Flurry of enquires

[Astorchamonix]

In the last 2-3 days we have had a flurry of enquires about our alpine property, mainly for summer bookings. Whereas air bnb and our direct website enquires seem to book after a few questions, the homeaway/vrbo etc punters seem to send enquiries but not many convert to bookings. We aim to respond within the hour and point towards our website which has lots of useful info on. Are we doing something wrong or do you think it is just a different type of customer? Do you think they expect some kind of discount (we are not going to offer one as have reasonable rates we feel and a good occupancy). We have enabled the 'book now' etc but still only one reservation via these platforms. Do others have a similar experience?

[Hells Bells]

Very surprisingly, my summer weeks have been booked up for some time, very little still available.

[FelicityA]

My flurry happened early on in January and February and came from all quarters. Most of the HA enquiries converted and I got a couple of bookings for February via OD. Strangely, I find the reverse of you, or nearly. Both OD and Homeaway.com/VRBO enquirers ask lots of questions but the HA ones are the ones that come good. The OD enquirers rarely even acknowledge a reply before they disappear. I answer the questions, the answers to which are already clearly defined on my website I was already pretty booked up for the summer by Christmas but I still have 4+ weeks left between now and October at my cottage, much more for Dublin.

I only have Dublin on one website ( besides mine) - HA (VRBO) and in March, through that portal, I have not had one single enquiry for either property, which I find weird. I did a test enquiry which never arrived so I complained, but they can find nothing wrong (allegedly). Either my enquiries were falling into a big black hole most of March ( test enquiries are now working, just no real ones appearing) or my particular demographic have. I am hoping April will get enquiries emerging from the hole.

[OSINCLAIR]

I have had the same flurry of enquiries with exactly none turning into bookings sigh. I suspect people send out a whole load of inquiries and then decide.....no idea why as all they want is price and availability and Holiday Lettings clearly shows both. Some but by no means all are looking for a discount and I take the same viewpoint (maybe if I didn't I would get more bookings)! So equally mystified....

[Casscat]

No flurry for me of either enquiries or bookings. I am full over the summer but my hoped for out of season bookings have been very thin on the ground

[charles cawley]

Enquiries have not increased that much but automated bookings continue to increase. People seem more confident.

Over the 60-70 cottages we assist, some on sole agency and others working alongside, January was up on last year. February was almost 100% better than a bad 2014. March is around 8% up on 2014, which was a very good month. We've had three straight months of healthy booking like it was before 2012.

Meanwhile, Ad Words spend is down around 17.5% on 2014 month on month this year.

Some of this is because our business is maturing. It takes a very long time to get established. Some, because we are still learning how to run this sort of business well. But we suspect the most important factor is that the weather chaos predicted by some of the more extreme climate change people has not happened.

It still could but the stable 'normal' weather over the last 12 months has done more than anything else to mend our part of the UK rural economy.

[FelicityA]

Charles, do you put some or all of your cottages on listing sites or are you completely dependent on your own agency for advertising?

[charles cawley]

Enquiries from Owners Direct have not risen for us in 2015.

We did a trial with them. I intensely disliked the robotic and insensitive nature of their 'customer service' and, on renewal, they raised the rate about 14% expecting us to roll over and accept it. We felt an 'attitude' as if customers were to be processed.

The back office of Owners Direct appears good, especially to book off dates on the calendar, but the front office has some serious issues in border areas and feels very dated.

We complained about the rate increase and the impression we had was 'take it or leave it'. We left it. The trial cottage was high quality and books quite well. Owners Direct, during the time we were with them generated well over 50% of all the time wasters across our 60-70 cottages. The nature of guests was markedly different from those generated by Adwords and from word of mouth and other sources for our business.

It was worth a trial but we have no immediate plans of going back. We may try other listing sites from time to time. The trial just about paid for itself but the time and bother dealing with time wasters as well as the emotional upset along with robotic U.S. 'customer service' means we are not going back for the foreseeable future.

I know Owners Direct does work for many people, but for our type of cottages in our area, it was not a success. Booking should be clean, free of bother and pleasant. It failed on all three counts.

[FelicityA]

Enquiries from Owners Direct have not risen for us in 2015.

I know Owners Direct does work for many people, but for our type of cottages in our area, it was not a success.

Interesting. So it is not just me. I have no successful source of British bookings now, ( except for repeats) although the previously silent, for about 3 or 4 years, holidaylettings4you magically produced a 'British' booking via Singapore for my two 'best' weeks of the year - Christmas and New Year during my January flurry. I am almost tempted to try HL again - somebody please stop me!!

[charles cawley]

FelicityA. I think go it alone people are not being helped by Google. Even we, after 5 years and with 60-70 cottages are only ranked 2. We have given up on trying to please its articles of obedience and are heavily into Twitter with nearly 8,900 quality followers on CHL and 2780 on our sister site Holiday Lets for Sale.

Google is no friend and we are working hard to marginalize it. Although, even now, we spend around £14,000 pa no one from Google bothers to ring or keep in touch. We have radically reduced our spend over the last couple of years, partly, because their apparent attitude has driven us to find other ways. They appear arrogant and out of touch.

They are a lazy spoilt company and could easily be taken out just as they dealt with Yahoo in the late '90s. I suspect internal politics is tearing away as their one time young inspired people have grown middle aged with children and mortgages. Priorities change and businesses need to change management style otherwise, what was good when starting up, turns to poison later. Meanwhile, stockholders will be looking to turn the screw for dividends. I will not weep if Google fails. In three years, Tommy Flowers and Turing made the World's first electronic programmable computer against opposition from senior people.

(An aside: it is strange how Tommy is virtually forgotten... he even spent £1,000 of his own money to make sure the project happened. Without him, I doubt Turing could have succeeded).

In over 3 years Google gave us Googlespecs that didn't do the job.

[lester1meg]

After a nightmare time of trying to renew with Flipkey, we decided we would put one of our Irish properties back on VRBO which in the past had served us well. So far since December we have had 7 enquiries not one of which has converted. What is working for us is a small independant local site for West Dingle for which we paid 70 euros. Today I paid £20 for a year with a pet friendly website. I'll keep you posted how it goes.