Vacation Rental Owners Blog

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At A Glance: December News For Vacation Rental Owners Posted: 28 Dec 2013 12:00 PM PST Skift || HomeAway Sues Airbnb Over Use of Birdhouse Mark Having long argued that Airbnb isn’t a competitor and operates in a different market, HomeAway is suing Airbnb over their use of a birdhouse in their latest national marketing campaign—something HomeAway says infringes on their trademark.  The battle between the two companies has seemed inevitable to many, and has certainly just increased a notch (or 10) with the news of the lawsuit. Skift || Why Hotel Brands Should Care About Airbnb’s Disruption Airbnb has made a significant dent in the hotel market, building on strengths that every vacation rental has—whether they use the rental site or not. Vikram Singh of Skift says brand loyalty has lost its power; people care most about location, value and good reviews. He also notes that transparency helps build trust and community: “The host is the brand, and you have access to him at every stage of your travel experience.” Skift || U.S. Is on Track to Welcome Nearly 84 Million Foreign Visitors a Year by 2018 If foreign tourists like to visit to your community, 2014 is a great time to consider what you can do to get them to book with your vacation rental. Foreign tourism is expected to increase 26 percent over the next few years: tourists from Canada and Mexico will continue to be the largest groups, but there will be significant growth in visitors from South America, Asia and the Middle East. Vacation Rental Marketing Blog || 2 New Studies Reveal Hotels Are Nervous About Vacation Rentals The vacation rental industry is in hot competition with the hotel industry, both vying for travelers looking for a more intimate and unique travel experience. Citing two recent surveys, Matt Landau highlights three key themes: travelers want authenticity and more family time, and they use the Internet as a key source for inspiration. Cottage Blogger || Making the Vacation Rental Process Effortless “High demand and not a lot of choice created a market that didn’t require a great deal of attention or work,” Heather Bayer remembers of the vacation rental industry 10-15 years ago. Now, she says, the whole concept of customer service has been turned on its head. Citing a book about customer experience, Bayer offers tips to encourage more loyal guests by ensuring that everything you do makes life easier for them. Is there any industry news that we missed? Tell us about it in the comments below.

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Vacation Rental Owners Blog

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Attract Travelers By Pairing Your Blog With Pinterest Posted: 21 Dec 2013 09:00 AM PST Guest post by Madoline Hatter Connect with MyVR on Pinterest. While sharing interesting content via a blog can support your vacation rental business, adding images—and taking advantage of an image-based social network—can improve the experience exponentially. Like the adage goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Pinterest is a growing social media hub that can help boost your blog; pairing the two creates a powerful way for you to connect with new visitors. Draw in new travelers Even though it's relatively new, Pinterest drives more traffic to websites than several other social networks combined. It's easy to direct people back to your blog: add short snippets of information to each picture and link them back to your main blog or website. Unique and well-developed pictures can spread, generating additional traffic from other sites such as Facebook or Reddit—a strong argument for hiring a professional photographer. The more attention any single image can receive, the better your chances of getting attention from a potential guest. Boost your marketing efficiently It's not just about pointing people back to your website, either. By adding a Pinterest link to your website, it's easy for visitors to find more images from you or others. Use these photos to showcase your rental property and nearby attractions. This could easily entice visitors to explore further and find out more about your property or the location itself. The more you can draw website visitors in with eye-catching photos, the more often those visits will turn into bookings. And Pinterest makes it easy: not only can you integrate it with your blog, it's also free to use. Cross-promote your blog  Pinterest images can be shared across other social media sites; this helps promote your blog without an active effort from you. Pinterest users often share—or "repin"—images they find enticing, posting them to Facebook profiles as well as other social sites. A captivating sunset over your rental property could make its way to other networks, leaving a trail back to your blog. Add Pinterest to a WordPress blog If you use WordPress—one of the most common blog platforms—for your blog, there are various free plugins available that allow you to display your images from Pinterest directly on your website in a gallery-style form. Setup can differ from one plugin to the next but, once you're set up, the corresponding images will be displayed immediately. What makes this such an ideal design? Beyond the added potential for web traffic, using Pinterest saves you the time of placing every image, one by one, onto your website. Plus, any time you add new images or "repin" relevant photos from other people, they will flow through as part of a constantly evolving slideshow. Integrating Pinterest with your website can enhance the experience of your website visitors. Amazing images of your property, put into the hands of the active Pinterest community, could help thrust your blog into a higher caste of popular websites. The primary focus for any site is to attract attention to itself, and visual stimulation can certainly help. Are you using Pinterest to promote your vacation rental? Share your best tips in the comments below! This article has been contributed by Madoline Hatter. Madoline is a freelance writer and blog junkie from ChangeOfAddressForm.com. You can reach her at: m.hatter12(at)gmail.com.

