Archive for August, 2008

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How To Market Your Vacation Home

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Aside from listing your property on a free or low-cost vacation rental directory such as www.free-rentals.com, the key to marketing your vacation rental property can be summarized as follows:

1) Use the signiture of your email to market your rental in every email you send. At the bottom of each message of your email, contain a short blurb in the signature regarding the property, a website showing it, and email contact and phone number. Regardless of if you use this email to answer booking inquiries or to socialize or for any other purpose, continually get out this free advertisement to each person you email. You never know, many email’s are forwarded to others, and it helps people keep track of where/how they can contact you.

2) Post on Craigslist.org, Kijiji.com, Oodle.com, etc.. There are many free advertisement websites allowing you to post for free. Take advantage of this often by having a canned pitch prepared with links to your website and canned images ready to be uploaded. Just post to these free advertisment websites once per month or so.

3) Throw an Open House party. Perhaps once a year or so, throw a homewelcoming party to friends and relatives, and get the word out that the place is available for short term holiday rental. Perhaps it’s best to throw these social gatherings everytime you visit the property for your own personal holiday. Have business cards stationed next to the food offering your rental, encourage guests to take several cards and keep them on hand should they find people in search of a rental.

4) Create a website for your vacation rental. Basically, if you own a vacation rental home, there is no reason why you shouldn’t also own a website that promotes that vacation home. You can have unlimited pictures, answer questions, post all of your availability calander info, your cancellation policies, terms and conditions, etc. When people email you asking for more information, it’s easiest to just point them to your website and let it do all the selling for you.

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Spanish Vacation Rentals Set For Correction

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Is Spain an attractive vacation home locale? It used to be, but for those interesting in perhaps investing in Spain’s vacation rental property sector, you may want to wait and see how the market fairs over the next 12 months before getting in.

Spain’s construction industry fell by 3.9 percent between October and November 2007, the greatest drop in the Euro Zone, according to Eurostat.

Mark Stucklin, head of SpanishPropertyInsight.com and writer of the “Spanish Property Doctor” column in The Sunday Times (U.K.), estimated that approximately 18 to 20 percent of Spain’s economy is dependent on the construction sector. In comparison, other European countries average 8 to 9 percent, he said. This means that a hefty correction is likely in order before Spain’s market can truly begin to heal.

“Spain’s economy has become too dependent on construction and now that’s going to have to adjust,” Stucklin said. “I can see it coming down to the EU average, which means knocking 10 percent off of Spain’s GDP.”

The tourism industry, however, is still going strong. The number of international arrivals increased 4.8 percent from 2005 to 2006, and Spain’s tourism sector brought in over $51 billion U.S. in 2006, according to a WTO report.

Source

Posted in Vacation Rental Industry | No Comments »

HomeAway’s VRBO Still Leads the Pack

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Looking like a cheap stripped down version of Craigslist, HomeAway’s VRBO still leads the pack of HomeAway Inc’s portfolio of web properties with nearly 1.8m unique visitors per month, which is more than the traffic they get on HomeAway.com, CyberRentals.com, GreatRentals.com and A1Vacations.com combined.
 
VRBO is driven by 6,240 keywords while HomeAway is driven by 2,094 keywords. When examining all of the VRBO properties, the relationship between keywords that drive their traffic and unique visitors is as follows:

VRBO has 6240 keywords bringing in 1.8m visitors per month = 288
HomeAway has 2094 keywords bringing in 675k visitors/mo = 322
CyberRentals has 1354 keywords brining in 350k visitors/mo = 258
GreatRentals 1035 keywords bringing in 250k visitors/mo = 241
A1Vacations 797 keywords bringing in 185k visitors/mo = 232

On average, for each keyword that compete.com lists as driving traffic to the websites, the website can expect 268 visitors per month.

homeaway_2

Posted in Vacation Rental Websites | 2 Comments »

HomeAway Inc.’s Portfolio See’s Flat Traffic

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

HomeAway Inc’s portfolio of vacation rental websites has seen flat traffic over the past 12 months. CyberRentals.com has gone from 400k unique visitors per month to 350k. GreatRentals.com has gone from 375k to 250k, and A1vacations.com has stayed flat at 185k unique visitors.
 
Compete.com lists CyberRentals.com as having 1,354 keywords driving traffic to the site while GreatRentals.com has 1,035 keywords and A1Vacations has 797 Keywords.

homeaway_1

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5 Tips To Avoid Scams

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

Here are 5 general tips for avoiding internet scams in general, not just vacation rental scams.

1. Beware of  the danger signs. Don’t get pressured into a deal you’re not comfortable with. If a merchant tries too hard to convince you about the value of the company’s product or service, what it’s presenting is probably not true. Merchants also shouldn’t have to play to your sympathies or use scare tactics to force you to purchase or agree to something immediately.

Avoid any purchases that require a wire transfer and merchants that reach out to you though mailings, telemarketing and online ads promising deals that seem too good to be true. Those struggling with mortgages or facing foreclosure are particularly vulnerable to such offerings.

