My Vacation Rental Shop

My Vacation Rental Shop

Do you want or need more direct bookings?

In this article, I outline 2 methods that you can employ to fill those empty weeks...

Imagine, for a minute, that there is no internet.

I’m in the vacation rental business but I can’t advertise online because there is no online.

I’m going to have to open a shop, just as I would for any other type of sales business.

I’m not selling fruit and vegetables, bicycles or jewellery - Instead, I’m selling vacations at my rentals. 

So, I get some premises, order some office furniture, put up photos of my rentals and open for business.

On the first day of business around 20 people come into the shop.

Some are just browsing, some take some information away, some chat for a while.

No one books a vacation.

Day 2 sees a similar pattern - 20 visitors, no bookings.

This goes on all week but happy days - I take a booking on the Friday - 1 high season week.


This goes on for a few months…

Around 400 shop visitors a month. Around a booking a week. Sometimes for a short stay, sometimes a week or 10 day booking.

The bottom line is… I need more bookings.

 I can increase bookings in two ways.

  1. I need to increase the number of visitors to my shop 
  2. I need to increase my current conversion rate of 1 in 100 visitors
Better still I can employ both of these tactics.


So, how can I attract more visitors to my shop?

  1. I could put up more signposts around town. 
  2. Maybe pay for some billboard advertising along the roads into town. 
  3. I could hand out flyers in the town centre.
  4. I could improve my signage.
  5. I could employ someone to walk around with a sandwich board.
  6. I could look to become the best (known) vacation rental shop in town by building my brand.

How can I increase my conversion rate?

First off, I need to think like my customers and stop thinking like a vacation rental owner.

The harsh truth is that everything that I’m selling is for my benefit. The shop is entirely focused on what I’m selling, not what my shop visitors are looking to buy.

My shoppers are looking to buy into a vacation but I’m only selling accommodation. 

I need a plan…

When anyone is looking to go on vacation he or she starts with a mental list of questions.

Where will we go?

When will we go?

How will we get there?

How far is it from the airport?

What will we do when we go there?

Will it be a good place for the kids?

Can I play golf or go horse riding or quad biking?

Can my wife go to yoga classes or watercolour lessons?

Where will we eat and drink?

Where will we stay?

Under my current thinking/marketing plan, I can only answer the last question so I realise that my visitors aren’t booking because they still have lots of unanswered questions. 

These unanswered questions cause doubts and inhibit bookings.

I refit the shop so that I have a travel section, a kids section, an activities section and a cafe, bar and restaurant recommendations section.

I’m now offering answers to potential guests questions. This removes the doubt in their minds and projects much more of a vacation feeling.

Since placing billboards around town, handing out flyers and adding new exterior signage I’m now getting around 30 visitors a day to the shop so I’ve increased footfall by 50%

Better still, since refitting the shop I’ve noticed that people stay in the shop longer, they chat more about the activities and seem to get more excited in general.

I’ve doubled my conversion rate from 1 in a 100 to 1 in 50.

By taking these steps I’ve gone from 1 booking a week to 3 bookings a week. 


Back to the internet…

Now, of course, no one has a physical vacation rental shop but our shop windows to the world are our websites and if we want more bookings through our websites then we need to employ the two methods mentioned above.

First off, we need to increase traffic by advertising and building our brand.

We can up our game across social media (the online equivalent of billboards and handing out flyers). 

Facebook, Pinterest, Google Plus, Twitter and Linkedin are all completely free to use for this purpose and most can be automatically populated via services like If this, then that (ifttt.com) and Zapier (.com). 

Secondly, we need to alter the focus of our websites to be customer focused not owner-centric. People go on vacation, not vacation rental. Owners that only market their houses are little more than property bores and no one likes a bore. Especially Google.

The reality is that with the way things are going with the listings sites and over saturation of the marketplace, more and more owners are going to be shutting up shop. Quite literally.  
There are only two types of owner/ manager. Those that accept bookings and those that create bookings.

If your marketing is solely dependant on third-party listing sites then you are at the mercy of their ever-changing display criteria and profiteering. You can only accept the enquiries and bookings that they decide to send you.

Many owners are already seeing this happen as more and more properties enter the marketplace, bookings are falling

If you have your own website and you are actively working on increasing your web traffic and on increasing your conversions you can create bookings as in the example above.

The choice is yours


Alan Egan is co-founder and head chef at Vacation Soup, a platform that helps vacation rental owners build their brand in order to help them escape the ever-rising costs of doing business with the big listing companies.

The soup is a commission-free platform where we encourage owner/guest communication throughout the entire discovery, booking and experience process.

Find out how vacation soup works here














Remi Thackrey

Proprietor at "Collioure.Vacations" - Beach Holiday Properties in the South of France

5y

This is a perfect demonstration of how to engage and think like a consumer. I would add a 3rd and 4th option. travelers are not looking for how many plug sockets a house has! They are looking for what to do and see in on vacation. They think about which photo's they will show their friends when they get home. Capture them at this stage and you will win. Increase the number of potential customers, increase the conversion rate, and my 3rd and 4th option. 3rd option increase the transaction value by making the stay personal and interactive, people pay more for a personal service. Also, 4th option, increase the repeat business,, more information about the local area and more local knowledge pays off in repeat customers who trust your judgement. Our industry is people based and should continue to be so.

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Damian Sheridan

Founder & Director at SCALE

5y

There are only two types of owner/ manager. Those that accept bookings and those that create bookings.  Great takeaway line Alan!

Kevin Reardon

Principal @ Hotel Accelerator | J.D. | Independent Hotel Development

5y

Thanks for sharing Alan! The one thing I would caution others is thinking of “social” platforms as billboards. 95% of small businesses fall into this trap. Each platform has its own community and nuances, and only when executed effectively in the context of the platform, their use can lead to exponential returns.

Francis Wallinger

Entrepreneur, Technologist, Solutions Architect, Make-it-happen man, NED

5y

Brilliant way of showing what some of us have spent fortunes finding out the hard way. Our message should not be about what we want to say, but about what the listener wants to hear.

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