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Choosing The Best Thumbnail For Your Vacation Rental Listing Posted: 10 Dec 2013 09:00 AM PST Guest post by Tyann Marcink It was three weeks ago. Well, maybe just two weeks—but it seems like an eternity. No emails. No phone calls. Just a message from “Marie in NY” that was obviously a phishing attempt. Why haven’t the inquiries flooded in? How is it that a scammer found your property, but the legit folk seem to no longer be taking vacations? After checking the number of views on the brand new listing, the realization hits: nobody is even clicking through to look at your property. Take a deep breath. The travelers are there. They really, truly do want to find a vacation rental just like yours. But are you giving them a reason to click? The first photo a traveler will see of your vacation rental is your listing thumbnail. That tiny thumbnail offers a little glimpse of your property—a mere sliver of a peek to convince a guest that your place is worth their time to look at. If they don't like it, they will move on to the next one. How do you make a traveler want to click? 1. Less is more Less is best when it comes to your thumbnail. Inspire a traveler to want to learn more. Take a peek at this cabin in Colorado: Snow, trees, cabin, and a beautiful sky. Simple. Striking. The warm lights at dusk draw you into the photo—and into the listing itself. By reducing the photo to as few elements as possible, a traveler will be able to better register the thumbnail in his brain. Another thumbnail with just a few elements: water, sand, trees, and sky. Additionally, using the compositional element of leading lines, the sand and waves begin in the foreground and lead you into the photo. One weird trick to know if your thumbnail window is overloaded: make the photo blurry by squinting your eyes at it. If your photo is simple enough, the main elements will still stand out. If you have packed your thumbnail with too many elements, it will all blur together. 2. Match the photo to what the traveler wants Are your guests looking to drink hot chocolate in a snow-covered lodge nestled in the woods after a day of skiing? This thumbnail immediately tells you that this is the perfect place to be. 3. Invite guests to join in By angling the perspective of this photo behind the beach chairs and looking towards the ocean, this beach thumbnail encourages a traveler to kick off her shoes and have a seat. 4. Get up close and personal If you have a unique feature—a detail that is very distinctive about your vacation rental—don't be afraid to zoom in on it. This black bear is an exceptional characteristic, the mascot really, for the Black Bear Lodge in Branson, Missouri. And when the competition is fierce, it is the little details like this one that are many times the tipping point in a guest's decision of choosing a property. How these thumbnails could have more impact 1. Too much crammed into one small photo This thumbnail is for a fabulous property in Hawaii: the beach is literally steps away from this bungalow—you can even see the ocean from the front porch. But there is so much going on in such a tiny picture, travelers could easily miss the spacious lanai and beautifully landscaped yard as they scan past. 2. Leave bland for the competition, don't feature it in your photo Don’t mistakenly highlight a cinder block wall or other drab feature of your property. This photo may have been chosen for the bright red umbrella at the top, but because the wall takes up a good portion of the photo, because the light is lackluster, and because there is an overwhelming amount of gray contributing to the lifelessness of the photo overall, it is easily passed over. 3. Highlighting uninteresting standard feature Unless your condo living room is absolutely spectacular, don't use it as the first peek into your vacation rental. As a traveler myself, a fresh coat of ocean blue paint on the wall is not the first thing I am looking for. What I am looking for is the real ocean blue, and this property has it: a gorgeous beach framed by a silhouette of trees arched over the beach. Unfortunately, the beach photo is hidden in the middle of the other listing photos. 4. Move the car Have someone help you out with this one by standing guard if necessary. If the vehicle is a regular, politely ask the owner to give you five minutes of car-free zone. If a car-free zone is still impossible, choose another lead photo. Consider the different reasons guests choose your vacation area. In this case, for example, the Jersey Shore has a lot of eye candy to offer, like waves crashing on the beach and spectacular sunsets. 5. Leave your cell phone in your pocket Out-of-focus and grainy photos are not your friend, and travelers are not fond of them (unless they have taken the photo themselves). There is no reason to cram as much information as possible into the listing thumbnail, the window to your vacation rental property. Show a glimpse and create a desire to see more. Screenshots from HomeAway, VRBO and VacationRentals.com. Photos used with permission from owners. Tyann Marcink is a photographer in the St. Louis area. She and her husband Mike own two vacation rental homes in Branson, Missouri, and have hosted more than 3,000 guests in the past six years. Check out her eBook Create Killer Vacation Rental Property Photos – a How-To for Owners with Key Step-by-Step Instructions today (also available on Amazon, and Smashwords). The book reveals the hidden secrets, the ancient myths, and the rock solid truths about vacation rental photography and how you can achieve the mysterious and elusive photos for yourself.

