How often do proprietors respond to your e-mail inquiries?
 

When I planned my last European trip I got a response from most of my e-mails and made the majority of my reservations that way. I have been sending e-mail inquiries constantly for the past couple of weeks and have gotten one reply. I am traveling to Greece and Turkey and wonder if this is common. When we traveled to Italy, Germany, England. France and Spain everyone was very responsive. I know that faxing is an option but because I do not have two telephone lines I would have to know when to expect a fax. I prefer not to have my plans publicized at work so I am trying to avoid this. What do most of you do?

When are you traveling? This month is very busy in many tourist destinations in Europe and it may take them a few weeks to get back to you.

We are not traveling until next June. However, because I am trying to tighten up our itineray it is kind of difficult to make more concrete plans. For example, I want to do a gulet trip in Turkey and then visit Cirali/Olypos. I am only interested in two establishments there but I have gotten no response from the hotels or gulet owners. I understand being busy but e-mail dissapears after awhile. BTW I enjoyed you TR on Greece.

Thanks! One of these days I will finish it!

almost always. I also always write back, even when I don't want to use their services and thank them for their courtesy in replying.
We made reservations in Greece for drivers/tour guides and they were also good about replying.

We haven't been to Turkey, but we were planning to go and I had a good guide lined up that was very courteous and answered a LOT of my questions.

I do have Server problems - be sure that your messages are being sent! Also, some Europeans don't "live" on the computer as we tend to, and only reply weekly. Or maybe are on a vacation!

Good luck.

I haven't tried emailing those countries, so can't say. I most other countries where I've been in Europe, I get responses to email about 90 pct of the time. I've had a few 2* hotels or small inns in Provence never answer, those are the only ones who just never replied to my inquiry.


Just wanted to say there is a solution to the FAX problem -- don't you have FAX capabilities on your computer? I used to send FAXes that way and could time them so they were sent in the middle of the night my time and thus cost the least. It was just transmitting a WORD document, basically. As for return FAXes, there are free online FAX places that give you a phone number you can give out to people to receive FAXes, and then you go in and collect them when you want (or they email them to you, I forget). This would solve your problem about needing your phone line free to receive them (which I had at home, also).

www.efax.com is one that lets you received FAXes for free (I think those services always charge to send them, but you can get some receiving free). Another is jconnect, which used to be JFAX. I think that one is pretty well known, I have a friend who used it a lot and says it works great. This is the URL to sign up for the free service part.
http://www.j2.com/jconnect/twa/page/servicesOverview

As someone who manages rental properties, I ALWAYS respond to requests ASAP - usually within hours. If we're travelling it's harder since, even with a laptop I can't always get access. My favourite response to someone last year was 'Sorry, I'm currently in Samarkand and dont have easy access.' It was true, very slow dial up access in the hotel lobby. But how often do you get to mention that you are in Samarkand?


Sometimes there are server problems, and so I always hope that people will try again if they havent heard from me. For weeks one year I couldn't get through to Hotmail. And some servers seem over-sensitive to Spam, and refuse to accept Wanadoo even though it's the France Telecom system. Very frustrating for people on both ends. So I would suggest you try again.

I, also, have been sending e-mails this past week or two, with some replies coming, but many not. I decided to use another e-mail address (at work)to see if my e-mail was the problem. Guess what! It was my server. Each one replied almost immediately to my work e-mail, saying that they had not been able to get through to my other address. So, you might check your server.

Thank you. I will send some inquiries from work now. I will also look into the fax by computer.

Carlux,
Just looked up Samarkand. It looks great.

Guess what? I sent e-mails and got some immediate replies. Still none from others but will still try again. Thanks.