Choosing a Vacation Rental Listings Site

These sites are your shop window on the web. The number of inquiries you get from them will depend on their ‘visibility’ as a vacation rental listings site and on your visibility on their sites.

How many listings sites do you need?

Many independent vacation rental owners wisely choose to list their properties with more than one major vacation rental listings site. In fact it is not unusual for a property to be on with 3 of the larger paid vacation rental sites plus a few free sites. Think of this as advertising costs and it won’t seem so bad! Internet advertising is way cheaper and more effective than print when it comes to vacation rentals. And don’t forget the regional vacation rentals listings specialists when you choose a vacation rental listings site – these can be effective in helping to fill your reservations calendar. So, how do we choose which sites to sign up with? This depends on the type of property you have, the demographic it appeals to and its location. A vacation rental listings site that works well for a particular property may be a disaster for another.

Before you begin choosing a vacation rental listings site

Here are some of the questions you should consider when picking the right vacation rental listings site for your property:

• What will it cost me?
• Can I communicate directly with my guests?
• How much control will I keep?
• What support can they offer me?
• How easy is it for me to set up?
• How easy is it for me to upload and manage my content?
• How easily can I update my availability calendar and other details such as rental rates?
• How transparent is ranking and placement on their site?

The bottom line

Many sites allow you to list your property for free, charging you for bookings provided. This is pay-per-booking. Others offer a subscription model where you pay an annual premium for a particular level of service. The more you pay, the higher up the vacation rental listings site rankings you can get (but not always!) and potentially the greater the exposure of your property. HomeAway, for example, offers you the choice of either model but actually penalises owners unless they pay for the highest level of service. If you own a single vacation rental, pay-per-booking may be more cost effective, as long as people can find your property to make an initial inquiry! Costs for the services of a vacation rental listings site vary enormously, from as little as 3% per booking to 15%, even 20% and up to a thousand dollars for an annual subscription. Balance these against your returns. If a site works for you and brings in a lot of bookings then it can pay for itself many times over. The site should be working for you, not you working for the site!

Guest communications

As an independent, retaining direct communication with your guests may be important to you. Some listings sites take control of this interaction, communicating directly with all guest inquiries and reservations. For instance, with the vacation rental listings site Airbnb, all bookings are direct online – so you won’t get any phone calls. This may be just how you like it, but you also have to agree to any and all communication with your guests going via Airbnb. You will, however, be able to review in advance guests wishing to stay in your property. Speed of response is vital to securing internet bookings. At Homes and Rooms, we provide all the online tools you need to achieve this. If you like more control, Trip Advisor’s vacation rental listings site Flipkey allows email, phone calls  and direct bookings from guests. But it is worth noting that all major listings sites are moving to exclude owners from direct guest communication citing security concerns amongst other “benefits” to both owners and guests, some of which are somewhat questionable and seem more driven by the commercial motivation of the listings sites, so do be aware.

When things go wrong

How your vacation rental listings site reacts when things go wrong or when you are having difficulties with their system is an important consideration. Unfortunately, there is little objective information about this other than that available in the public domain. This is also where the largest listings sites would seem to fare quite poorly with numerous reports of extremely poor customer service as these sites struggle to manage and support the large number of owners and properties they have acquired over a relatively short period of time. You might also ask other owners for their experience or trawl through vacation rental owner blogs for references to vacation rental listings site performance. You need to bear in mind that many listings sites will take bookings and payment, holding your money and passing it on to you when a certain amount of time has elapsed and your guests have gone. But remember that as a Homes and Rooms subscriber, you will have your own website and the facility to take bookings and payments direct to your account at times you choose. Some of these may be repeat bookings. If you have your own website and payment methods you can retain far more of your rental income since you won’t be paying vacation rental listings site fees on it.

Ease of setting up and operation

Depending on your level of technical savvy, ease of setting up your property on a vacation rental listings site may be a big decider in making your choice of where to list. This part of the process can be labour intensive and time consuming, so consider it as one that is likely to be an investment of your time that will pay in the long run. Unfortunately it is not always apparent just how poor some of the listings sites are until you have committed to list with them. Perhaps other factors are more important? Ease of use is, of course, another issue. Investigate this aspect at an early stage – remember you will be regularly using this system and may be reliant on this channel for your bookings. Another good reason to have more than one vacation rental listings site on the go. Do not be deterred by any apparent technicality, though. These are powerful tools to help you fill your reservations, so it is worth persevering to get the best system working for you.

Look for realtime capability

Other things to to consider: does the site need manually updating by you and will your property details (rates and availability calendar) appear in real time? This last one is important owing to the impact it has on bookings. Reservations are far more likely to be made if information is constantly updated to reflect the realtime situation. Some vacation rental listings site providers even penalize owners that do not log into their account and update their calendar on a regular basis, even if no new reservations have been booked into the property! Subscribers to the Homes and Rooms service need not worry as their own personal vacation rental website links seamlessly to major listings sites. It provides constant updates automatically so that potential guests always see the current situation on availability and rates (where supported). No more manual updates across these listings sites for them. And no more double bookings to untangle! When potential guests contact you directly via your own website rather than via a vacation rental listings site, you have the facility to deal with this manually or automatically if you choose. The automatic response option ensures immediate responses and realtime updating and is invaluable during busy booking periods.