2. Check into merchants and their products. When buying from online outlets, make sure there’s a customer-service line and legitimate address to call or locate the business if trouble arises.

3. Use a credit card for items purchased online or those that need to be delivered. That way, you can dispute charges if you don’t receive what you were promised. Of course, make sure you can afford the item, otherwise you’ll be paying interest or late fees as well.

4. Ask to make a down payment instead of paying in full, up front. Consumers often complain that home-improvement work and other services were not conducted in the manner promised. But once you’ve paid the tab, it’s more difficult to coax subpar contractors to clean up their messes or finish what they started.

5. Get everything in writing and understand everything you sign. Service estimates, as well as any other agreements with merchants, lenders, landlords and roommates should always be in ink on paper — but never sign an agreement you don’t fully understand or aren’t comfortable with. Before signing any document that is written up by someone else, read it thoroughly or consult a lawyer, accountant or other expert to comb through the details.

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What is the Value of a Free Vacation Rental Listing?

Monday, August 25th, 2008

Mark Cuban makes an terrific point in his blog about the problems with free products and services. He says… 

“We dont want to waste our time with a product or service if its not worth anything. We want things of value, and we dont want to waste of lot of time trying to determine if what is being offered is something we would use or consume. The easiest way to make the determination ? See if anyone else is using it and paying for it.

When we see enough other people actually paying, and how much they are paying, that becomes our “due diligence” and market pricing mechanism. It also becomes part of the decision tree as to whether or not we would prefer a free version , or are willing to pay. For some, it becomes the determining factor on whether or not they are willing to steal rather than pay.

Which translates to the conventional wisdom that free is the way to go on the web as being wrong. I think many websites are making a huge mistake by going free only for their products. The real upside comes from being a hybrid, with both free and for pay versions.

When people actually pay for your product, you define a value to everyone. First you have to keep your paying customers happy. They want their money’s worth. Which in turn, keeps you improving the product and the service surrounding it. Just as importantly, it creates a revenue stream for your company. Always remember this. Without a revenue stream, you have no company.”

We agree with Mark’s observation, yet, our website free-rentals.com remains free for anyone to sign up and list any number of Vacation Rentals they want. And we will keep it free.
 
So, how do we make business?
 
Simple. We have a performance based model. Our customers who pay (donate) to us will benefit from the non-donating customers, because we use a significant percentage of their donation to pay for direct sales and marketing efforts that the free-rentals.com website doesn’t get with organic search results alone.
 
Source

Posted in Vacation Rental Industry, Vacation Rental Websites | No Comments »

Tips Booking Directly with Vacation Rental Owners

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

There are several things you should take into consideration when booking a vacation rental unit direct with the owner, as opposed to through a management company. The important thing is that, unlike a hotel booking, where it’s typically a take it or leave it rate… with a vacation rental, you have a lot of room for negotiation and gaining custom advantages.

Here is a list of tips to follow when booking a vacation rental direct through an owner. 
  
Get all agreements in writing

Get all the main agreements put in writing. Details of all the agreed upon items should be written and signed by the vacation home owner. Specifically, get the following in writing…
   
 Total Cost of the Rental, Security Deposit Amount, Additional Fees if they exist such as heater, firewood, utilities, cleaning fee’s, etc…, List of Policies including Cancellation, Terms of Payment, House Rules,  Address to Property, Phone Number of Property, Owners Address and Phone Number,
 Contacts for Maintenance Emergency, Driving Directions to the Property and Instruction on How to Obtain the Keys and How certain Appliances Work.

Posted in Advice | 1 Comment »

What If I am Not Happy with my Vacation Rental?

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

The information provided on the advertisement should give you a good idea of the quality of the vacation rental before you arrive. If the rental fails to live up to your expectations, then the problem is either due to the owner not having filled out enough or accurate information and/or you not having studied and read the ad in full detail. Often, the problem may lie somewhere in between these two situations.
 
Whatever the reason, it’s important that you contact the owner directly. You will need to work out any and all issues you have direct with the owner or the management company that placed you. They key is, do NOT wait until after your stay. You must settle the issues right away.
  
Keep in mind, it’s in the owners best interest to make sure you are happy with your rental, because they are at your mercy not to trash the place. So do contact them immediately and get the issues resolved right away.

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How Can I Cancel or Change My Reservation?

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

Before you make a booking, it is important that you read the vacation rental owners terms and conditions and cancellation policy. You should have a full understanding before you enter into a booking arrangement, exactly what the cancelation policy is. Then you simply contact the owner and tell them of the change you need to make. In short, you work directly with the vacation home owner and/or management company to make changes to your existing booking reservation.

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How to Book a Vacation Rental?

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

You can book a vacation rental either by contacting the owner directly or by contacting the management company that acts on behalf of the vacation rental owner. Once you locate the vacation rental of your choice, simply fill out the form on the advertisment page, and it will automatically get directed to either the owner or the management company. They will then respond to you answering any questions you may have and indicating the dates of availability.

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