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What if you could add a "call to action" to the photos of your vacation rental in your online listings?
One of my subscriber s (Matt) recently sent me a link to a really interesting experiment he did to test if adding a phone number to the photos of his vacation rental property increased the response rates that he received.
In summary, he found that there was a 300% improvement in his vacation rental bookings!
You can see how this makes sense: if you give a prospective renter such a "call to action", they are more likely to call you (rather than send a dozen emails to a dozen different vacation rental properties) and, once you get them on the phone, you have a MUCH better chance to converting their enquiry into a booking for your vacation rental property.
I suspect this works best in the US (or possibly the UK), where the renter and owner both are English speakers. (It may also work as well for French to French or German to German etc). In some cases, non-English speakers prefer email so they have the time to understand the communication. (Although I have noticed I get lot more calls from Italians than any other nationality, for some reason!).
Also, it is unlikely that the big Vacation Rentals sites, such as Homeaway or VRBO are likely to alllow owners to include text on their photos.
However, if you have a personal web site, then I think it is well worth considering Matt's advice to add a "call to action" to your vacation rental photos.
14 Ağustos 2012 Salı
Turning Vacation Rental Photos Into Banners
12 Ways to Delight Your Renters (from Homeaway Community)
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Homeaway run a "Primer for Owners and Property Managers" series that includes some great tips for "delighting" renters of your vacation rental property. The tips are based on comments from renters who are members of the Homeaway community.
Although there is nothing very new or earth shattering in the list of tips, they are a very useful checklist to make sure you are not falling down on any of the basics when it comes to satisfying renters of your vacation property.
In summary, the 12 tips (with sample comments ) are :
1. Great, accurate photos : Take photos of your house when it is nice and bright and not dull. Be sure your house is clean and there is no clutter. Put the toilet seats down when you are taking photos of bathrooms
2. Honest Descriptions : Please make sure that the renters get the home they thought they where renting!
3. Quick and Kind Response to Enquiries : Respond to every inquiry, in a nice and polite way, even if the person clearly did not read your entire listing. Respond with in a day, the faster you respond the faster someone will book. Remember most people are asking 10-20 different home owners about their house. So responding in a fast and kind way is very important. Be sure to include any important things like dates things are due. At the end ask if the person has any questions at all, and tell them you are happy to answer anything!
4. Updated Calendar: It is a waste of everyone's time to be either waiting for e-mail responses or e-mailing back & forth about homes that are booked but don't show as such on the website. If a renter contacts you because your home shows as available, but you respond days later that it is booked, it takes a toll not only on you but on every vacation rental owner out there. This process frustrates renters so badly that many of them wind up getting hotels when they don't want to, just because it takes too much effort for them to book a vacation rental while also avoiding the scams & pitfalls
5. Clear Communications: Have enough communication, but not too much. Be sure to keep in touch with your future renters, but at the same time you don’t want to hassle them too much. Make sure things like payments have a time schedule, and make sure the renters are kept in the loop when dates like deposits due are coming up
6. Payments- Make Them Easy : Easy payments online credit card or paypal type - I don't want to go to a post office to pay money order, or send you a check. Be clear and specific how quickly you want me to pay once I accept your terms and conditions
7. Cleanliness is Next to Godliness: Be sure the house is clean! This is so important. Hire a cleaning service, do not attempt to clean the home on your own
8. A Well Stocked Home : Have a well stocked house. Be sure to have cleaning supplies, toilet paper, paper towels, napkins on hand. It’s also nice to have some small toiletries for your guests, so when they first arrive they can relax and not run to the store
9. Special Rules and Instructions: Please leave special notes and instructions about things and whatever you wish me to be careful about - I understand and appreciate that you're sharing your own home with me
10. Easy Assess to your Homeaway: Have an easy check-in procedure. Your renters might be coming in at late hours, or might have kids with them, they don’t want to hassle with complicated check-ins. The easiest check-ins we have found are simply houses with a combination lock right on the door, no need for keys!
