Are OD under pressure

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
chipiechoo
Posts: 155
Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 7:07 pm
Location: SW France

Are OD under pressure

Post by chipiechoo »

We allowed our listing to lapse in July and will not be renewing. End of story you would think as we spelled out in a previous entry on this forum. Since then we have had one email and as of today
7 phone calls to discuss this matter with us and attempt to get us to change our mind. Got the message that to quote them 'we OD are not still in the horse and carriage age' which we as owners are, wanting to avoid on line listing and not accepting their terms which is what the customer wants.
Have just looked at the cottages in our region where there was once 14 OD properties listed, now there remains 6 all the rest of the 38 are imports from Abritel and VRBO. Suspect management is placing pressure on staff to get those recalcitrant owners back under any circumstances. The phone number by the way is +44 2035140105, if you either want to avoid answering or get in touch with them.
Jenster
Posts: 454
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2016 8:24 am
Location: Cornwall
Contact:

Post by Jenster »

Yes I have also noticed a definite significant drop in the number of properties advertised in my area. I will be switching to commission when my listing expires in January and will be working hard to attract bookings elsewhere. This strategy has worked well thi year and less than half my bookings are now from OD so the commission would have been the same as the sub fee, hopefully less next year. Guests are also fed up with OD I feel and are googling properties they find there to go direct.
ManxRed1
Posts: 229
Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2016 9:52 am
Location: Polperro, Cornwall, UK

Post by ManxRed1 »

My listing lapsed in May, and I was bombarded with calls begging me to reconsider. Eventually though, the guy who called me could clearly see how many times I'd been called to no effect, and actually offered me the option of not being contacted again, which I opted for, and - fair enough - I haven't been contacted since.

In my village there used to be 17 properties on OD, now there are 11, but I haven't checked them all to see if they are imports from elsewhere.
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