The Importance of Keeping Your Calendar Up-to-Date| HomeAway Community

If your calendar is not up-to-date or not active, a traveler might assume that:

You're not an active owner or your property is no longer on the market.
Your property is not booked at all, which could be interpreted that is has something wrong with it.
You are going to try to bait and switch them into a different property.

An up-to-date calendar, on the other hand, shows the traveler that:

You're a serious owner who updates your ad frequently.
What they see is what they get as far as availability.

I know what you're thinking: If calendars are so important why do I get so many inquiries that say, “Are you available xxx date and how much is it?”

The answer to that is two-fold:

1) First of all, blame your fellow vacation rental owners who do not keep their calendars up-to-date. The traveler likely has inquired in the past about a property that showed that it was available only to have the owner respond to his or her inquiry saying, “Sorry, I'm booked.” After this experience, the traveler becomes skeptical about the accuracy of every availability calendar on the portal sites and therefore asks the question “Are you available?

2) Secondly, most travelers send inquiries to multiple properties on one or more sites and often don't remember which home is which. To make the process easier, they typically send the same inquiry to each owner in order to receive uniform responses that are easy to compare.

So, what are the benefits of keeping your calendar up-to-date?

More qualified inquiries. You'll get fewer inquiries for dates that you';re already booked.
You'll look more credible and professional to travelers.
You'll appear higher in HomeAway.com search results.

The Bottom Line: Keep your calendar up-to date. It will aid travelers in their search and will ultimately result in more inquiries for you.