Advertising Your Vacation Home to Special Event Travelers
When updating the listing for your vacation rental property, don't forget to reach out to special event travelers.
| Many vacation destinations also host special events like festivals, sporting events, and holiday celebrations. Even events like industry conferences and auto shows bring a lot of travelers into an area-- travelers who will need accommodations for their short-term stay. |
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Putting a special event in your property headline is an easy way to hook special event travelers and to drive traffic to your listing (and your vacation home) from the search engines. For those vacation rental owners with second homes in Las Vegas, you could customize your headline to attract Monster Jam travelers. For those of you worried about scaring off non-event renters, worry not. You can easily incorporate the event into your headline without sacrificing its integrity-- even for an event like Monster Jam. Take a headline like “Single-Story Summerlin Home w/ Pool” and simply change it to “Single-Story Summerlin Home w/ Pool-- Available for Monster Jam Finals.”
Advertising for special events works. Recently, a HomeAway owner advertised her vacation rental home to Fiesta Bowl travelers-- and successfully booked the property for the two weeks surrounding the bowl game: http://www.azcentral.com/community/surprise/articles/0105gl-rentfolo05Z1.html.
The Super Bowl this year is happening in Miami and will bring approximately 40,000 football fans into Miami from out of town. This is a prime opportunity for owners of vacation rental properties of all sizes and price levels. Larger, luxury homes could easily accommodate a corporate group or a large family. A two bedroom apartment could house a group of old friends reuniting for the game. And efficiencies would be ideal for a couple on a budget who'd prefer to cook their own meals.
Take this Miami efficiency for example: http://www.homeaway.com/220037. It can sleep 2 people for $600 a week or up to 4 people for $700. For two people that's just $85 a night, which is more affordable than most hotel rooms would be--especially on a prime weekend. The owner of this property should capitalize on the property's affordability and location by reaching out to Super Bowl travelers.
Whistler cabin owners might consider promoting the 2010 Olympics within their property listing. Many travelers will seek out accommodations early knowing that the demand will likely far exceed supply. Perhaps include a blurb about the Olympics in the headline of your cottage or cabin listing to attract renters searching with those keywords.
Even if your city doesn't host a mammoth sporting (or monster-truck) event, there are still plenty of opportunities to appeal to event travelers. Keep up with area trade shows and conferences, and even include the name of local convention centers within your listing to attract business travelers that are searching with those keywords.
Even seemingly obscure events can generate bookings. HomeAway currently tracks upcoming events in vacation areas, but we always need input from our owners. If you don't see an event in your area on this page: http://www.homeaway.com/index.cfm/tgt/HA_Festivals, send us an email via our contact form with the name and description of the event.
© HomeAway 2007
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