11. Honesty is Always the Best Policy:
Please understand I'm as scared or excited as you're not knowing me and me not knowing your place that I pay for - it's my vacation and I would hate to be disappointed so lets be honest with each other whatever it is...
12. Wifi is a Must : Yes, you have to offer broadband Wi-Fi. The working vacation is here to stay and renters need to be able to stay connected to their business or they will be forced to stay elsewhere whether they want to or not. This is really non-negotiable, and there shouldn't be any further argument.
Bonus ( unlucky 13 !) ..... provide some little extras! : Have a nice welcome note or basket. We have stayed in places in which this makes such a nice impression. A little note to say welcome, a bottle of wine, a basket of fruit. You want to make a nice first impression!
You can find more details on the community section of the Homeaway site
Homeaway Mobile App
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I had a discussion with a vacation rental site owner recently about the increase in the use of Mobile and Tablet devices is going to change the future of the Vacation Rentals business. "In the future, no one will use Search: it's all about Mobile Apps" he said.
It certainly got me thinking: already, managing the number of Apps on your iPhone or Android is becoming painful. Anyone searching for a vacation rental is going to want just one app that will handle this for them, so whoever provides it will have a BIG advantage in the vacation rentals market.
As the 800 lb Gorilla in the Vacation Rentals industry, I checked the Homeaway site to see if they already offer a mobile and sure enough ..... they do!
The Homeaway mobile app is available free for iPhone, Android and iPad and includes powerful functions to help renters find a vacation rental.
Anyone looking for a vacation rental can Search, using an interactive map, to find vacation rentals in the location they are interested in. They can see images and key details ( number of bedrooms, price etc) of properties in each location. They can also filter to refine your search, focusing on key features that they are interested in, such as number of bedrooms, internet access etc.
Once they have found a vacation rental, they can contact the owner to send an enquiry, plus email/ facebook the property to friends and relatives.
I suspect use of the Homeaway mobile app is at relatively early stages, but if and when it catches on, it could further increase the dominance that Homeaway is building.
For the smaller players, this raises further questions about how they will protect their niches.
Avoiding Online Vacation Rental Scams
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ABC News recently ran a feature on Vacation Rental scams, focusing in on "too good to be true" deals in the New York area.
Scammers use sites such as Craigslist or Backpage to advertise fake properties, usually using photos taken from real vacation rentals. They ask for a certain amount of money up front, either via Western Union or through an intermediate bank account and then, when you show up to avail of the rental ..... they are nowhere to be seen!
From the Scammers point of view, one of the advantages of sites such as Craigslist is the fact that they don't need to register and pay for an annual listing and hence can more easily "hit and run", before moving on to the next target.
ABC's recommendation is to stick with the "more reputable" vacation rental sites, like VRBO (or you can find others listed on COHR). With a little bit of due diligence, you can be more confident that the listings on these sites are genuine. For example, these sites charge an annual listing fee and many of them clearly show how long each listing has been active: listings that have been there for more than a year are unlikely to be spammers.
Also, many of these sites feature guest reviews: although it is possible to fake these, most sites take at least some steps to ensure the reviews are genuine.
Although not completely immune to scammers, you can certainly reduce the risk by sticking to the larger vacation rental sites.
Washington Post Vacation Rental Article and Reviews
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Following on from my recent post about Vacation Rental Scams, the Washington Post recently had an article about a Vacation Rental that was also "too good to be true". However, in this case, the main issue was that, according to the renter, the reviews of the rental property (posted on Homeaway) turned out to be far too favorable and hence misleading.
The apartment that Frank Leibsly rented in London turned out not to be the "five star" experience he expected. He posted a suitably negative "one star" review on Homeaway, which was as first removed and then re-instated.
Most owners worry about recieving a negative review and this can, in fact, deter them from even asking for a review from their renters.
However, this article highlights another potentially disturbing issue with reviews: are they real or are they, in fact, posted by the vacation rental owners to create a misleadingly positive impression of the vacation rental property?
There is anecdotal evidence that the number of misleading reviews is increasing.
However, Research indicates that overall, posting reviews has a positive impact on attracting renters. Nevertheless, if there are more experiences such as this one, those impressions may change.