2014 Review

[declanja]

VRBO 33%
HA 25%
airbnb 18%
FK 15%
Repeat 9%
HL 0%
HT 0%

These are "bookings" percentages. "Nights booked" percentages would show different stats weighted in favour of VRBO and HA.

VRBO was always my best site until 2014. Most of their bookings were made in 2013. 2014 was a disaster from VRBO and I have not renewed. Most of the HA bookings were through Holiday Rentals UK but I took out the global package in May 14 and some came through sister sites especially Owners Direct.
Most of the Flipkey and Airbnb bookings were short ones, 3-4 nights, booked close to arrival dates in high season and at reduced prices.
We keep running faster just to keep up!

Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for all the advise in 2014!
Declan

[barbersdrove]

My bookings have come in the main from the Visit Peterborough site, Flipkey, our own website and facebook. Local referrals have given us more nights as we've had people stay a month twice when in between houses and also had a high percentage of nights from contractors accommodation agencies. All of November and Dec were full with these.

i have 5 weeks booked for 2015 and have taken 5 weeks off the calendar we are off to OZ to see my daughter. This trip was planned for 2014 but when i was diagnosed with Breast Cancer it was put on hold.

I'm contemplating whether to do a facebook ad now or just to focus on posting everyday and promoting one or 2 of those posts.
decisions decisions.

[revdev]

I'm contemplating whether to do a facebook ad now or just to focus on posting everyday and promoting one or 2 of those posts.
decisions decisions.

Of your two FB options, I personally think the option in bold will get you more traction.

[barbersdrove]

I think you're probably right. promoted posts have done better than an ad for me in the past

[Bunny]

I think you're probably right. promoted posts have done better than an ad for me in the past

I'm really keen to do more with Facebook. I hope you don't mind me asking how much you would spend per promoted post in order to reach enough people to achieve any results? Thanks

[French Cricket]

Just a quick observation about ads on FB: there must be lots of people like me who never see them because we use ad blocking software. Promoted posts are surely the way to go: I spent 5 euros and got a reach of 2700 with 3 new likes and quite a bit of interaction.

Only done it once, for a post that was already performing well, but I'll certainly do it from time to time this year.

[Bunny]

Only done it once, for a post that was already performing well, but I'll certainly do it from time to time this year.

Whenever I make posts, all I get is friends liking it (and I haven't even got many of those!) but nobody ever shares it. Other than paying for a promoted post I'm at a bit of a loss of thinking of things to say that people might share. Are good photographs more the key to success rather than actual words?

Sorry thread creeping and digressing again....

[Nemo]

Do remember that all is about to change this month in the world of fb. It's worth just hanging on to see how or if it impacts your posts.

[Casscat]

My place has only been listed since July 2014, but here is the bookings history:

OD = 100%
HA = 0% (inc. all their many overseas sites...)
Own site = 0%
Campaya = 0%
FB = 0%

Enquiries pretty much the same - I had only one enquiry via HA and two via my own site, but they were from people who had seen my listing on OD and Googled to find out more info (and screen me for scaminess...)

The above reflects 2014 and all my bookings for the coming year. I have cancelled my HA listing as it has been a colossal waste of money.

[rosebud]

Bookings from April 14
1.OD 35%
2.HL 21%
3.Website 14%
4.Repeats 9%
5.AB 7%
5. Agency 7%
6. Cottage guide 2%
6. Unique Cottages 2%
6. Local Tourist Info at local Post Office 2%
6. Flip key 2%

[harcourtv57]

HA - 73%
Repeat 16%
Website 8%
OD 3%

However, our main site now is HA as we didn't continue with OD (due to the issues at that time) or Independent Cottages (due to minimal bookings for 2 years) from February.

I do categorise repeat bookings as a separate %, wherever they come from.

[Casscat]

Hi Harcourt. I'm really interested in your high take up rate via HA. Can I ask about the percentage that is UK and non-UK? And whether your HA quota shot up when you canned your OD subscription, i.e. the same grazers simply booked via HA rather than OD?

[harcourtv57]

Hi Casscat

I don't keep stats for UK/non UK but last year the split was HA 45% and OD 29% - which would seem to suggest that there is no overall difference between listing with just HA or both. However as someone has already said, stats can be misinterpreted. So what I can tell you is that this year's bookings with only HA were 28, whereas last year it was 24 from HA and 15 from OD and that our overall number of bookings is down to 37 from the previous years 53 (52 the year before that) so our bookings have decreased .

[NonnaGiulietta]

[Naomi]

Thank you to those who have analysed their bookings. I use an agent for all my lettings. But I am interested in knowing from where you all get your bookings when you do not have agents.

What are the abbreviations for the ones below?

HL - Holiday Lettings
OD - Owners Direct
FK - Flipkey
AB
IK
HT
BC

By the way, no one has mentioned Group Accommodation.