When it comes to booking your property consistently, there's more to it than just uploading some pictures to an online travel site. A lot more, in fact.
Maximizing your rental income requires a working knowledge of how channels like Vrbo, Airbnb, and Expedia operate and evolve.
Here at MyVacayHome, we optimize your rental listing by breaking it down into six disciplines: Rates & Availability, Content, Policies, Promotions, Reviews, and Placement.
A property's content includes a written description, amenities, pictures, and virtual tours. Basically, your content is your sales pitch—it's very important!
After you send your property's content to an online travel agency, they give it a content score. This score reflects your property's appeal to potential guests, and if your content scores high enough, you'll be rewarded with higher placement in search results plus access to extra features and preferred programs.
That's where we come in.
Photos & Media
We source high-resolution images and tag each one with the proper content category, ensuring every photo is displayed with its corresponding amenity.
We also upload virtual tours, source supplemental destination images from your property's area, and
adjust the display sequence of your listing's photos.
That way, the first images guests see are the ones flaunting your property's cool amenities instead of, say, its toilets.
Tailored Descriptions
Photos and virtual tours of your property are important, but so are the words that describe them. That's why MyVacayHome crafts colorful, descriptive content and headlines, all of which is tailored to meet the unique specifications of each travel site.
We can also upload third-party reviews, certify that your property's location is listed properly, request rewrites of clunky automated text, and create supplemental "About Us" content since the listing isn't just about your property—it's about you, too.
Making your vacation rental stand out encompasses more than photos and descriptions. Promotions are another important piece of the puzzle, and there are many different ways to maximize their effectiveness.
For Discount Promotions, you give guests a discount and set the terms based on your business needs. These are fully customizable, and most channels provide excellent targeting options such as: Members Only; travel packages that include airfare and car rental; non-refundable options; blackout dates; booking windows that target early or last-minute bookers; mobile-only; and many more.
In order for guests to book your property, they have to see it. This particular promotion allows us to manipulate listing rankings by bidding on higher placement. In other words: it's similar to Google's pay-per-click setup, enabling you to pay for higher rankings and adjust based on your business needs. Even better, you only pay if bookings are made.
But why is placement important? A whopping 75% of click traffic goes
to the first 15 spots in search results; 65% of those bookings go to properties in the top five slots, and a third of those bookings go to properties in the very first spot.
Channel Promotions are large-scale campaigns run by our partner channels, and you can opt in to participate. Discounts, terms, and rules are set by the channel, so flexibility is limited. However, these campaigns pack mega marketing power.
When you opt in, your property receives a dedicated landing page, special tagging on the website, email marketing, banner advertising, a promotion filter in search results, and much more.
Preferred Programs offered by individual channels are yet another avenue MyVacayHome utilizes to market your vacation property and maximize your rental income. These programs maintain a certain threshold of requirements,
so only top performers are able to participate and reap the benefits.
Airbnb Plus requires participants to sustain an average rating of 4.8 over the past year, with no canceled reservations. Hosts must exemplify genuine care while providing kind, committed, responsive service, and their spaces are well-designed with amenities like WiFi.
Benefits: Interior design services to fit your style and budget, a PLUS badge on your listing to build trust with guests, professional photography and editorial support, and more.
Growth: Airbnb Plus hosts see 22% more revenue on average in the year after joining.
The Booking.com Genius program requires participants to have a score of 7.5 or higher while placing among the top 50 performers in their area. Genius hosts also must offer a 10-15% Genius member discount, which is automatically applied to their least expensive and most popular room.
Benefits: A special "Genius" tag on listings, rankings boosts, and better visibility in search results.
Growth: On average, partners who join Genius increase bookings by 18% and revenue by 17%—which includes the cost of the required discount.
Expedia VIP Access requires guaranteed access to WiFi, as well as a unique amenity such as free breakfast or free parking. The Expedia program also asks hosts to provide upgrades, including early check-in and late check-out when available.
Benefits: Exclusive badging, access to high-value travelers, supplemental marketing opportunities; there are no fees to join and no extra commission requirements.
Growth: VIP Access participants see 300% faster revenue growth and 340% faster room night growth.
