I recently published the results of a survey of COHR subscribers on the subject of the number of paid and free sites on which they list their vacation rental properties. In response, I received a comment indicating that perhaps the survey results were skewed by the fact that many COHR subscribers are heavy users of Free listing sites? (After all, COHR subscribers get a list of Free sites!)
Hence, I conducted a survey among members of the Yahoo! Group for Vacation Rentals
to see how the results would compare.
Dissappointingly, I only received 44 Yahoo responses (compared with 141 for the COHR survey) and almost all the respondents were from the US. However, the results confirmed that Yahoo group members do not use Free Listings sites as much as COHR subscribers. Nevertheless, 55% of Yahoo members are listed on at least 3 Free sites and 25% are listed on 5 or more Free sites.
Interesting to note that Yahoo members are also listed on more paid sites than COHR subscribers, with 47% listed on at least 4 paid sites (compared with 35% in the COHR group). Is it possible that the COHR group's greater use of Free Listings sites means they don't need to spend as much on paid listings?
The results are given here .
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
How Many Sites: Yahoo Group Results
Monday, October 11, 2010
Survey: How Many Vacation Rental Sites Do Owners List On?
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A while back, I conducted a survey of COHR subscribers on the number of vacation rentals sites that they list on.
The results contained some surprises. For example, more than 50% of vacation rental owners said that they paid for listings on three or more sites, with a surprising 26% paying for listings on more than 5 sites!
Unless you own a lot of properties (or one that is very expensive!), this would seem to be an expensive option to keep you vacation rental fully booked.
On the other hand, 14% indicated that they don't use paid listings at all ( presumably, using their own website or offline marketing methods to get bookings for).
Also of interest, a third of all vacation rental owners said that they were listed on 10 or more FREE vacation rental listing sites. This is despite the growing scepticism of using such free listing sites. I guess these owners don't mind putting the time into creating a free listing, on the grounds that, as some point, it may produce bookings!
You can find the full results of the survey on the COHR Surveys page.
