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The El Roble Family
The History of El Roble and Chester Canalside Holidays
We, Graham and Sandra, started "El Roble" holiday rentals in 2002 with the help of our, then teenage, sons Simon and Keith.
Sandra, despite living full time in Spain, continued working as director of a Payroll Company in Chester. While Graham had, 2 years prior to moving to Spain, sold his Plant Hire Company in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, UK. Although each of us had experience in setting up and running companies we had absolutely no knowledge of the Holiday Rental business.
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Simon Graham Sandra Keith
On completion of our house build, the plan was to take occasional holiday bookings in the attached apartment. After listening to other people involved in the rental business we gathered the following advice:-
- Never put in new furniture, use second hand or cheap furniture - no one will respect it.
- If you don't give the guests access to a swimming pool, you will not get bookings.
- Buying a Hot Tub was a waste of money and would never catch on.
- Only provide basic facilities, don't put in sat TV, A/C or heating etc
- Whatever you do people very rarely rebook
This did not seem to provide the standard of holiday we would have enjoyed ourselves, so we followed our own instincts and bought good quality new furniture, a top of the range hot tub, did not give swimming pool access (until the villa pool was built) and provided all mod cons - Sat TV, central heating, A/C, internet access etc.
We also knew the importance of a good web site and in the Easter of 2002, Simon launched our first version of the "El Roble" website.
Initially we included both a long term rental property as well as short term holiday lets. However, after the first two years we decided to continue with only short term holiday rentals and today we include, in addition to our own properties, another property in Alhaurin el Grande which is owned by our personal friends.
Six years on, we enjoy busy bookings together with regularly seeing guests returning for another holiday, some have been back 6 times.
In August of 2006, we made a decision to buy a canalside holiday apartment back in our home City of Chester. So we were back to rushing around with the deadline of the first booking at the beginning of October. A 4 star grading was awarded to the apartment in February 2007 and it attracts visitors from all over the world to stay in it and see the fantastic Roman City of Chester. Some visitors have booked 3 times in the 18 months since it opened.
Simon graduated from University in 2005 and moved back to Spain where he now works as a Freelance Programmer. He continues to manage and design the website for "El Roble Holidays" with its integrated back office and automated booking system. In August 2006 he designed and wrote the programming for the "Chester Canalside Holidays" website for our new Chester apartment. He continues to be a great support with both the websites.
In July 2007, Keith graduated from Manchester University with a Masters Degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He now works and lives in Bristol, UK and continues to help us with both El Roble and Chester Canalside Holidays as our contact in the UK.
Amy, Grahams daughter who lives in North Wales, continues to give us valuable support for Chester Canalside Holidays.
To find out how it all began... "Click" on either photograph below.
