On the vacation rental news front this week are high end rentals in Apsen; how owners advertise and market in the UK and Europe; the growth of vacation rentals in north America according to a report in USA Today, and a couple of new listing sites.
The Aspen Daily News reports on the trend in ‘private’ hotels in this hot ski area:
“Aspen Signature Properties offers rentals of large private homes in Aspen at rates of $20,000 per night over the holidays and up to $160,000 for one month during the winter. The average holiday stay at a large Aspen home costs about $40,000 per week, according to Bryant, and a strong demand exists for homes in that price range.
….. a five- or six-bedroom home or private hotel can be competitive with a five-star hotel, from a price standpoint, especially if a family needs to rent three or four hotel rooms to accommodate the whole family plus friends and a nanny. In addition, many heads of wealthy households need, and want, to do some office work while they’re on an extended ski trip.”
Greg Shove, CEO of The Helium Report, which tracks luxury travel trends such as destination clubs and private hotels, says the market for luxury ski home rentals and private hotels with very high levels of service is strong and growing,
”People are working more while traveling and they want a place where they can work from,” he said. “A house can do that and a hotel room doesn’t do that very well.”
Finding budget vacation rentals in Europe
Smarter Travel addresses the issue of finding a budget rental in UK and Europe. The article compares properties found on listing sites with those advertised with agencies. From an owners point of view it is always interesting to check out how vacation rentals are marketed in other parts of the world .
“These (listing) sites almost always offer the lowest prices. Many of the sites I list below feature studio and one bedroom cottages for as little as $500 a week. But they also entail the highest risks. Florid language may overstate a property’s charm, and wide-angle lenses can make closet-size rooms look spacious. Some of these sites claim zero tolerance for complaints, so if a renter complains about a property, the site banishes it.”
A USA Today article discusses the growth in vacation rentals in the US travel & tourism industry:
“Travelers are benefitting from more choices and better websites, including some with video tours of each property. They’re also demanding and getting a higher degree of assurance that the vacation property they rent meets expected standards, and that they won’t be fleeced.”
New sites this week
Each week I come across new listing sites, each one extravagantly claiming they are the most comprehensive and widely marketed, bringing you new clients from their highly Google-ranked site. Some of the new sites are offering increasingly sophisticated tools for tracking bookings, allowing credit card payments, and monitoring availability. On the surface these look good and are attractively presented. However in a crowded market, there is more to it than developing a pretty site with some nifty features. The value of a $99 listing only reveals itself in the level of enquiries you receive, and this is worth monitoring in your marketing strategy. There is a lot more to choosing where to advertise beyond the marketing hype of the new sites. I am researching a lengthy article on the sites that offer the most value for money, as well as bringing you the most visitors. In the meantime, and please don’t take this as recommendation, here are the latest press releases:
Vacation Centric – this is a free listing site at the moment so you have nothing to lose by trying this one out.
I’m always interested to hear what’s in the news about cottage rentals, so if you hear something newsworthy, please let me know.
