Lay My Hat

Just a quick update on what happened to our bookings two years on from getting out of Homelidays at the time of their 'transition' to HA.

I am delighted to report that between them Rentalia and Spain Holiday for summer and Pawsabroad have given us our second best year ever - the first one was nearly 100% occupancy and would be really hard to beat. We are really fortunate in Spain to have the two sites which are geographically focussed on our area. Hopefully they will not fall prey to a big cheque from the bully boys.

Anyone who is thinking of making the same move really need have nothing to fear.

It’s good to hear some positive stories for a change and news from someone who has voted with their feet rather than their mouth. This is the only action which will have a real impact on these companies.

For my Spanish place I had to ditch HA and Homelidays a few years ago but Spain Holiday stopped working for me and in desperation and perhaps curiosity I gave OD a try. Much to my disappointment OD brought most bookings in this year but it’s been my 2nd worst year ever and now with the service fee, I’m trying my best to look for alternatives. I’m back on commission with HA, as there’s nothing to lose but have made no bookings.

Nearly half my guests before were French but this year, they’ve all vanished. I need to work out where that market has gone.

I’ll have to take a look at Rentalia. I was also with Niumba in the past but that only ever brought me poor quality enquiries which led nowhere.

We too have noticed a dearth of French guests who used to be our biggest market by far. In their place we now have UK ones which we never used to get in summer and mostly I prefer not to have, as I was reminded on a changeover last weekend! I think the French issue is related to their economy. There are fewer French cars here than normal, and if you talk to them they are all fearful for their jobs and even where employment is secure, for their actual remuneration which employers seem to be able to adjust to keep afloat.

You might want to reconsider the Spain Holiday question, Kev. We were with them for two or three years from 2009, then the enquiries (which tended to be for special offers when we did them) dried up entirely so despite liking them we left. We went back to them in April this year and have found them much better than before. Difficult to say how good because all of our Oct-March weeks were already booked by then but they did deliver some good peak summer weeks. It is a really well run site with lots of bells and whistles which are genuinely helpful for both guests and owners and they do their research on current issues very well. Plus their customer service is second to none.

I'm still with Spain Holiday. Looking at my spreadsheet they gave me just one booking this year but it was out of season so the advert just paid for itself. I've been with them since 2008 I think.

We left OD and Spain Holiday is performing for us in what was a good year, although 2 cancellations in the last week haven't helped.
We have also picked up a town hall booking, through being registered there now and 2 through TA from people who googled and found our website.
Feeling generally optimistic and every thread about OD makes me so pleased we've jumped ship.

kevsboredagain wrote:I'm still with Spain Holiday. Looking at my spreadsheet they gave me just one booking this year but it was out of season so the advert just paid for itself. I've been with them since 2008 I think.

Ah, sorry, misunderstood!

If you want to join Rentalia would you allow me to recommend you for a discount on my renewal?

pepsipuss wrote:
If you want to join Rentalia would you allow me to recommend you for a discount on my renewal?

Sure; I'm willing to give another site a try and you can benefit too then I'm happy to let you. Just PM me if you need a contact detail or anything.

kevsboredagain wrote:

pepsipuss wrote:
If you want to join Rentalia would you allow me to recommend you for a discount on my renewal?

Sure; I'm willing to give another site a try and you can benefit too then I'm happy to let you. Just PM me if you need a contact detail or anything.

Thank you, will do!

Thanks for that peps. I looked at spain holiday when you last mentioned them but they only have 3 villas on their Ibiza section So I don't think it's worth us trying.....but rentalia looks a lot more promising. I like that you can trial it for 6mths. So that is on my list of one's to try out.

Just one question. Do either or both of these come up on your search criteria on Google? They don't come anywhere for me here.....so I'm wondring if they have a loyal client base that go back to them to book diffrent places.

Mouse
x

Mouse wrote:Thanks for that peps. I looked at spain holiday when you last mentioned them but they only have 3 villas on their Ibiza section So I don't think it's worth us trying.....but rentalia looks a lot more promising. I like that you can trial it for 6mths. So that is on my list of one's to try out.

Just one question. Do either or both of these come up on your search criteria on Google? They don't come anywhere for me here.....so I'm wondring if they have a loyal client base that go back to them to book diffrent places.

Mouse
x

Both on P1 when searching in French and Spanish (our most important markets) and Spain Holiday but not Rentalia in English. SH comes immediately below the paid-for ads in English.

Rentalia does not bring us many UK bookings at all (maybe because it doesn't come up on P1!) So maybe it would not work for you as by the time the Spanish are looking for their holidays you are probably booked up anyway. Not sure why you think the small number of SH properties on Ibiza is a disadvantage?

I tried Rentalia and it produced sweet FA - not even an enquiry let alone a booking. I like Spain Holiday, although they have not produced volume business. What they have produced is bookings which are a) not via bloody OD *growl* and b) are not from the UK. I like the fact that Spain Holiday send me people from Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands

Not sure why you think the small number of SH properties on Ibiza is a disadvantage?

I suppose it's because I think people want to see a fair selection of properties and if they see only 3 they would click out. I might be wrong.
In situations like this I'd love to be able to message existing advertisers and ask what the enquiry level is like.

Mousie
x

I should think the advantage is that people grazing a number of sites will see your place on Spain Holiday at a better price than the HA group because Spain Holiday do not charge fees to guests! What are the property listing numbers for the Balearics in general?

Well after raeding this thread I have just booked somewhere using Spain Holiday.

It wasn't a website I was familiar with but it did throw up some different places at decent prices without the dreaded commission and having to route communication through a ruddy dashboard.

Before seeing the site I was looking at an airbnb place that came with what I thought a hefty commission of €120. I decided it was just too much and let it go. It was the same with HL and that drove me bonkers as it kept reverting to its preferred list rather than mine when I returned to the list of properties.

I'll happily use SH again.

It's good, isn't it? As a guest, I mean.

Also as a guest, I struggle a bit with Rentalia though - it's slow, and (in Catalonia at least) has lots of identikit apartments in places I don't want to go!