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vacationsoup · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://vacationsoup.com/vacation-rental-owners-christmas-list/

The Vacation Rental Owners Christmas List

Where does the time go? It’s December already and no sooner has the last year of business almost nearly ended, the next is about to start.

So, what’s on your Christmas list?

If you are a vacation rental owner we’ve put together a Christmas list of things that may well take your business to new levels in 2019 -

Books...

1.. The worlds sexiest bedrooms

Guests spend up to 40% of their vacation in the bedroom so making your bedrooms sexier can add to your curb appeal and bring in more bookings. This book looks at some of the sexiest bedrooms on the planet so why not add it to your Christmas list and use it as inspiration for a bedroom makeover.

Your guests will love you for your efforts.

This book costs around £20

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Smith-Presents-Worlds-Sexiest-Bedrooms/dp/0500021783

2. Boutique Homes

Success in the vacation rental market largely depends on you standing out from the crowd and this book takes a look at the concept of boutique homes.

Boutique hotels command a premium price and clientele so why not create a boutique home?

You can have a fairly good sneak preview of the book by clicking the link below.

https://www.boutique-homes.com/the-book/

You can buy the book here

3. The Vacation Rental Photography And Staging Bible

More Christmas reading...

The easiest way to get more bookings is by having better photos. This fact will never change. The bulk of buying decisions are based on visual stimuli and this ebook shows you, in easy to follow steps, how to produce eye-catching images that will trigger more bookings.

Download your copy here

Videos...

4, Improve your marketing photos

Following on from the vacation Rental Photography and Staging Bible, you can see a vacation rental photography video presentation that I created for the VRMA here, It's free to watch and I guarantee that you will learn some new tips and tricks that will boost bookings.

5. Get the recordings from this year's Vacation Rental World Summit (VRWS)

This event is probably the best VR marketing event of the year, year on year and this years event was the best so far.

If you didn’t make it to Lake Como in Italy do not despair. You can buy access to all of the presentations and these cover all sorts of areas in the VR business. Get up to date insights about data, branding, voice, marketing, Airbnb, Booking (dot com) and much more.

This is a great deal. The offer is a 7-day trial at €1, then a one time charge of €197 after the 7th day for lifetime access to all recordings, materials and MP3 audio files. There's a 30-day money back guarantee as well!

Buy the recordings here

Marketing Improvements...

6. Ditch the jigsaw over Christmas and create a stunning website for your property instead

Although we all love some time off over Christmas, things can get a bit dull between Christmas and the new year. You can only watch Die Hard so many times and jigsaws may while away the hours but they aren’t exactly rewarding.

So, why not spend some of that time creating a new website for your business?

We are still giving away free, best in class, vacation rental websites and an accompanying video course that will make your business stand out from the crowd.

See example sites and details here.

7. Add an Owner Rez booking engine to your website

Like it or not, online booking and instant booking now play a big part in conversions. By using a booking engine like Owner Rez you can offer instant quotes, take online payments and allow people to book instantly (if that’s something that you want to do).

This service also syncs your calendars so the availability calendar on your website is always up to date. It can schedule deposits and staged payments, rental agreements, emails and more

Check out the service here

OwnerRez - vacation rental software!

8. Free CRM

The vacation rental business is about to get far more personal (see more on this here) and in order to keep up, you will need to start keeping notes about your past and present guests.

You can do this by using some Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools.

The easiest bookings are repeat bookings. Look after your past guests and they may well become repeat guests. Make notes of any information about each set of guests. Their names, their kids names, their dogs name, any birthdays, home address, email addresses, phone numbers, what they liked doing the most, etc.

Keep in touch with these people. Send Christmas and birthday cards. Send special offers like early bird discounts or freebies.

These messages and greetings cards keep you and your rental front of mind.

There are plenty of free VRM systems to choose from. Here's a list to get you started

Gadgets and Tech...

9. Google Home or Amazon Alexa

Think about adding a voice assistant to your rental. There are pros and cons to this but the upsides for your guests are many fold. Guests can play their favourite tunes via Spotify, ask about the weather forecast, set alarms, ask about local attractions and much more.

Entry level devices start at as little as $25 (Amazon Echo Dot) so this isn’t going to break the bank.

For more on the ins and outs on voice for vacation rentals see this excellent article by Alex Nigg of Properly.

https://www.phocuswire.com/Properly-voice-technology

10. Noise Aware

One of the biggest problems that we face in the vacation rental sector is noise.

People on vacation are generally more excitable and noisy than those of us that are at home and we need to be aware of the effects of our rentals on our neighbours.

If we can proactively keep on top of noise levels we can avoid confrontation with neighbours and local authorities.

Enter Noise Aware...

11. Smart Locks

How many times have you been waiting for guests to arrive but it turns out their flights were delayed or they just decided to go to the beach without letting you know?

I was managing 30 properties in a 'fly to' destination and this used to drive me nuts.

If you fit a smart lock to your rental you don't need to be at the property for the arrival itself and this can save a lot of wasted time (you can always visit the guests after they have arrived).

There are many locks to choose from so some research will pay off here. Expect to pay somewhere between $100 and $300 per lock

You can find more about smartlocks and read some reviews here

12. Games consoles

SONY DSC

If you rent to families then the addition of a Playstation or an Xbox can add to the desirability of your rental over that of your competition.

You don’t need to provide the latest version. In fact you can buy used machines (in many cases, with games) on Ebay or Craigslist for less than $100.

This can keep your guests kids happy and happy kids equals happy parents.

13. Netflix

The 'home away from home' aspect of vacation rentals can be underlined by adding Netflix to your rental. That way guests can VR and chill across the board. Children can watch films and cartoons and adults can binge watch their favourite series.

It's not expensive and it adds to the hotelification of your rental.

I know that Chrismas is a time for friends and family but I know that some of you will be thinking about the coming season and how you can improve your vacation rental offering to boot.

I hope this list helps you in that regard.