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Christine on Keeping Up Vacation Rental Calendars
Keeping calendars up-to-date has been a bit of a sore subject with vacation rental owners. Why Christine thinks it's a must.
The following is a commentary written by Christine Karpinski, while they are the views of Christine Karpinski, they may not necessarily be the views of HomeAway, Inc. or it's subsidiaries.
Let me say that I am 100% in support of the calendar movement. I was not an early adopter. I resisted for a while, but when I did take on "keeping up-to-date calendars," I found:
- I got more qualified inquiries and more bookings;
- I had far less “ Sorry, I'm booked” responses to inquiries;
- My occupancy rates went up each year after I started keeping my calendars up-to-date. (Now, I actually write, "PLEASE check my calendar it's ALWAYS up to date".)
Contrary to popular belief, vacation rental listing sites, like HomeAway.com, CyberRentals.com, GreatRentals.com and their competitors are here to serve, NOT the vacation rental owners, but the vacationers. (Don't bash me on this statement…yeah, yeah owner's PAY the money to list their vacation properties, but we're paying to bring vacationers.) Let's face it, we could have 100,000,000 vacation rental owners and their vacation homes, but if there are no renters, there is no business. Until the vacation world makes it easier for vacationers to find and book our vacation rental properties, we will see a limited number of vacationers who will actually end up booking.
Being here at HomeAway, Inc. has allowed me some "inside insight," and I have learned some things that I didn't know before. For instance, in 2005, 37% of all travelers (yes, that is ALL travelers going anywhere and everywhere!) said that they attempted to rent a vacation home last year, but only 6% of them actually did! Many didn't rent because of the arduous process. In a snap, I can book a suitable hotel in any city, at any price range, and with any criteria. Conversely, if I want to book a condo, cottage or cabin, the process takes much longer!
An even more interesting observation came during usability testing that HomeAway, Inc. recently conducted. I was able to sit behind a one-way looking glass and observe would-be travelers navigating through various sites (HomeAway and non-HomeAway sites). What we found was that even though many of the travelers had particular dates in mind (some set in stone, for example, their kids spring break), they didn't go in and search by availability. Initially, participants went window shopping to browse various properties in many different price ranges, amenities, etc.
When they got a feel for the market and what they were looking for, they either revised the search or searched using specific criteria (number of bedrooms, number of baths, dates, prices, etc), or they immediately drilled into availability calendars.
- When they arrived on a property with no availability calendar, they couldn't be bothered calling to inquire about availability, so they would just continue to search until they found a suitable vacation rental property with visibly available dates they needed.
- When they arrived on a calendar without booked dates, they said, "Hmmm...Must be something wrong with it, no one wants to book this one."
- When they arrived on a vacation rental property with their dates booked, participants with "set dates" continued looking for other properties.
- When they arrived on a vacation rental property with their desired dates booked, participants with "flexible dates" said, "Well, I think we could go an additional week" or they said, "All the good places are going fast...I better hurry up and call right away even if we have to go a different week!"
As you can see, the behaviors of our customers tell us that we should provide up-to-date availabilty calendars for our second homes.
Now—go and update your calendar!
© Christine Karpinski 2006
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