Dear Member 

Welcome to the Newsflash from FranceDirect. This first edition is open to all independent owners on FranceDirect, subsequent editions will only be open to members and include details of our up and coming offers, updates and improvements.

As the Booking Season gets underway, we continue to work hard promoting FranceDirect as the leading site for private owners advertising their properties in France.

We have just returned from the "Vive La France" show at Olympia in London (19th-21st January). This is an annual event and a huge exhibition covering anything and everything to do with France using both the immense halls available at Olympia.

Most of the large Tour Operators to France were represented but we were most surprised to learn from the organisers that FranceDirect was the only company present in its field despite much publicity from competitors who said they were going to attend. 

Over 30,000 people passed through in three days and it was the perfect opportunity to distribute our leaflets and explain to people the many advantages of booking their holidays direct with our Members. There was a good deal of interest in the way we work and we feel very positive about the future.

It was nice to have had the opportunity of meeting some of you in person and we would like to thank you for your support and encouragement extended to us at the show.

Last year, whilst submitting the site monthly to the search engine listings our national advertising campaign proved to be by far the most successful way of attracting people to the site. Our commitment to national advertising in the U.K. press remains firm. We believe this to be the right approach and set out below our schedule for the current year.

KINGSMEDIA SCHEDULE FRANCE DIRECT - CAMPAIGN 2001 26th January 2001 Booked insertions 

In the next week or so, we will be launching our Special Offers section where only Members properties will be shown, including the reduced ferry prices we have negotiated and any additional incentives you may wish to include.

FranceDirect is negotiating with 'The News' - the leading English language newspaper in France with a distribution of 32,000 per month. The idea is to offer FranceDirect Members the opportunity to advertise their properties in 'The News' as well as on FranceDirect at a very attractive all-in price. We will be contacting you all soon with further details of this offer.

On a more practical note, may we please ask you to send any booking requests for weeks already reserved to bookingshare@francedirect.co.uk or call +44-(0)113 258 5877. It would seem that some of you pass these weeks to other companies rather than allowing us the opportunity of passing them on to other FranceDirect members. It could be that you are losing out because of this!!!!!!!

Finally, you may have noticed the 'Members Area' on the front page of FranceDirect recently. We are please to say that you can now access this area using the "UserName" and "Password" recently sent to you (Please don't forget them!). This forum will allow Members to exchange information with others Members. Future 'News Flashes' will be published in this area.

Regards 

FranceDirect

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