As a vacation rental owner, every inquiry I receive represents an opportunity to book a vacation rental and more importantly an opportunity to generate revenue.  The way I choose to respond to an inquiry is so important for my business and can make it or break it for me. It’s the first form of communication that is generated from me and sent directly to a prospective renter and first impressions do matter! I believe that if I impress a prospect when I reply to their request to rent, my chances of getting the booking increases dramatically. I personally can’t count how many times I’ve sent an inquiry to a rental owner or manager only to receive a lackluster reply that doesn’t satisfy my request to rent or the reply is sent long after submitted and I’ve lost interest. My opinion of that company or owner quickly deteriorates.

Think about it…if you can’t send a quick and complete response to a person’s inquiry regarding the rental of a vacation home, do you think they are going to have confidence in the house and/or the services you provide? Probably not! Because of this, I designed an inquiry response system that responds automatically and includes a quote for requested dates, calls out features about my property, and also includes some simple property rules and/or restrictions. I also give them the ability to quickly link to my booking process which makes it easy to rent my place 24/7. This enables me, as well as my clients, to have the response process down to a science. I assure you that I now have a better opportunity of consistently booking my rentals.

What does an effective inquiry response reply look like? Here are a few tips to set you up for success. 

1.      Respond immediately to inquiries. And by immediately, I mean within the hour. When searching for the perfect vacation rental, people will inquire on several properties at a time. If you are the first to get back to them, you have increased your chances of them booking with you.  It also shows to the potential guest that you are a serious about renting your vacation home.  I have clients that have increased their bookings by simply automating the reply process and immediately responding to inquiries. The prospects are then sent to their website where they can book online 24/7.

2.      Include ALL the details in the response.  I am elated when I receive a response email that contains all the important details that I need to make an informed decision. This saves me time and I don’t have to continue contacting someone for additional information. The information is located in one email and it’s easy for me to refer back to it. This should be your goal….make it SIMPLE for the inquirer to make an informed decision. Your response email should include a general greeting, picture of the rental, ad/site listing number, information about the property’s key aspects, booking website, and most importantly a quote including security deposits, cleaning fees, taxes, as well as payment terms. Renters want to know the total cost upfront and quickly providing this information will help capture that booking while the iron is hot!  

3.       Provide local information.  What cool local features, events, activities, or venues are located near your rental or in the surrounding area? This type of information can save potential renters time researching things to see and do, and helps them in planning their trip.  It can also provide additional benefits to renting your vacation home, especially if there are some cool activities close by.  

4.      Make it professional. Online fraud is such a huge issue today. Professionally crafted responses can establish you as a credible business that a renter can trust to do business with. If your inquiry responses are kept professional and complete, potential renters will be more comfortable with making a reservation and your online payment process. Also, make sure your email address contains your company name or your full name if you’re an owner managing your own rental.  This will allow prospects to quickly recognize a legitimate email address and not a potential scam.

Accomplishing all this manually can be a daunting daily task, especially if you receive an overwhelming number of inquiries each day. With MyVRMS’ vacation rental management system, you can automate the response process and include all these tips to help increase your online bookings 24/7.

Dava Trusner is the founder of MyVRMS. For more information or a personal one-on-one demonstration, contact Dava at info@myvrms.com.

Often I think of new ways to fill vacancies, those unruly reservation gaps that make you want to cry!

When you look at your existing reservation calendar and see an open night in between two reservations, why not try to fill this vacancy by upselling it to your upcoming guests.

Give your vacation rental guests a call and offer the extra night for a discounted rate. Offering this open night at a discounted rate, increases your overall vacation rental revenue with minimal effort. Most guests will be willing to take you up on the offer to extend their family getaway just one extra night. Like the old saying goes, "Ask and you shall receive?"

The beauty in this is that you've got two potential takers, the departing guests and the arriving guests. I suspect one of them will take you up on the offer.

Another option is to offer a late departure or an early arrival for an extra fee.

These days its all about maximizing what you get with what you have! So try it out and keep us all posted on how it goes!

A friend of mine recently stayed in a vacation rental and I asked her how she liked it. She replied, “I loved it. I will never forget this place because when the owner sent back my deposit check, she also sent me a handwritten note thanking me for my business. I was pleasantly surprised!” I thought, WOW now that is good client follow up. So with that, what are you doing to show your guests that you appreciate their business?

