OD ENQ DROPPING LIKE A STONE

[French Cricket]

It certainly isn't.

My listing has been back live for a month now; page views for that period are down on last year by a staggering 61%, and no enquiries. Some of that is without a doubt down to the fact that you can see availability without viewing the property page, but most of it, I believe, is that my target market is deserting OD in droves.

It'll be interesting to see what the next 3 months bring - this is traditionally when we fill up, with around 50% of bookings coming from OD. We're nearly half booked for 2016 from past guests and recommendations but still have most of July and August to fill (always the last to go for us) and all of October.

I'm preparing to go it alone from January, when my OD listing expires. That's a bit scary but I can no longer ally myself with the Homeaway model.

[gh]

Quite May June July for enquiries that's normal for us as summer (when we rent) was full. These past two weeks taken 2x3 wks 1x2 wks 1x1 wks, one July week available. Noticed viewings up a smidge for August, Sept bit early to tell.

Bookings are from Eire Scotland & South UK perhaps the 1st two countries is down to the bad summer who knows?

[Mouse]

August; page hits down a little against last year (but last years August figures wre quite high) but enquiries up. Although at the moment enquirers seem to be tyre kicking...but that's possibly because not all the flight schedules have been released.
We're about a third booked for 2016, which is normal at this stage.

So....OD is still doing ok for us, and I am now answering direct via the dashboard, well I hit reply, as I gave up on the double reply shenanigans given that I have the email addy if I want to make a note of it. But as I only ever contact those that book it seemed pointless faffing about replying direct until they actually book.

Mousie (still with her fingers crossed)
x

[charles cawley]

I have a feeling wannabe gatekeeper AirBnB spending vast sums on advertising is damaging OD.

We lost one cottage in Herefordshire because AirBnB did a dedicated Facebook and high bid Google Ad words campaign just for them as they were starting up. They appear to be spending money like water with the intention to knock out competition.

We lost that one but they have not repeated the exercise.

Time will tell.

[French Cricket]

I'm sure you're right, Charles ... but OD is doing a pretty good self destruction job all on its own!

[charles cawley]

I agree. They are not helping themselves. We tried it out and found the quality of enquiry was often very poor.

The disruption caused by people trying to knock down rates and sometimes, seemingly, unable to cut a clean deal without a long negotiation made the exercise uneconomic.

To be fair, this was only about one in 4 fixes but that contrasts to the one in a 100 in our normal run of business. The difference was radical.

[French Cricket]

We used to have very good quality (and 'correct' for our market) enquiries from OD, and have always converted over 95% of them ... but I think those days have gone, at least for those of us with rural properties or niche markets.

Customer feedback on the new site is appalling, and when I've talked about the new site with my own guests (some of whom booked through OD last year) they've all said, unprompted by me, that they wouldn't use it now.

[ianthy]

I am no fan of OD but just renewed my listing because 70% of my bookings for Italy come via OD. My enq/hits are way down on previous years but the conversion rate is good.

I agree Airbnb is def having a big effect - they have more properties/accommodation and they are also marketing to high end guests too with 3-5 star unique properties.