TA short breaks

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Nigel Goodwin
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TA short breaks

Post by Nigel Goodwin »

It seems that TA advertises short breaks based on weekly rates, so a 3 night break is 3/7 of weekly rate.

My 3 night rate is 75% of weekly rate.

I am getting enquiries which result in disappointment.

Does anybody else have this problem?

I have a link between SuperControl and TA, which feeds my rates. Maybe this is a SuperControl problem, although I can't see any easy way to fix it on the TA dashboard.

I think airbnb quotes short break prices more accurately.
kg1
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Post by kg1 »

It's a problem with them and Airbnb. They don't seem to recognise the short break system, i.e. That it costs more per night. My bookings are way down with HL/TA this year, just 2 whereas they used to be my main provider. Possibly this is why as the trend now seems to be towards more short breaks, rather then weekly bookings.
Nigel Goodwin
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Post by Nigel Goodwin »

It seems to be less of a problem with airbnb, i think the interface with SuperControl (where I define the 3 day break as 75%) makes some kind of approximation for the airbnb system, it's not exactly right but not too bad, I ca live with it.

But TA is hopeless. I've been with HL/TA for some years, I don't remember it being this bad. At first glance you can define nightly rates or weekly rates and little else, not a cleaning charge, not nothing, not nada.

I have given up on HA, too many other problems, so I do somewhat rely on TA/HL.
newtimber
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Post by newtimber »

Unless you have completely flexible changeover days, you can't do short breaks on TA. Someone can arrive on a Thursday and leave on a Sunday and mess up 2 full weeks on Fri-Fri or Sat-Sat bookings.
Even weekly bookings are a problem if someone wants to stay 8 days - you lose the next week's booking for 1/7th of the price.
Nigel Goodwin
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Post by Nigel Goodwin »

Seems like I will have to continue disappointing guests who make an enquiry for 3 nights expecting it to cost £250. My cleaning costs alone are around £100. It is rare I accept any short break for less than £400. Maybe for returning guests, or at short notice.
AndrewH
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Post by AndrewH »

newtimber wrote:Unless you have completely flexible changeover days, you can't do short breaks on TA. Someone can arrive on a Thursday and leave on a Sunday and mess up 2 full weeks on Fri-Fri or Sat-Sat bookings.
Even weekly bookings are a problem if someone wants to stay 8 days - you lose the next week's booking for 1/7th of the price.
We experimented with totally flexible changeover days for the 2017 season, and for the reasons above it has been a limited success. Previously we let only by the week with a single fixed changeover day. Our guests are, and always were, 99% from the UK. When we started out 9 years ago charter flights connecting the UK with the Greek island where we are were just on Sundays and Tuesdays arriving from Gatwick or Manchester airports. This made the choice of a changeover day very easy.

Now, there are UK charter flights arriving on Kefalonia on every day of the week and a lot more airlines are involved. They come from all sorts of provincial airport, like Edinburgh and Bristol, as well as the main hubs. This has noticeably opened up a new market for us from people living say in Scotland or the West Country. Another advantage of flexibility is that guests can choose a period for their stay longer than a week but less than a fortnight - 10 days is popular.

I think we will continue with totally flexible changeover for 2018. Potential guests, looking at the availability calendar, seem to understand and be cooperative with their choice of dates. We now charge on a per night basis and no longer by the week.
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

AndrewH wrote:I think we will continue with totally flexible changeover for 2018. Potential guests, looking at the availability calendar, seem to understand and be cooperative with their choice of dates. We now charge on a per night basis and no longer by the week.
I'm sure that can work with overseas properties. If I'm booking a villa and see say a 9 or 10 day gap, if I can get a flight to co-ordinate, I'll happily fill that odd gap.

The same doesn't seem to work as well in the UK, for me anyway. People will enquire for whatever suits them and happily leave odd one or two night gaps, so I would just lose out. I'll be flexible in the off season but less so in the main season.

Going back to the original post, I can't get any of the listing sites to work for me and quote a price I'm happy with for short breaks. It's usually either under or over priced. I get a very pleasant surprise when I get an enquiry with a correct price quoted. They usually don't book though as they're sending enquiries to loads of properties!
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