Bookings and Occupancy Rate
HOW TO INCREASE YOUR CHANCE OF GETTING BOOKINGS
A vacation rental is rated by the number of bookings and reviews it receives. These ratings and bookings are not easy to come by. Maybe you have listed your property on many listing websites but bookings fail to come through. There are some factors that make a vacation renter successful. We shall highlight the importance of some of these factors to increase your bookings.
You need to put your property out there to be seen.
In vacation rentals business, there is a need for advertisement. Advertisement can be made through several media. For instance the A5-flyers and posters distributed around the neighborhood, the use of social media, radio adverts, listing sites and the highly rated television adverts.
But how efficient these media are depends on you and several other factors. You could have the best vacation rental ever, with world-class, great features, but if you aren’t getting seen, how will anyone book you?
They say “the best place to keep a secret is on the second page of Google”. The same applies to listings on all websites, if they don’t appear on the first page, they’re no use. They don’t appear on first page because they don’t meet the right criteria.
The secret of increasing your occupancy rate is to get your listing well structured.
Tips To Increase Your Bookings and Occupancy Rate
Good Description
Whichever means the advert is, the devil is always in the details. In this case, let us not forget that advertisement via the social media has been the easiest and the most poorly utilized.
But for the purpose of this article on vacation rentals related adverts, we shall concentrate on how to make your listing stand out among the others.
The key to a listing with high conversion rate is copywriting and photography.
Quality Photos
The first impression you make to a potential guest is through the photos on your listing.
Research shows that travelers are 150% more engaged with listings with more than 10 images than with properties that have only a few.
Also that over 60% of customers considers clear and detailed images to be very important and even carry more weight than the description.
Read Importance of Quality Photos on Vacation Rentals Booking Rate.
Timely Response
Travelers tend to send booking requests to several listings in their destination area and our research shows that a traveler will book with the first responder in 80% of the cases.
You can stay in the loop by activating SMS notification. This is done by verifying your mobile number, so that you get notified on all events relating to your listing.
Check-in Management
Another important tool that many take for granted is the check-in/ key handover procedures. This aspect of vacation rentals is the most important because it is the first impression and face to face encounter with your guests from a listing site.
How smooth and comfortable a guest’s stay will be in your rental is determined by the check-in experience. And that will surely guarantee you a review-positive or negative.
Managing check-ins and check-outs can be very time consuming. Innovative companies can take that burden off by arranging key pick up with the café next door or simply check-in them for you at a cost of course.
But whatever the cost may be, it guarantees you a positive review which will in turn earn you more bookings.
Verified Profile
Your profile tells your prospective guests about you. It creates some sense of familiarity and security for them.
Hence, putting up a profile picture and writing a few lines about you go a long way in filling the void.
Then taking a step to verify your identity in order to earn the Verified badge on your profile gives them the sense of security they need.
Update Your Listing Regularly
Regular visit to your listings to check what needs to be updated helps you keep your listings abreast with latest developments in your property.
And a listing that is regularly updated stands a chance of making it to the first page than one last updated months away.
Create a secure environment
Everyone needs a sense of security. Features like burglar alarms and CCTV will help you save energy and improve insecurity for your guests and your property.
This will surely give you a rating at the end of every stay.
Another factor is your communication skills coupled
Many guests can be troublesome and demanding. Never forget the popular saying that “customers are always right”. Your attitude towards solving your guests’ problem is very important. As a host, you may be forced to act but first make your guests feel at home and in control, then you can later clear the air on whatever the problem is.
Communication and attitude are very important tools in all business. A constructive interaction and positive attitude towards guests will surely rate your customer relation high thereby earn you more bookings. See How to be a great renter.
Property Management Systems
Creating a website isn’t an easy task. You can simply stay on top of bookings and check-ins and accept payments for the bookings by utilizing the vacation rentals websites with flexible, secured and most importantly local payment methods.
Statistics shows that around 87% of travelers in the U.S pay for vacation rentals using their credit/debit cards or PayPal and 11% use cash. 42% of Kenya GDP is transacted on MPESA.
Over 19 millions Kenyans pay using the mobile money (MPESA) alone. An average of 60% of Kenyans has access to either mobile money and credit/debit cards. Only a minor fraction still uses cash as a means of payment.
All these have been put in place on our website to help make payment easy. Flexible payment means makes it easier to convert any user to guests.