I then reflected on myself that I could do a better job with guest follow-up. So, I decided to create a thank you postcard for my guests. I will send this note via the post office mail, after my renters have left so they will have a memoir to remind them where to find me again if they decide to return. It will also show my appreciation for their business. Since I do not collect/return deposits, I had to think of something that would fit my business philosophy. I thought of this idea because I have heard a few guests of mine tell me that they couldn’t remember where to find my place. I’m not sure about you but if you’ve ever tried to locate a rental within the advertising sites these days, it can be tough weeding through it all, not to mention remembering the place you rented last year. Why not save them some work and provide a card that they can put on their fridge or store in a place where they can find it and go directly to your ad or site versus surfing for it and ultimately renting from someone else.

 I encourage you to think of your own situation and provide that extra little effort that may reap you repeat business! Happy renting.

I just read an article on insights as to Google's strategy with placement of search results. It appears that some are closely watching this switch as it might bring a whole new mountain to conquer if you are trying to tackle search engine placement with your own personal property website. SEO economists have seen that Google is placing high relevance on "brand names". For example, if one enters a search term in a browser typically 10 results would be served on the first page with those 10 being unique sites. NOW, they are showing a sites links as sub categories under the main placement, see screen shot below. This means that real estate on the search result pages will now contain less variety. One site and its pages/links could take up half of page 1. This also means that if you are not a "brand name", you could very well end up on page 7 when you were on page 1. This will also appear to force more to focus on paid placement vs organic placement because organic placement will now be eaten up by the "big guy". This is now being tested in a few selected areas, mostly the UK...but if Google likes it, then it could become a standard around the globe!

For the related article, visit http://www.tnooz.com/2011/08/16/news/time-to-wave-goodbye-to-intermediaries-in-travel-brand-search-results/?utm_source=Tnooz+Mailing+List&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=00dfb37d58-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

I recently stayed in a hotel in San Diego vs renting a vacation rental this summer and I was overwhelmed when I got the bill. Not only was I charged the typical nightly rate, but I was also charged a city tax, a state tax, parking, and a resort fee. My 275.00 a night hotel room turned into 350.00 per night. I was shocked! Since I'm in the vacation rental business, I immediately thought, WOW this is a good incentive to rent a vacation rental vs a hotel! I could have found a VR for less with a kitchen and more room. The other major bummer was that the card keys the hotel gave us didnt work well. We had to use it in the elevator, to get in the pool, and to get into the workout room. After too many failed attempts for it to work properly, I had to go to the guest service counter twice and get new card keys. I was so frustrated, that I almost checked out, but realized they probably would have charged me anyway. So, I just let it go....but I certainly didnt forget. So, if you manage a vacation rental, do some homework of your surrounding hotels, see what they charge, not just nightly, but all the other add on fees that are not negotiable. Use this as a selling tool to promote your VR! Let your guests know that there are no surprises when you checkin or out of what is being charged. I think vacationers will see this as they begin to stay in VR's more and more, then venture back to a hotel and realize WOW that was more expensive than I thought it was going to be.

Happy Renting!

Each time I get a call from a prospective renter, the question always comes up. Do you own the property? In my case, the answer is yes.

Recently I noticed that Tripadvisor wants renters to know who is managing a vacation rental. Is it owner managed or professionally managed?

Some renters prefer owner managed, some prefer professionally managed. With this clear distinction, the guessing goes away!

With owner or professionally managed properties, challenges exist on both sides. Owners are sometimes managing from afar which can be a problem when emergencies arise. The upside is that I’ve seen most owners give exceptional service and care of their property. Professionally managed properties can loose that personal touch but also provide extra services that an owner managed property may not.

Whichever side of the fence you are on, each can be equally rewarding and equally disappointing. With social media now, it seems that nothing is left un-done due to the review systems that call out every flaw.

I think Tripadvisor has done a great job in presenting the property fairly to renters. I know owners want it and I’m sure property managers do too. Like they say, be honest and be upfront about your properties qualities so renters are not left in the un-known.

Have you embraced social media yet?

I can relate if your answer is no.....BUT

If your rental isn’t on Facebook, you could be missing an advertising channel that may help you get more bookings!

How can a Facebook page help you get bookings?

Let me explain;

First, it’s free to have a Facebook page.

Second, its easy to manage, unlike your own website which requires creating a URL, buying it, getting it hosted, not to mention any custom changes or ideas typically require programming assistance which costs money. Facebook can be an easy free alternative.

Facebook is not just popular with the “twenty-somethings”, businesses are jumping to facebook to build awareness, connect with clients, and market what they have to sell, so why shouldn’t you? You have to build awareness. You have clients and you have something to sell, right?

