Where to Advertise?

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Jo Tomkinson
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Joined: Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Turkey and Spain
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Where to Advertise?

Post by Jo Tomkinson »

I have been dithering and unable to make a decision as to where to advertise our villas in Turkey. We have them listed on Villarenters and get a lot of bookings from them. However, due to having to wait until the booking is completed to get our money and at 10% a time, I am hoping to start getting bookings from other sources. I am considering Holiday-Rentals and Owners Direct but am wondering whether these are the best ones to advertise on for Turkey? Any guidance you can give me would be very much appreciated.

Jo
Ali
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Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2005 10:08 pm
Location: Berry, France
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Where to Advertise?

Post by Ali »

I can't say for Turkey, Jo, because my house is in France but I was in a similar state to you, trying to make up my mind. I plumped for Holiday Rentals and eventually put my advert on their site at one in the morning about three weeks ago. The following afternoon I got an SMS message on my phone saying I had an enquiry. It was an American couple who a few days later decided to book and are staying in my house this week (despite the riots). So I am quite pleased with Holiday Rentals as I have already more than covered the cost of advertising.

However, despite quite a few enquiries, I haven't had any more bookings. At least that was the case until last night when someone from Holiday France said they wanted to book. This is another part of the Holiday Rentals 'empire', not to be confused with their French language site, but it seems I am on all three for no extra money which is really quite a good deal.

I am also thinking of going for French Holiday Homes which has had some quite controversial coverage on Lay My Hat!
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Hanorah
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Location: Turkey

Post by Hanorah »

Hi I haven't had a dickie bird with holiday rentals and am in Turkey also. Tom Brosenhan the best selling author of the lonely planet books on Turkey has a site called www.turkeytravelplanner.com I know you can advertise your villa on that site but I think it was expensive at about £300. It might be worth looking into as it is totally relevant to Turkey and I would imagine a lot of people thinking about travelling there would look at the site. However I have no idea of the amount of bookings you might get so you would probably need to do some research.

I get all my enquires though my own website, responsible travel and villa renters at the moment and in that order. I will not be renewing with holiday rentals it was a waste of money for me and we are already booked for a lot of the season next year so for this year at least I will be staying with my own site and the two comission sites only. I might also throw in a little Ebay advertising again to try and sell any last minute weeks.
Always Learning
Fraise
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Post by Fraise »

Hi- are you still finding that Villa renters works for you?? I have had absolutely no enquiries through them.

www.thepetitmanoir.com
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Hanorah
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Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 2:50 pm
Location: Turkey

Post by Hanorah »

I am getting a steady flow of enquiries and some bookings through Villa renters this is probably because I am on the first page of their results for Turkey. This is because my index is high due to previous bookings and putting all my own ones through their system and also because I have several good reviews. However I still primarily use them for my own bookings and they are making some unpopular changes in January which will only effect their bookings so it remains to be seen if these enquiries will continue.

They are suggesting they charge the renter 1% to use credit card still zero for using a debit card. They are also taking all commission out from the deposit rather then a percentage from the deposit and the rest when the balance has been paid. They have promised to reimburse owners if the holidays are then canceled and say these changes are primarily to allow them to spend more on advertising the rental site. They are not going down well with owners but as they do not affect your own bookings should not be too much of a problem for me although I may be more inclined to turn down a booking through their site as such a large percentage will be taken from the deposit. If I do this those my index will go down and hence I would not be on the first page anymore.

However having said all that they are doing much better for me than Holiday Rentals so I would imagine the best sites to advertise probably depend upon where your holiday home is located rather than what seems to be the most successful for the majority.
Always Learning
Jo Tomkinson
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Joined: Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Turkey and Spain
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Where to Advertise

Post by Jo Tomkinson »

Thanks for your replies and suggestions. In answer to Villarenters, we have done very well through them. We have a high index rating on all our properties in Spain and Turkey and good reviews, consequently we keep our position on the first page which obviously helps.

As I said, although we have done very well through Villarenters, this comes at a high price.

Jo
Peter 100
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Post by Peter 100 »

I use www.holidaylettings.co.uk they send me at least three enquiries a month. I am also listed with Villarenters but never had nothing off them.

Peter
kevincohr
Posts: 110
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2005 5:44 am
Location: Nice, France

Re : Where to advertise

Post by kevincohr »

Although we don't have anything specific to Turkey, there is some interesting comparative information on several sites (including those that focus on Europe) listed on http://www.compareownerholidayrentals.com.

Disclosure : I am their webmaster !

Kevin
Last edited by kevincohr on Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fraise
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Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 8:25 am
Location: Charente Maritime and Middle England

Post by Fraise »

Hello Kevin. I clicked on your site but just got a v-deck message :evil:
kevincohr
Posts: 110
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Location: Nice, France

re : which sites to advertise

Post by kevincohr »

I'm not sure what the problem was with my hosting server, but I've edited my post with the following address which should work :

http://www.compareownerholidayrentals.com

Thanks,

Kevin
Fraise wrote:Hello Kevin. I clicked on your site but just got a v-deck message :evil:
Fraise
Posts: 2079
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 8:25 am
Location: Charente Maritime and Middle England

Post by Fraise »

Yes,it works now :)

www.thepetitmanoir.com
petehols
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Post by petehols »

Hi Jo

Why don't you set up your own website which can be a great way to get extra exposure for your property.

There is a number of postings on this site that can explain exactly how to do it yourself and if you have enough time on your hands you can read up on all the postings regarding the optomisation of the site as well which can get you found on all the search engines.

Hope this helps

Pete
for worldwide holidays try www.lastminutevillaholiday.co.uk
Jo Tomkinson
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Turkey and Spain
Contact:

Where to Advertise

Post by Jo Tomkinson »

Hi Pete,

I have got my own website - actually I've got two - www.villas-apart.net which I was able to do myself through Freewebs andt he other one is www.villas-apart.co.uk which we have had professionally done.

villas-apart.net comes up fairly high on the rankings on Google -pages 1 and 2 when typing in various search words, but to be honest we never get anything for either website. I do wonder if people feel safer with sites like holiday-rentals etc - perhaps they think they are dealing with a sort of travel agent, I don't know.

It is interesting to see the different responses people have to various sites isn't it? There doesn't seem to be any hard and fast rules - just luck I think.

Jo
petehols
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Post by petehols »

Hi Jo

Sorry didn't see the link to your website. The only thing i can find your website under is seaches link villa calis beach, uzumlu which is very specific searches and very unlikely that you will get traffic from these sort of searches. Did a company fo this optomisation for you or was it yourself? If it was a company then I would get onto them and ask them to target different phrases and get them to do a keyword analysis for you. If you are doing it yourself research different phrases that people are using to try and look for your villas and optomise your website accordingly.

I really don't think it is a matter of trust or that people don't like dealing with a single owner website. I think it is just the fact that your website isn't in front of as many people as it could be. I think if you got the website found under certain search terms you would see a lot more bookings coming directly from your website.

Hope this helps

Pete
for worldwide holidays try www.lastminutevillaholiday.co.uk
Jo Tomkinson
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:46 pm
Location: Turkey and Spain
Contact:

Where to Advertise?

Post by Jo Tomkinson »

Thanks Pete, you seem very knowledgeable. I have still got a lot to learn.

Jo
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