Lay My Hat

It may be 'shutting the door after the horse has bolted', but it is worth putting in your confirmation of booking e-mail, advice about the holiday insurance, just in case. This will make it easier to be businesslike in this sort of situation. Kindness is easier if business is buoyant but if you are ...

This business is never dull.

The general observation was only that their advertising appears to do owners no favours. The first priority is to ensure the best relationship between owners and agents because, if this goes wrong, guests will pay. The general mistake, made by too many agencies, which Wyndham found out some years ag...

We find once we go to manual booking bookings reduce by between 25 and 50% for a holiday let. Retired people tend to be more willing to ring up but younger people appear much more keen and willing to use automated booking. The reason for the former is split between lack of knowledge or will to use a...

Owners often have the same attitude towards guests wishing to speak to them first. Oddly, however, on-line booking most certainly boosts bookings. Many guests positively do not want to talk to owners. There is, also, the danger that the guests most likely to be disappointed or worse, like to triage ...

To be fair, although not their greatest fan, Wyndham Worldwide with its plethora of niche brands is much more in tune with things... although the way it deals with owners and guests is not always 100%. I know of some owners who have beaten them down to 20% +vat on commissions. Gone are the days of 2...

The smelly owner advertisement as published by Home Away: https://www.youtube.com/user/homeawayvacation They don't have a clue. It smears the entire sector and the vast majority of owners. I think Owners Direct is history. It stands as one of the most incompetent, insulting and damaging advertisemen...

AirBnB appears to be much enamoured with the Sun Tzu view that the key is to annihilate competition as a priority aiming for quasi-monopoly dominance. This is miles away from the old fashioned idea that focusing on value and quality gets results. The Japanese, in boom times, even saw eight or so FLT...

The smelly owner advertisement as published by Home Away: https://www.youtube.com/user/homeawayvacation

They don't have a clue. It smears the entire sector and the vast majority of owners.

Here's a bit of the AirBnB ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xBosDgw30M

I agree about the attitude towards owners. Some guests consider it a challenge, almost a sport, to see how low they can crush rents down to. Once on holiday, a few, still mercifully very few, will systematically snag and, when going home, are not unknown to use the threat of bad reviews to insist on...

Quite a bit is going on in the world of listing sites turned agencies, legacy booking agencies and go-it-alone holiday let and cottage owners. AirBnB continues to disrupt the market with vast advertising spend and the hope it might turn a profit in 2020. It has monopolist dreams... but they are flaw...

Agencies are, now, in two categories. 'Low or part service agencies' and the old sort that do stuff like take photos, visit and, in many cases, actively help sort out problems. Doing this is huge for owners because it can radically reduce the emotional impact having an agent do the spade work and at...

Good advice from people here. Its also useful to discover negative key words. These can radically reduce the advertising cost per sale. For instance, as our business is inland. we include words like: sea, seaside, beach and so on. For the same reason, lacking snow or mountains, we include words like...

Planning approaches vary from county to county. Herefordshire will often be happy to do it on the nod without plans and planning committee consideration. Shropshire, on the other hand, requires plans and charges by the square meter for change of use from residential to holiday letting. Including dra...

One of the things I like about Lay My Hat is that it is a rare forum where this sort of reality is discussed. Something is going on out there- fortunately, from our point of view, May and June may be the only months affected.