The process travelers go through searching for, comparing and booking a vacation rental home is vastly different from booking a hotel room. Unlike hotels, vacation homes aren’t identical down to the hallway paintings. Personally, that is what I love most about them. They’re homes; they’re not cookie-cutter rooms with lamps nailed to the tables.
Working with renters every day gives me a chance to hear the questions they need to have answered before they can comfortably book their reservation. Most could be handled by a better listing. The more complete the listing, the more qualified inquiries and bookings vacation rental property managers and owners receive.
If your listing can provide the renter with all of the information he or she needs to make a decision, then you are likely to get the online booking straight away before the renter even hears back from managers and owners of their other choices. For property managers, this may mean engaging the owner in the process of creating the initial listing.
The most important part of any listing is the photos. This ”window” to your property gives renters the best idea of what to expect when they arrive. The more photos you can include, the better, which is why vacation rental site PickPackGo doesn’t limit the number you can show in your listings.
I recommend including the following types of photos:
- Exterior front
- Interior living and dining areas
- The kitchen
- Each bedroom to show sleeping arrangements
- Master bathroom (and others if they have an elegant vanity or Jacuzzi tub–no toilet photos required)
- Exterior back
- And (if applicable) photos of the game room, outdoor views, the pool and/or hot tub
I recommend shooting the exterior shots during sunny weather and using adequate lighting for the interior shots. Use your “artistic eye” to critically review your photos. We aren’t all professional photographers, but you can tell if the photos aren’t portraying the wonderful qualities of your property. You make your first impression on renters through photos, so take the time to capture all of the detail.
The next area to focus on is the property description. It provides valuable additional detail to potential renters. In many cases, a renter may not go beyond the photos and the property description, so you’ll want to include all of the most important information here (except rates – I’ll address that later).
Your description need not be excessively long, but it should include all of the most pertinent information. The most helpful property descriptions include:
- Approximate car-driving proximity to local attractions (e.g. Walt Disney World)
- A mention of the development and any extra amenities it may offer (e.g. community pool, play areas)
- Details of the master and other bedroom accommodations, including sleeping arrangements in living areas (e.g. rooms with king, queen or twin beds, sofa beds, futons)
- Details of the master and other bathroom features (shower, jetted tub, tub)
- Entertainment available in the home (HD-TV, cable, DVD player, game room, private pool, spa, etc.)
- Special items for small children (high chair, crib, pool safety gates)
Lastly, a few lines to set the scene of the surrounding area is helpful. For example, describe the view. This type of descriptive languages helps renters imagine themselves there enjoying your home with their family or friends.
Providing accurate and complete rate information for your different travel seasons, as well as keeping your availability calendar up-to-date will ensure you receive only the most qualified leads from potential renters. It also ensures that when potential renters make inquiries that they have a fairly accurate idea what their entire stay will cost them (including rent, pool heating fees, taxes, cleaning fees, pet fees, etc.)
For example on PickPackGo, you can enter all of your rates and fees for every travel season into a rates table to ensure renters receive an accurate rate quote when they initiate the inquiry process. When there are no surprises and no hidden fees and taxes, leads convert to bookings at a much higher rate. Using a low season rate to attract attention, and then presenting higher rates or additional fees at the time of booking just frustrates renters–and believe me, we hear from them!
While you may think that leaving an availability calendar open helps attract the most potential renters, it’s actually not true. Renters are skeptical of completely open calendars for two reasons–they think your place has something wrong with it or they assume you aren’t a very responsive property manager or owner, so they don’t even make an inquiry.
By updating your availability calendar, you are indicating that you want renters during particular times of the year, and for sites like PickPackGo, it ensures you only receive inquiries from renters for dates for which your home is available to be booked. No more time wasted answering yet another inquiry for that popular three-day weekend that is already booked up.
When you approach the process of creating a listing with these points in mind, it will help to maximize the impact and productivity of your listing on our site. We’re always here to help, so don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions. Just drop us a line at listings@pickpackgo.com.
Happy renting!
Posted: February 27th, 2008 under Property Management, Vacation Homes, Vacation Rentals.
Comments: 2
