Holiday Cottage TV advertising disasters

[Mouse]

A phrase I recently heard;

You can boil alive in a bathtub that is gradually heated.

I think this fits with the way the big boys must think. Bit by bit. It's easy because owners don't have group power....although that might change.

Wyndham, years ago, had a bad name on this forum with owners.

Mouse
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[farley]

I was discussing this thread with my daughter ( a 30 year old Mum of two young children). She said she would never book accommodation without talking to, or emailing the owner first.
She needed to feel reassured the host was 'caring' and had everything she needed for her children.
It's very sad to think the 'modern' approach to advertising is going to make this impossible.

[charles cawley]

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 owners before booking.

Just like the advertising debacles- things can be more strange and complicated than they may first seem.

[Mouse]

Oddly, however, on-line booking most certainly boosts bookings

Charles I'm interested in this comment...is this your companies experience?

If so, is it across all demographics and house sizes?

Thanks
Mousie
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[charles cawley]

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 automated booking systems and a distrust of the internet. Although it is more secure to book using the automated system, they much prefer to speak to someone.

The latter feel secure with the large number of pictures now used on web sites and are much more at home trusting the internet. They do not want the bother ringing up and just want to get on with making arrangements.

There is a slight tendency to be more tolerant of manual booking for sleep 8 and above, due to greater numbers of people involved. There are other factors and this is a quite involved affair. Some similar factors might be seen in the take-up of contactless payments in shops.

But these features relate to an agency operation. How much they apply to-go-it alone operators, I do not know- but I have a strong feeling they do even though, perhaps, in a less radical way.

[Sanchisimo]

I hate to be out of kilter here, but my Airbnb guests are the best behaved of all the ones I get - generally better than Homeway and HL. We have had 23 bookings from Airbnb so far this year and I anticipate the same number going forward for 2017. I personally think that the guests being reviewed has an effect on this. I have never felt under pressure to reduce my prices (in fact we are starting to creep them up), have set a minimum of a 4 day stay in our apartments and have yet to be asked for a discount (I would refuse as are fairly well fully booked).

To continue go against the flow of this thread, we have also started using Airbnb to book our own holidays - the week in Budapest was a delight, both booking process and communication as well as the apartment itself.

[charles cawley]

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 ago, is to neglect the owner agency relationship.

AirBnB's immature know-all approach is changing. They are beginning to realize Wyndham was not so 'legacy' after all. Good to see it is working for you- but for how long?

[greenbarn]

We find once we go to manual booking bookings reduce by between 25 and 50% for a holiday let.

..........

But these features relate to an agency operation. How much they apply to-go-it alone operators, I do not know- but I have a strong feeling they do even though, perhaps, in a less radical way.

I’ll suggest, based on no evidence but it’s one to ponder, that there’s perhaps quite a big difference in how guests want to deal with an individual owner compared with a small and select agency.
Many/most guests will reasonably expect that a small agency is sitting between guest and owner and has done the background leg-work that the guest needs and established a relationship with the owner, and the guests are confident in what they are booking when they hit the button. This confidence may falsely extend to booking through the large impersonal agencies, unless the guest is particularly savvy.
For a guest dealing directly with an individual owner the confidence factor isn’t automatic, and generally needs a bit more research and communication to establish. In the absence of an official and independent assessment, all the guest might have are a bunch of TA type reviews (all 5 star of course) which are of questionable meaning and value.

Having said that, I do get a number of bookings where the first contact is the Book Now button on my own website, although my web stats usually show a fair bit of drilling in advance.

But guests are people and people are all very different; maybe that’s why the big listing sites are having so much trouble trying to force them all into the same box. Currently their ongoing solution is not to recognise the folly of the exercise, but to get ever bigger hammers.

[charles cawley]

This business is never dull.

[greenbarn]

This business is never dull.

Indeed! Your insights from a different perspective are always food for thought.