brilliant!! 🙂 Well done, you – your pleasure and justifiable satisfaction and pride in your achievement come though in every word of your post. Having seen the photos of your wonderful villa, I’n not at all surprised at the award. I hope it results in many more bookings and excellent reviews.
Well deserved.
Well merited praise. I heartily concur. Comfy surroundings, hosts who could not do more to inform, close enough to visit Ephesus easily, with peace and quiet away from Kusadasi, (apart from the early alarm call from the local Imam!!!)
That call to prayer is good for your soul! I’m pure enough so I sleep straight through it 🙂 K xxx
yes I saw that, already following you.. 🙂 Congratz..
Congratulations. All the hard work that goes on unoticed in the background is reaping it rewards.
Excellent, excellent, excellent. And one more time, excellent! Axxx