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How To Turn Hollywood Hits Into Reservations Posted: 03 Dec 2013 09:00 AM PST Having your city or neighborhood featured in a movie, TV series or book can bring a sense of pride—even some residual acclaim—to the people who live there. A new report from Skift confirms that status can also draw tourists, bringing a direct boost to the local travel industry. Whether it's the spectacular backdrops or a connection to their favorite stories, people are drawn to follow in the footsteps of their favorite characters. New Zealand has developed a booming business around first the "Lord of the Rings" franchise and now "The Hobbit", as evidenced by painted airplanes and the recently-launched "Book of New Zealand". But your efforts don't need to be quite so epic. In their report, "The Rise of Destination Marketing Through Movies and TV", Skift cites a number of examples from the past few decades–including some you might not expect. "The Hunger Games" was partly filmed in Dupont State Recreational Forest in North Carolina, a big-screen promo that drew a 31% year-over-year increase in visitors in 2012. 9,500 people visited Rosslyn Chapel, Scotland, in 2003—the year the book "The Da Vinci Code", which includes the chapel as part of the adventure, was published. When the related movie was released in 2006, visits skyrocketed to nearly 139,000. The popularity of "Miami Vice" among Germans alone drew 150% more German travelers each year to Miami between 1985 and 1988. "In 2012, Tourism Competitive Intelligence found that 40 million international tourists chose their destination primarily because they saw a film shot in that country," the report observes. "Up to 10 percent of tourists in the survey cite movies as a factor in deciding on their destination." Linking your marketing to pop culture You don't need to put yourself in the middle of fan-fueled pandemonium to take advantage of a Hollywood connection. For many people, just having context can create a clear impression—the "Oh, I remember that movie!" effect. But it's also an opportunity to tap into someone else's marketing efforts to promote your area to a particular niche group of travelers—and position your vacation rental as the place to stay while they do their exploring. Connect people to information that's already available. Locations for particularly popular stories may already have a lot of information available, so there's no need to create your own. For example: Forks, Washington (location of the "Twilight" trilogy, written by Stephenie Meyer) and Prince Edward Island (home to "Anne of Green Gables", by L.M. Montgomery) have both created websites, maps and other materials for flocking fans. Echoes some of the advice we've previously shared about growing your website, you can add information about local hotspots—with your own local insights—to a section in your local guide your blog, through one or more blog posts your directory of local links your collection of promotional photos Consider using it as a promotional hook. Be careful about using protected titles and images too liberally; taking your own photos of public locations is OK, for example, but grabbing screenshots from a movie (even if you find them on Google) is not. However, with some creativity you can tap into someone else's marketing machines. Does a local business offer location tours? Team up with them and put together a special "fan package" promotion. Target your Facebook marketing. Facebook's advertising program allows you to be very specific with your targeting—right down to people who like specific movies, shows or books. If your vacation rental is located in Scranton, PA, for example, you could target an ad to fans of "The Office"—3,500 of whom have already visited the city because of the show. Has pop culture ever taken your community by storm? Tell us what happened–and what you learned from it—in the comments below.

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