Out of interest I had a look at the availability of Corriekinloch today, a cottage I have hired many times. I was last there in 2017 and it cost under £500 for the week. It now costs about £750 and is fully booked for the prime fishing months.
I suspect it's supply and demand, too much demand pushes prices high.
Seems that the cost of highland holiday accommodation is going stratospheric, be it cottage hire or mediocre hotel accommodation with pretentious dinner menus and very expensive beer.
Anyone else aware of this? To be honest I would choose not to pay these prices for what is pretty mediocre fishing and not really any better than I have locally. I'd rather go abroad, covid willing, but I do wonder if it may just be these places are no longer interested in anglers when there is a ready supply of Porsche driving NC500ers with thick wallets and platinum plus credit cards.
You can see why camper-vans have become so popular! :D
Cost of places in the Hebrides have rocketed too, won't be going this year due to this.
I know Richard and another issue is record fuel costs. The highland fishing holiday is fast becoming a luxury for the rich only!
One of the reasons I prefer a wild camp and tent. Even campsite prices are going through the roof up there.
Quote from: Fishtales on February 16, 2022, 07:21:41 PM
Even campsite prices are going through the roof up there.
Applecross campsite is £12 per person for small tents. It is a lot for a square of grass, but to be fair there are facilities if you choose to use them. Again it's supply and demand, it is always full.
I looked at cottages on Orkney last year. Almost nothing available and sky-high prices.
But I do wonder if things will change when people start flooding abroad again
Looking at the amount on the roads already, it would seem most are buying camper vans and parking for free on Arbroath sea front.
Quote from: arawa on February 16, 2022, 09:46:18 PM
But I do wonder if things will change when people start flooding abroad again
Much of this has certainly been caused by covid home demand, so we shall see. That said prices usually only go in one direction.
Quote from: admin on February 17, 2022, 09:38:18 AM
Much of this has certainly been caused by covid home demand, so we shall see. That said prices usually only go in one direction.
Irrespective of demand changes, the cost of providing hospitality services has risen sharply so prices are unlikely to drop.
But I am told the secondhand price of campervans has fallen :)
Yeah, the cost of everything is on the way up. I was astonished at the 50% hike of the Corriekinloch rent. It's just not worth it fishing wise, but I expect we are no longer the target market. Hard to see where to go now unless you want to camp, campervan or caravan. A lot of the old fishing hotels were taken over by clueless incomers who quickly dismantled the old customer model and ruined them. Cape Wrath Hotel is the classic example. When Jack sold up it was ruined in a year. Then you have The Tomdoun, the Overscaig, the Forsinard etc
Quote from: admin on February 17, 2022, 12:41:18 PM
Yeah, the cost of everything is on the way up. I was astonished at the 50% hike of the Corriekinloch rent.
One thing I will say is that, in a way, a lot of self catering accommodation was somewhat "underpriced." As some are aware my girlfriend let a house for a while, she has since sold it. Basically once you took out the running costs it never made any money for her. Also doing changeovers/laundry etc. took her basically all day Saturday plus about 3 evenings in the week and she never got paid for her time. From memory (could be a bit wrong but close enough) she started out charging about £350 per week, which was the going price in the area, and by the time she stopped she was charging about £500 per week. We figured that to get minimum wage out of it, once you subtracted operating costs, she'd have needed to be up around £1k per week.
My father worked in tourism and he said there was a minimum number of properties that you needed to be running to make an income, I guess there is some sort of economy of scale factor, and I think the number was about 6.
So I completely get that these current prices put people like me out of the market, or leave us looking at a week away rather than a month. However, in a lot of cases there isn't a huge profit at these prices at least at the level of occupancy and the cost of repairs etc. that we saw on Lewis.