I am constantly thinking of ideas on how to promote my social media sites for my vacation rental. I want to offer a few ideas for you to consider;

First, create a facebook page if you have not already. Start with one social tool first, master it, then move onto another site like twitter or linkedin.

I recommend setting up your facebook page as a places page. The reason for this is that you can allow people to "checkin" to your vacation rental. You can also categorize your vacation rental facebook page under the appropriate category, like "hotel" or "travel/leisure". This is important when you choose which category your places page should be under.

Some ideas once you have established that;

• Promote your guests that stay at your vacation rental to "like" your facebook page. This is important because anyone who likes your page will be displayed in their profile as a page they like, which can promote your page to their friends/family.
  
• Promote your guests to share their stay or pictures on your vacation rental page. 
  

I will add more stuff on this in the future, so return for more cool ideas!

 A tagline one of the co-founders of Dwellable didn’t experience with a recent vacation rental stay in Oahu. After researching a place to stay, he decided on one, but when he arrived, it was not as described. From this experience, pain became passion.  He decided to launch into the vacation rental industry to enhance the renter experience by providing better search functionality for vacation rentals. The co-founders are loaded with internet experience. Given their success with Urbanspoon, it is obvious that the founders know how to bring success to startups.

Dwellable is a free indexing vacation rental site that will revolutionize how properties are searched. With big beautiful pictures, fast browsing, slice and dice options, the searcher can easily find a property that suits their needs. It is currently in beta but gaining ground very fast as you can see by the 12,000 listings already hosted on Dwellable.

The vacation rental industry is evolving quickly as more and more players jump in to provide a better experience for renters, owners and managers. Dwellable is definitely one  company to keep an eye on.

Visit www.dwellable.com

The Vacation Rental Industry is evolving and online booking is becoming a necessary item for renters wanting to book a property. Renters want to book properties that are easy to book and easy to gain access to, but you must prepare for online bookings before implementing this approach.

First, you must have a keyless entry system for your vacation rental. Why? Because last minute bookings can occur much later than previous booking methods. You might receive a booking for the weekend on a thursday evening and you need to be prepared to get the guest access the following day. If your having to mail a key, you will loose that booking and frustrate potential guests. Also, have a backup key in a lockbox in case of any failures with your keyless system.

Second, you must have communicated with your cleaning service upfront about their policy for receiving a cleaning request on short notice. Be upfront with your cleaning company that bookings can occur at the last minute and is this something they can accommodate or is there an extra charge for such last minute scheduling.

Third, you must check your email at least twice a day so you are aware of bookings that occur. With mobile phones these days, this really is not a problem, but if your on vacation, dont forget to check it daily.

Fourth, if your vacation rental requires a parking permit or pass, then you must have a solution to get this to your renter without having to mail it. Since my rental does require this, I keep a stack of parking passes in the unit for renters to grab and use. This has worked out really well for those last minute guests.

The last and most important, are you ready to accept online bookings? Change is not easy but of all the changes you make, simplifying the management of your rental is a nice change. It is great knowing that I am not missing out on bookings because I didnt return a phone call, or forgot to check my email for a few days.

Vacation Rental Advertising sites are popping up everywhere. Which one do you advertise on? and which one is owned by who?

A Vacation Rental owner has many choices when choosing to pay for advertising for their vacation rental. Im often asked, which one should I advertise on?

I always respond with try out one of the big guys first, get some traffic, then move to some others that are not owned by the same corporation. This way you are spreading the inventory across competitive sites and competition always promotes businesses to offer better service. I currently advertise on 6 sites. Although, 2 of the sites bring me the most inquiry traffic and ultimately the most bookings, I still keep advertising on the little sites hoping to get some momentum from them.  To help promote the other sites, I will create an email marketing campaign to my past inquirers or renters and include a link to one of these sites for the renter to re-inquire about my property via that site. This way, the renter can see that they can visit other sites besides the one they may have been using in the past. Sometimes a renter may find functionality on those other sites that they prefer and possibly tell a friend. At least thats my hope! If you have been following the Vacation Rental industry news, you also know that Homeaway keeps gobbling up the little guys. I have heard many owners and managers unhappy with some of the rules they have forced on their customers, so I say let's all promote the little guys so that we help build a competitive spirit that will foster companies to choose what is best for the paying consumer instead of what might be best for them.

If you are ready to venture out to some other advertising solutions for your property, review the list below and try one out. In this exercise, I have found a few sites that I really like using.

Vacationrental advertising sites Public.doc (67.00 kb)