I'm looking around at Tuscany villas for June 2013. I will have a group of 12-18 artists. I've been emailing like crazy to individual villas but would like some opinions of the agencies that deal with villa rentals. Can anyone recommend a good one?
Nyartist1 - as I mentioned before, the company I sent you information on, will book all the villas for you. They arrange the transportation, etc. So you don't have to. Their specialty IS working with artists who wish to conduct workshops. Have you tried contacting them yet? An agency is only going to charge you an additional fee on top of the cost of the villa.
Yes, I contacted Giuseppe and am waiting for him to get back to me. I wanted to find more than just one lead to pursue. One of the main issues I've run into is this idea of non-refundable deposits. Having lost quite a bit in Portugal several years ago on a deposit that was non-refundable I will not do that again.
Yes, I can understand that for sure!
Unfortunately, you'll be hard put to find someone who will rent to such a large group without a deposit that will be forfeited partly or entirely if you cancel, depending on how far ahead you cancel. They would find it almost impossible to get a new group that size if you pulled out. without lots of warning. The best compromise is probably to pay the deposit and get trip insurance.
I'll look into whether or not trip insurance would cover something like that. Thanks for the idea - it's definitely worth looking into.
I would think the group participants would probably want travel insurance to cover any losses they may incur if they need to cancel their trip. I assume the deposit will be coming from those artists - if so, I would think there must be a way that people can be sure their out of pocket expenses aren't lost if they or someone in their family gets sick.
actually the deposits come from me way before anyone signs up for one of my workshops. I organize these workshops all over, but mostly in France and mostly in hotels where they never ask for deposits. They ask for a certain percentage deposit but much much later in the game - maybe three months before the dates of the workshop. But by then I have a good idea whether or not a workshop will go.
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