Some excellent points there Philip, few are making big money out of holiday accommodation and this will get worse now that the bill for keeping so many public sector and BBC employees at home on full pay making sourdough bread for 2 years is coming in. ::)
One important point that should not be missed is taking the example of Corriekinloch - I never had problems booking it right up until springtime in past years. Now, even with a massive hike in rent, it is pretty much fully booked and it's still mid-winter. The market appears to have changed - and that's fine that's how our system works - the clientele may have changed. Those with lots of cash are filling the hotels, cottages and castles and we anglers are in campervans and tents.
The there is high inflation and fuel costs.
It's like being back in the 1970s. Only the good music is missing. ;D
My wife and I used to do a changeover clean of three. three bedroom, lodges in six hours every Saturday for years for very little wages :) Then my wife worked all day in the laundry on the Sunday washing all the linen for all the lodges and hotel. She also worked in the restaurant kitchen on the Friday and Saturday night and I did bouncer on the door of the dinner dance. I don't know if we could make a living out of that now but it helped pay for the drink and some of the caravan ground rent :)
Going rate (around here) to do a 2/3 bed cottage changeover in 6 hrs on a Saturday is £120- does not include laundry.
Precious few folk about to do it.
For me it's looking more and more like my fishing will be done locally. At 69 years I'm not sure I'm capable of long backpacking hikes or, being honest, really fancy it much now. I see myself more as the cosy hotel type these days.
The death of a legend or a doddery old fool facing reality? ;D
Quote from: Inchlaggan on February 17, 2022, 04:57:17 PM
Going rate (around here) to do a 2/3 bed cottage changeover in 6 hrs on a Saturday is £120- does not include laundry.
Precious few folk about to do it.
We would have been expected to do that in 2 max 3 hours for £20 each :)
Quote from: admin on February 17, 2022, 05:04:42 PM
For me it's looking more and more like my fishing will be done locally. At 69 years I'm not sure I'm capable of long backpacking hikes or, being honest, really fancy it much now. I see myself more as the cosy hotel type these days.
The death of a legend or a doddery old fool facing reality? ;D
You need to stop with that defeatist talk. Being 69 is an opportunity - you've pretty much had your life so it doesn't matter if the walk kills you :-)
You have to wonder if this will see a change to the pattern of fishing? On Lewis most of the trout fishing is done by locals as in my experience visitors don't want to work for fishing - they want to get out of their car into a boat and get rowed about all day with big fish almost jumping into their boat. Sport has nothing to do with it and everyone seems to want maximum return for zero effort, with maximum return meaning big fish and lots of them. You wonder if we won't see more and more of this and end up with hatchery trout and even hatchery salmon genetically engineered to be "big."
And then there is this coming to bite us -
https://www.whfp.com/2022/02/15/legislation-headache-councils-face-damage-limitation-on-new-short-term-lets-licences/?fbclid=IwAR0Fg3Q-CrEjlkhrjxDHnx6Q25PSa0yA9ldeKtvaSDtEzMqg9I8airRe4PY
Plus all the other increasing costs.
In contrast, three of us booked a cottage in Mosjoen in Norway, mid June, for 540 quid between us.
Perhaps destruction of tourism is part of the green agenda. It does have a huge carbon footprint
Glad I have some fishing within walking distance or a modest drive, plans to go further afield will have to involve staying with relatives lol.
Just about to turn a property we have into holiday accommodation. Will be open this spring and we are thinking about the £500 mark for a week. As mentioned there are a lot of costs. Electrical testing runs to hundreds, insurance and liability is £500, new smoke alarms, etc, etc ,etc. We are not expecting to make much, and if I was not a builder we would not be doing this. The season is short, from what I can gather 15 weeks occupancy might be the norm.
Property is in Strathy -easy for forsinard lochs, Bettyhill, Durness.
Strathy should be an excellent location. Ideal for NC500 people. Hope the project goes well.
£500 for a week is perfectly reasonable.
There are several traditional holiday cottages on the coast adjacent to my house. Last year they were able to charge £700-800 pw and were full most of the year. Not sure what they are asking this year but I have heard bookings are slower.