BRITTANY Ferries has expanded its gite programme on the back of a 22% increase in bookings last year.
There are 100 new properties throughout France, taking the total to 1,500.
New regions featured by Brittany are Haut Rhin in Alsace, Marne and Meuse in Champagne Ardennes, and Val d’Oise in Ile de France.
The 2000 brochure also includes a new service which allows holidaymakers to leave the end-of-holiday cleaning to the owner for an additional, variable fee, and details of more than 550 properties that will take dogs when pet passports are introduced later this year.
A selection of gites in Brittany, Normandy and the Loire are available for short breaks of two nights or more until April.
Special offers include an 20% early-booking discount until February 15 and free en-route accommodation.
The ferry operator has also expanded its renamed Holidaying in France and Spain programme – the brochure was previously branded Holiday Homes and Hotels – with more short-break cottages in Brittany and 10 extra holiday apartment locations in Normandy, Brittany, Western Loire, Aquitaine, and the Cote D’Azur.
There are also two more holiday villages in southern France. Prices start at £364 per week for a family of four including return Portsmouth-Caen ferry crossing with car.
In Spain, there is a new seven-night car tour around the Rioja wine region, which costs from £282 per person for seven nights’ half-board accommodation in paradores.
The brochure also features a selection of rural properties in northern Portugal and the Algarve to take advantage of improved road links from the port of Santander into Portugal.
SeaFrance’s European Life self-drive short-breaks programme has grown, with the addition of more than 70 hotels in Paris, Picardy, Champagne and Normandy. This now takes the total number of properties to more than 1,000.
The brochure majors on France but includes Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria and Germany. Prices in France start at £79 per person bed and breakfast for two nights at Le Francois 1er Hotel in Revin including ferry crossing.
P&O North Sea Ferries’ short-breaks brochure is operated by Travelscene. It includes hotels in Amsterdam, Bruges and Brussels and motoring holidays.
AEurope Free As You Please self-drive programme based on Campanile, Clarine, Novotel and Holland hotel groups makes its debut in Stena Line Holidays’ Holiday Holland 2000 brochure.
Stena is also offering clients the option of travelling via Dover-Calais as an alternative to its HSS fast-ferry service from Harwich to Hook of Holland and has increased the hotel selection in Amsterdam from seven to 17 properties.
The programme features the Gran Dorado holiday villages, The Hague, Rotterdam and a self-drive tour of the Golden Circle Dutch villages, dotted around the former Zeiderzee.
DFDS is offering a larger programme in Germany after increasing sailings from Harwich-Hamburg this year to seven a fortnight, instead of three a week, with departures every other day.
New features in the Motoring Holidays brochure include a family holiday combining Cologne with Phanstasialand theme park from £198 per person, and the Radisson SAS Hotel Binz health spa resort on Germany’s Baltic coast.
The Germany programme also features touring hotels, Gran Dorado and Center Parcs holiday villages and apartments.
TABLE: Loire Valley: short breaks of two nights or more are available until April with Brittany Ferries
Operator panel
Brittany Ferries
Holiday programme: Gite Holidays in France; Holidaying in France and Spain; Short Breaks in France and Spain; Golfing in France; Ferry Guide France and Spain.
Ports served: Portsmouth-Caen and St Malo; Plymouth-Roscoff and Santander; Poole-Cherbourg.
P&O Portsmouth
Ports served: Portsmouth-Le Havre, Cherbourg and Bilbao in Spain.
P&O North Sea Ferries
Ports served: Hull-Rotterdam, Hull-Zeebrugge.
Hoverspeed
Holiday programmes: Short Breaks; Short Breaks in Flanders.
Ports served: Newhaven-Dieppe; Folkestone-Boulogne; Dover- Calais; Dover-Ostend.
P&O Stena Line
Ports served: Dover-Calais.
SeaFrance
Holiday programmes: European Life Self-Drive Holidays.
Ports served: Dover-Calais.
Stena Line
Holiday programmes: Holiday Holland.
Ports served: Harwich-Hook of Holland.
DFDS Seaways
Holiday programmes: Motoring Holidays.
Ports served: Harwich-Hamburg.
Europe
Brittany Ferries: lead price in the gite brochure is £235 per person for one week at a property near Limoges, France including return ferry crossing Portsmouth-Caen with car. The property sleeps four people and will take dogs.
Hoverspeed: one night at the three-star Hotel Aguado in Dieppe, France costs from £55 per person bed and breakfast based on two sharing including return travel with car.
SeaFrance: two nights at Aux Armes de Champagne in L’Epine/Epernay in Champagne, France cost from £123 per person bed and breakfast including ferry crossing with car.
Stena Line Holidays: three nights Europe Go As You Please costs from £108 per person accommodation-only at Campanile or Clarine hotels including return ferry crossing.
DFDS Seaways: seven nights at Center Parcs’ Bispinger Heide holiday village, plus two on board ship and one at the Forum Hotel, Hamburg, costs from £280 per person including return ferry travel with car.