Once we have our vacations rental website, the challenge will be to promote it. There are many actions related to online marketing to be taken trough different channels, like search engines, social media or Email, to promote a website.
In any case, before exploring the online marketing possibilities, a website has to be understood as a cover letter for our vacations rental business. Therefore, it is important to make it available to all guests, using simple methods such as:
Written communications
In all communications related to our vacations rental, should be included the website address. Not only that, but whenever possible, a request could be answered suggesting to follow a link to the website. For example, if we are often requested about some popular activity in our destination, we could have a local information page, prepared about such activity.
Inside the property
Once the guests have arrived at the house, there are many places where with some imagination the website address could be set, as on the welcoming documentation, or for example, with adhesives attached to consumables that we could leave to the guests, during their stay.
It is essential that the guest of a vacations rental, perceives that the accommodation service is provided by the owner or the property manager, specially if they have booked with an intermediary. Here lies the importance, to stablish a reference or a meeting point for future bookings, which just can be our vacations rental website.
Each vacations rental needs a name, that identifies it unequivocally, and it should be part of its website name. For which we will distinguish two elements; the title and the domain. To help our website to get a good ranking, in the search engine results, it is important that those two elements include the keywords, for which we want to compete.
The deals with a promo code, are a good way to encourage returning guests to book directly with us, via our website. A promo code is nothing more than the evolution, in the e-commerce field, of the discount coupons, an old strategy of commercial promotion, which main goal is the customer loyalty.
Germany with the other German speaking countries, form the main European touristic market, which makes it a very interesting market, where to promote a vacations rental. Germany has not been left out of the impact, that has meant the irruption of Airbnb, neither the entry of Booking.com, in the vacation rental market. Even so, it has its own ecosystem of well consolidated websites, in which any vacation rental property, that wants to be promoted in the German market, should be advetised.
The vacation rental listing sites, enjoy large audiences and they are not only a good option, to gain visibility for our holiday rental offer, but in most cases, they are the main source of reservations. Reasons more than enough, not to leave out and make a good use of them, maximizing our ads. On the other hand, they have a high cost in commissions and above all, entail a loss of control, especially in regard to contact and customer loyalty.
Setting the prices of a vacation rental correctly is important to have a good occupation, with maximum profitability.
This is a practical example of how to set the rates for a vacation rental, located in a spot from the Mediterranean basin, such as Mallorca and aimed at the German market, segmented by families with children, for 2022.
Since the advent of Airbnb in 2008, it has become the leading holiday rental portal, to the point that not only the vast majority of homeowners advertise their properties there, but many small homeowners have Airbnb as their unique marketing channel. The best alternative to Airbnb and other listing sites, for not having to pay commissions and customer loyalty, is your own vacation rental site.
Cancellations are inevitable in the vacation rental industry, but they can also cause significant losses for owners and managers. Therefore, it is important to have a clear and effective cancellation strategy that can balance the needs of both hosts and guests.