TA/HL Bookings growing as OD/HA decline

[Yorkshire Lass]

I've noticed a marked increase across my 3 properties in bookings coming via TA/HL which appears to be at the expense of OD/HA who used to be my biggest provider of enquiries and bookings but certainly no more. Likewise enquiries from my own websites are increasing too. I'm based in the UK and wondered if anyone else had noticed a similar trend. Clearly the OD/HA service fee would be the obvious factor driving this and it'll be interesting to see how it develops over the next few months as we come into the peak booking season.

[Goscar]

Same here. We've continued with the TA/HL subscription model and fill our calendar without any issues. At the time of writing, bookings for next season are up on the same period last year.

[Giraffe]

I've had the opposite experience with my one holiday let. I'm commission with TA and subscription with OD. All my bookings for next year have come through OD where my visitors don't pay a service charge. Only one enquiry via TA.

I suspect it's the service fee rather than the listing site at play here.

Overall, bookings are up slightly on this time last year.

[AngloDutch]

Have just come off the phone with VR support (surprisingly, got an American on the phone) as our subscription runs out in a few days.

I told them that since the service fee was introduced at the beginning of the year on VR we have received just 1 enquiry (in comparison, apart from OD, we received 24 enquiries through the HA sites during 2015, and 30 during 2014).

I asked the guy to remove online booking from our listing in order to cancel the service fee set up, as I said that we believed that our mostly German and Dutch guests were not bothering to enquire anymore because of the need to pay this fee by credit card, which is not widely used over here. Although we have alternative payments set up, there is no other option than to use a credit card to pay the service fee.

He said that he was having a team meeting this afternoon and would mention what I said. I stressed that he needed to get the message through to management that they are losing revenue because of their restrictive payment options to settle the service fee charge. I made it clear that we see no other option but to now remove online booking and let our listing slide in the ranking, with no doubt the popup coming along shortly, saying that we are not trustworthy because we don't have online booking enabled. I told the rep that their management needs to see how ABB handle this. Guests there can choose a whole range of payment options to settle directly with ABB. HA have obviously not taken local markets into account when they introduced this fee.

And, as for TA/HL, we have a commission listing with them, but lost a booking just last week, because of the €150 service fee they wanted to add, and their sites' inability to accurately quote. The guest said that she found the quote much too high and we could hardly say, you're right, but if you found that too high then we can adjust it and let you stay for a third less (which is what the rate should have been).
The problem is that we have much higher rates on Friday and Saturday nights because we get many weekend bookings. But if someone wants, for example, to stay Friday to Wednesday, TA's system just adds all the separate nightly rates together, meaning that a 5-6 night quote ends up totalling more than a whole week. Even HA knows how to handle that problem (ignore weekend rates if stay greater than 'x' nights).

If it weren't for the odd booking via our own sites and our loyal repeaters then we would be in deep trouble....

[rosebud]

My bookings are down a bit.

Not a murmur from Holiday Lettings or Flipkey (last booking via Flipkey was in late Dec).

However haven't had any reviews on Trip Adviser for ages as last guests who tried to post a review were unable to do so.

Finally had 3 bookings via OD/HA last month (with the service charge) after nothing since May.. despite views being far fewer...

[Hells Bells]

About equal footing here especially now both have service fees. 2 bookings from each in the past 12 months, although one HL booking asked me to refuse it after he found me elsewhere. Luckily I had not quite pressed to accept the booking. I only release HL at the last minute, as they hang onto my money for so long. I'm on subscription with HA so receive it faster.

[Yorkshire Lass]

Like Goscar our properties are on subscription via HL/TA so this maybe is what's making the difference?

[Codliveroil]

If I search only my town, (no dates no guests) I get the same results on HA and OD only properties within 20kms, however on VRBO I get lumped within a radius of 100kms go figure!

In 2016 rough figures compared to 2015
My VRBO enqs and bookings have disintegrated completely.
My HA enqs and bookings have declined 25% down
My OD enqs and bookings have increased significantly 200% up
My HL enqs and bookings have declined 50% down
My Flipkey enqs and bookings have given zero in 5 years.
My own Website is about the same.

I can't tell you why these figures above have varied so much in the last 12 months, each company has changed several things that could have had an effect, who knows?

All the above are commission based with instant booking.
I don't touch the demons B.com or Airbnb because of cancellation policies and other issues.

The best match is a myth, I don't think an alogarithm exists they just want to get everyone on instant booking which is better for business, 24 hours is enough time for me to accept or ask guests questions, if they are not Hen, Stag same Gender, they are good to go. I don't have issue with this (for the time being).

[Tivoli]

if they are not Hen, Stag same Gender, they are good to go. I don't have issue with this (for the time being).

You discrimiate against same gender? Appalled! Why? What harm do they do to your property?

[COYS]

if they are not Hen, Stag same Gender, they are good to go. I don't have issue with this (for the time being).

You discrimiate against same gender? Appalled! Why? What harm do they do to your property?

+1
A fruitful demographic for us, almost always complimentary & active in recommendation among friends etc.
Wedding parties on the other hand........

EDIT: After reading that again I'm pretty sure there was no discrimination intended. Maybe alluding to a group on a lads (or lasses) shindig instead?

[Tivoli]

EDIT: After reading that again I'm pretty sure there was no discrimination intended. Maybe alluding to a group on a lads (or lasses) shindig instead?

Point well made! Thank you.

[Codliveroil]

EDIT: After reading that again I'm pretty sure there was no discrimination intended. Maybe alluding to a group on a lads (or lasses) shindig instead?

Point well made! Thank you.

We certainly do not discriminate, we have many gay couples and many nationalities that stay every year. The same people who I will refuse if they are part of a same gender, hen or stag group would be welcome to stay as individuals, couples or groups of couples.

This is exactly what I meant, shindig. For example we had one group of "lasses" that had to be driven home by the owner of our local restaurant because they were too drunk to walk. They trashed our villa. On the day of departure they had no intention of vacating on time, they were still asleep at 11.00am, the cleaner had to wake them which they then complained about. We had new guests arriving and the proceeded to make breakfast and sit at the pool, vacation is 10.00am. They did not remove any garbage from the kitchen for the whole week then complained about ants, so on and so forth. The list is endless.
By the way this group were between the ages of 55 and 65 not teenagers!

I may be accused of tarring all same gender groups with the same brush, but I am not the only one on this forum that has had problems with same gender groups and there are many with the same policy as I. By the way I will not take film or photo shoot groups either, search the forum!

I guess renters who do not take children or do not make their property suitable for the disabled could be discriminating not so.

[Tivoli]

Many thanks for clearing that up and I apologise if I offended you.

[Codliveroil]

Many thanks for clearing that up and I apologise if I offended you.

No offense taken.

[rosebud]

Perhaps I should be on subscription with HL rather than commission? Do others have a good response with HL subscription

Does anyone have both subscription and commission?