Which Vacation Rentals Sites To Use in 2014?

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!

5 Tips to Select the Right Mix of Vacation Rental Sites

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With the new season approaching, now is a good time to review your choice of vacation rental listing sites.

Most vacation rental owners use multiple vacation rent listing sites, including both paid and free sites. But how you select those sites can make a big difference to the number of enquiries and bookings you receive.

Here are my five tips for getting more bookings by broadening your base of vacation rentals sites.

1. List on at least 3 and preferably 5 paid listing sites.

Most of your bookings will come from established vacation rental sites. Most of these sites (with the exception of free trial periods, which I will come back to) charge for your listing, usually somewhere between $100 and $300 per annum. Depending on the size and number of vacation properties you own, spending up to $1,000 per year on marketing is a reasonable amount that will pay back with increased bookings.

I would suggest you start with the winners of the AHR Best Vacation Rental Sites to find some of the leading sites.


2. Choose vacation rental sites that are complementary.

Different vacation rental listing sites appeal to different demographics. You should carefully consider the mix of sites on which you list.For example, in my view, you should certainly choose at least one of the very large sites (e.g. Homeaway ). Being present on these large sites give you access to the many thousands of renters who search the vacation rental listings on these sites every day. Because these sites are so large, you may want to consider paying a premium to ensure you get the best placement possible. You also should make sure you understand how to improve your ranking in searches (e.g. Homeway allows renters to search by how recently availability was updated).

To complement your listing on such a large site, also list on at least one niche site that focuses on your particular geography or property type. For example, if your vacation home is in Spain, consider choosing a vacation rental site that specialises in Spain, such as Spain-Holiday.com. If you own a high end Villa, consider listing on a site that focuses on expensive Villas e.g. VIPVillas.com . Specialist sites such as these attract different renter traffic than the large sites and hence any enquiries you get are likely to be from a different pool of renters than the large vacation rental sites.

To further broaden your reach, consider adding a site that attracts renters from a specific geography. For example, if you have a vacation property in the US and are listed on Homeaway, you might also want to list on a site that attracts renters from the UK that are interested in travelling to the US e.g. Holiday-rentals.com .

3. Take Advantage of Free Trials

There are several sites that offer limited free trial periods, such as VacationHomeRentals or Rentalia . These are usually well established sites, but less well known that the very large sites. They hope that you will receive sufficient renter queries during the trial period to convince you to sign up for a full listing.

4. Take Advantage of Completely Free Sites.

There are a large number of free sites out there. Some of them, such as Adventurepads , are very well established and are a very good source of potential bookings. Others are new and offer free listings in order to build up the number of vacation homes listed with them. These may not offer immediate bookings, but could do so in the future.

I recommend that you list on at least 5 and preferably 10 free sites. Other than the time and effort to create your listing, there really is no downside. You can find a good list of free sites on AHR Free Holiday Rentals Sites

5. Track the performance of the sites you are listed on

I would recommend that you keep track of the source of all bookings and enquiries that you receive. At least once a year (preferably around the time of renewal of your paid sites), you should rank and evaluate the vr sites you are listed on. My recommendation is that you change at least one site each year, just so that you can continue to find the best mix of vacation rentals sites for your vacation home.


Finally, if you are looking for new sites, you should check out the COHR home page.