The new year has kicked off with a bang and I am seeing very strong demand for my vacation rental in Nice, France. Clearly, a lot of people are already making plans for their 2014 vacations.
Looking back at 2013, it was my best year ever in terms of rental performance. I was fully booked for almost the whole 12 months, helped by some long term winter renters both in the early and later part of the year. Overall , I had more renters opting for short stays ( Nice is a very popular short break destination), which pushed up the changeover costs a little, but all-in-all, I ended up with better net revenues than in any other year.
Undoubtedly, however, the introduction of commission only listings by both Holiday Lettings and Flipkey really helped me to fill gaps in my availability. I have always struggled with the right number of "paid" listings sites to use, but adding the commission only listings gave me a "no risk" option to secure extra bookings.
And I would have to say that both Holiday Lettings and Flipkey delivered for me. I know that some people have reported issues with using them, plus many owners don't like the fact that they lose some of the personal relationship with the renters, but for me, they added a lot to my portfolio in 2013.
But what about 2014? Well, one change that effects me is that Homeaway forced the switchover of Homelidays to Homeaway.uk. Homelidays was always a good performer for me, as it is a French site and attracted a lot of French renters. (It also attracted a lot of Scandanavians, too.) I suspect that Homeaway.uk, if it works as all, is likely to attract mainly UK renters. For the moment, Homeaway.uk have agreed to give me a couple of extra months to see what response I get, so stay posted !
Other than that , there does seem to be a shift in the market to commission only listings: Homeaway offers one on its main site, but it is expensive at 10%.
Also, many of the sites are pushing that you use their systems for payment: increasingly, particularly on large sites, I expect that these listings will be given prominence.
The big sites ( many of whom are owned by Homeaway or Tripadvisor) are under increasing pressure to increase revenues. Since the growth in new listings has slowed down, this means they will focus on getting more revenue out of their existing listings by offering various add-ons.
Having said that, the big sites get the most traffic and so, I plan to continue using them as a large part of my marketing. However, 2014 is probably also the year to start looking at other vacation rental site options to balance the mix.
It's going to be an interesting year: here's hoping it is even better than 2013!
Friday, January 17, 2014
Which Vacation Rentals Sites To Use in 2014?
Friday, October 28, 2011
Best Holiday Rentals Listings Sites Survey 2011
COHR recently conducted a survey of Holiday Rentals Owners to find which Holiday Rentals Listings Sites gave them the most bookings in 2011.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the bigger sites came out best in the survey.
Owners voted Homeaway as the best site overall, with 19% of Holiday Rentals Owners saying it gave them the most bookings. VRBO was only just behind with 18% of Owners saying they received most bookings on the VRBO site. Flipkey was third with 14%, a strong finish for a site that it definitely emerging as a major player in the Holiday Rentals by Owner industry.
Given the consolidation that has been going on in the Holiday Rentals marketplace, it is perhaps no surprise that 5 of the top 9 sites are owned by the Homeaway group. These are Homeaway, VRBO, Homelidays, Ownersdirect and Vacationrentals.
There were also two sites owned by Tripadvisor in the top nine i.e. Flipkey and Holidaylettings.
Among Free Holiday Rentals Listing Sites, Vacationrentals411 (18%) was the narrow winner over Adventurepads (17%). Vacationrentals411 was also the only free site to make the top nine overall sites.
(There were two sites that offer free trials that featured in the top nine: Flipkey and VacationHomeRentals .)
However, it was interesting to note that 26% of Holiday Rentals Owners said that they either don't use Free Holiday Rentals Listings sites or that they don't get any bookings from them.
You can find the full survey results on All Holiday Rentals Best Holiday Rentals Listing Sites Survey 2011 .
Friday, April 17, 2009
Homelidays offers Holiday Insurance to Renters
Do the renters of your vacation property buy travel insurance? Homelidays recently launched a travel insurance option called the "Carefree Package" and provides insurance for the renter against
- Cancellation (refund of deposit up to Euro 350 per day)
- Early departure due to medical problems etc
- Repatriation in the event of illness
- Damage to the holiday home
- "Surprise proof" insurance
I think this is quite an interesting offering and it costs about 5% of the rental fee. Although many renters avail of travel insurance that would cover the first three items, the last two are of particular interest for vacation rental owners.
Unfortunately, the Damage insurance does not cover deliberate to your vacation property by the renter! This is one of the main areas of risk that vacation rental owners have, as one destructive renter can seriously impact your profits from renting, as well as damaging your vacation home.
Instead,the Damage insurance is mainly targeted at injuries that the renter might incur while staying at your vacation property. It is possilbe that some owners may already have insurance for this and, depending on your travel insurance policy, the renter may already be covered anyway.
The really interesting aspect of the Carefree Package is the "Surprise proof" insurance. This tries to address one of the main concerns that renters have when renting directly from owners: will the vacation rental property live up to it's description when they actually arrive?
Subject to certain exclusions, this allows the renter to get back any money they have paid if the vacation property is substantially different from what was advertised. This might just be the peace of mind that many prospective renters need to make the jump away from traditional hotels and rent directly from owners.
For those renters who don't want to pay extra, smart owners might consider building it into their price and then offering it for free.
It will also be interesting to see if other vacation rental by owner sites respond by offering similar insurance packages. Homelidays is now owned by the same group (the WVR Group) that owns Homeaway and so it part of the largest vacation rentals business that exists. No doubt, other Homeaway sites will also add insurance, if it is a success on Homelidays. I would be very interested to hear comments from owners of other sites about their plans in this area.
(One specific exclusion is fraud perpetrated by the leaseholder: it would be interesting if they could also offer a similar insurance to owners against fraudulent renters, which continue to be a problem.)
You can find out more directly on the Homelidays site.
Monday, February 09, 2009
Homeaway acquires Homelidays
Online holiday rental giant HomeAway has made another major acquisition in the European market, snapping up Homelidays for an undisclosed fee. This acquisition will give HomeAway control of the number one and two holiday rental sites in the UK and France.
The latest purchase – the WVR Group's twelfth since 2005 – comes just three months after HomeAway secured a record $250 million investment round in private financing.
Homelidays currently has around 40,000 properties listed, boosting the overall HomeAway portfolio to an amazing 360,000 worldwide!
HomeAway acquired another leading French site Abritel.fr in January 2007.
As a user of both Homeaway and Homelidays, I will be intrigued to see the impact of this acquisition.
