Holidaylettings.co.uk opinions on value of annual subs

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
kateamis
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2018 11:06 am
Location: lymington hants

Holidaylettings.co.uk opinions on value of annual subs

Post by kateamis »

We have been renting out our holiday cottage in the new Forest for three years and continued with Holiday lettings as the previous owners had found it successful. We do well for lettings .
In 2014, when we started, the annual subs were £350 but then HL was taken over by Trip Advisor and the annual subs have shot up by approx. 50% extra per year so that the invoice to renew this month for the 2018/19 year stands at a whopping £730.
my assumption is that this subscription will continue to rise and rise so by next year it will be way over 1k. At some point I will have to draw a line and stop the subscription but am nervous about relying on a cheaper option if it does not generate as many bookings
The site is easy to use and we have had v few problems but for the odd time we have needed to sort something they are almost impossible to talk to and very unhelpful.
Does anybody have any recommendations for helpful and good value lettings listings companies which deal with the New Forest area? Has anyone experience of leaving Holiday Lettings and how to mange the period when you have people booked after the end of your subscription and how that would work?
any advice most gratefully received
Kate
Igor
Posts: 61
Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2017 4:27 pm

Post by Igor »

Having people booked after the end of your subscription is just business as usual isn't it? Ah. Perhaps you have allowed them to process payments for you? In that case it's not business as usual and you'll need to talk to them about it (if you can) if you are leaving them.

Their subs charges have escalated amazingly. When questioned about it, they say that their aim is to make the same level of income from subscription properties as they do from commission properties. On the face of it, that seems fair. The underlying problem, for them as well as for us, is that they are involved in an advertising war against Homeaway, Booking.com and AirBnB. The bid prices for adwords (by far the main advertising channel) have escalated and these companies dare not cut the advertising as that means losing market share.

These same high bid prices reduce the visibility of other, lesser-known listing sites. Thus, we don't have many other places to turn to. There may be some local sites covering your area but for national and global sites, there is little choice: the only options for really effective exposure are on these very high-priced platforms.

I quite like the way that HolidayLettings is upfront about its charges and gives some notice of its future plans. Unfortunately those future plans include making the Subscription offering more and more like the Commission offering. That's bad news. It is effectively trying to push owners to accept the commission model.

Where will it end? My forecast is that the going rate for commission will reach 30% within 2 years. Of course, it won't be labelled as 30% commission. It will be made up of a fee paid by the guest, a fee paid by the owner, a fee for handling the payment, a fee for secure communication and tax. And my hope is that Google will by that time have a cheap and simple API for accommodation providers to enable Google to perform accommodation searches by Location/Dates/Sleeps with zero cost to the guest. Then we can all enjoy watching the melt-down of the big listing sites.
Igor lives in Fort StaySavr, a secret location high in the mountains
rosebud
Posts: 625
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2012 5:24 pm
Location: Steyning, West Sussex

Post by rosebud »

That is a ridiculous amount to charge!

I am with HL on commission..I usually now only get a booking when I have reduced my prices to shift a week in a popular month.

I have listed with Unique Holiday Cottages and Independent Cottages and am currently listing with the Cottage Guide. These independent operators don't bring a huge volume of bookings but could be worth a try.

I hope to maintain / increase repeat bookings and generate new bookings through my website. Since last April about 40% of new bookings have come via my site with another 20% of bookings as repeats.
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