Stirring up some last-minute rentals - any advice?

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Mountain Goat
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Stirring up some last-minute rentals - any advice?

Post by Mountain Goat »

We were mulling over ways of filling the odd empty week, and being new to the whole thing were thinking of using these Special Offers one can do through our listings on H-R and H-Lettings, where your property is flashed up in unusual places on the rental sites.

We feel that offering a bottle of wine was a bit lukewarm, and wouldn't arouse much interest; a straight last-minute rental discount might annoy guests who had booked well in advance, but what about offering a free meal (and wine) in our favourite local restaurant?

Has anyone tried that as a carrot, so to speak? We would be pleased, the restaurant(s) would appreciate it, and hopefully, so would the punters.

Another idea was to offer the odd week to (published) travel writers, journalists etc. - it might get an article in one of the travel sections if we racked our brains for local events (i.e. we've got a National Mule Derby coming up in November, which deserves a wider audience - can't stand the beasts myself - nasty habits) or at least get a few pages for our website out of them - or is that a waste of time?

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A-two
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Post by A-two »

Goat,
All good ideas. Personally, we offer straight discounts and don't concern ourselves with whether or not a guest who has already booked at full price might see it. I buy things in stores all the time that I see a week later on sale at half price.

There will always be people who want to fly standby, and those who would rather pay a little more and know they have a secured seat. Same difference for my vacation rental.

I'm about to slash the rate for one week in September and if I were to offer a free meal in a restaurant instead, then they wrote in the guest book, "thanks for including a free meal at the best restaurant in town!", I would think the following guests might have something to complain about, whereas nobody is going to discuss what they have paid you for the week, because it's negotiable between you and your customer and nobody else's business.

One thing we do have to be careful about here is to apply discounts even handedly, otherwise we might be on the wrong end of a complaint about discrimination, and in that respect, the laws are very strict. For this reason, once we publish a special offer/discount online, we offer it to everybody who calls, even if they have not seen it.

I recently sold a week at the last minute for this year, on which I had dropped the price something like 15%. She had called to book at full price but I gave her the discount because it was published elsewhere and it would have caused bad feeling if she then saw it later. She now wants to rebook for next year, but I have told her that I can't offer her the same discount, although we do offer other perks to repeat renters, such as not taking a security deposit.
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Mountain Goat
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Post by Mountain Goat »

Well, I guess all that makes sense, and I can see the problem with discrimination (though Switzerland's a bad example, as women only got the vote relatively recently in some cantons).

That restaurant idea still nibbles away, though. Maybe actually offer a gourmet week - different place each night? Forget the discount - add a hefty premium.

Gourmet might be pushing it a bit in a mountain village, it's not quite France. We disgraced ourselves in the nearest one with a Michelin star (or two) as Mrs G, faced with a miniature bit of fish (beautifully laid out but looking a bit lonely on a vast octagonal plate) asked for a decent portion of veg. which went down rather badly - just not done in that sort of place.

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la vache!
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Post by la vache! »

Goat,
if you've anything left in July/August, the Saturday Daily Telegraph can be a good place to advertise. I completely messed up one week the first week of letting and realised I had a week spare - advertised in the DT and had a booking by 9 the morning the ad went in. It's about £75, not cheap, but it was worth it to me!
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