I know exactly what the phrase means and where it came from historically. It also represents blindly following a leader like lemmings. I see many people holding Airbnb in importance as they sadly did jim Jones. He did not force anyone to drink poison but he did convince them it was the right thing to do. A sad tragedy with horrible consequences.
I started out on Airbnb, and then ventured into direct booking more than a year ago through Houfy. I use Square for payments. Houfy and Square have worked well for me. Two booking engines mean I’m now looking at Pricelabs or something to make the pricing updates easier because while the calendar blocks flow back and forth, the price changes do not.
Most Houfy bookings are repeat visitors because they learn of it through my collateral. And you have to drive your own traffic there. Still I have had a handful of non-repeats find me and book through Houfy because of my social media activity and the linktr.ee that I set up for each site. That linktr.ee offers guests both Airbnb and Houfy booking links so they can choose which way they want to go.
2 Likes
-
Give you listing a distinctive name. Use is several times in your description. Make a webpage using this unique name.
-
Switch to host only fees, it will give you much better control over your prices. Increase your price on AirBnB by15% to cover the fee. Guests on AirBnB are mostly price driven, they will google your name, and if they see they can get it cheaper through direct booking, they will book direct.
About 20% of my direct bookings find me by Googleing my name after seeing us on Air or BDC.
-Make sure you have a Facebook and an Instagram page, and force yourself to make a daily post.
Just set your alarmclock and post or reshare something people are interested in (Local event, Bar, Sight, Views, details of your place). About 50% of my direct bookings are generated through social media.
- I always give a businesscard, and send them a “See you soon”-email after they leave, with my website so people know how to book direct. (I have people revisiting me after 4-5 years because they kept my email)
2 Likes
How do I design my website so it’s similar to yours? I use ownerrez as well
I had the same thought because the website of @PitonView is so beautiful. On reflection, however, I realized that my much simpler STR is very different – simpler, no panorama views, and making an offer on a different ‘plane/dimension/order of magnitude.’ Not an exotic bucket list destination and life experience but a comfortable, well-provisioned and maintained home in a quiet neighborhood of a regional city in New England.
So, much as I was drawn to imitate that stunning website I am now considering a different format/template that is appropriate for our STR. I don’t want the beauty of our website to implicitly make a promise that our home cannot meet.
Having said that I have yet to figure out how to do that. But I share this to say that it’s possible that the website best for one STR might not be best for yours.
My process is to first figure out the essence of what I am offering. In the context of a home in a quiet neighborhood of a regional city, I am offering:
A Home: a cozy home that ‘works,’ not a place with a set of plates and cookware but with the little touches that reveal a home.
An Oasis: Quiet, beautiful, soothing, zen-like inside and out
Care, Service, Hospitality: Attentive, accommodating, safe.
HOW are we delivering that?
As to Home:
Kitchen: both fully equipped and well-provisioned
Amenities: that make your stay comfortable and fun: kitchen gadgets, HomePod minis, power hubs, bed warmers, lighting fixtures, large screen, fireplace, pool, pergola, outside dining, natural gas grill, charcoal grill
As to oasis:
Location: a home in Worcester, close to 290 fast to Worcester sights/restaurants and central MA sights
Décor: beautiful with zest, color and every minor touch
Gardens: peaceful, beautiful, soothing
As to care, service, hospitality;
Maintenance: Cleanliness, grounds and pool maintenance, safety, well-lit
Host: on-site, with attention to detail motivated by care, excellence, hospitality, House Manual and Worcester and Central MA Guide
So we will organize our website around these ideas. I’ll post you when I find a template that matches our offering.
Square has been a quick easy solution for my personal website (which is primarily a portfolio), much less quirky and less spam/ issues than Wordpress. Their templates are nice too so I plan on using them for our STR.
I swear I’m not sponsored lol
@HostAirbnbVRBO - the biggest challenge for you will be brevity. No offense meant and hopefully none taken.
Every time I work on the website, I try to reduce the number of words and add in more “click for more details”. That how I satisfy both those that just want the big picture and those that like to read and dream about their vacation for months/weeks before arrival.
5 Likes
I agree! Brevity is always my personal challenge.
Yes, I like your ‘click for more details’ idea. When I wrote guidebooks years ago I used a similar technique calling it ‘Take it Further.’
2 Likes
@bigDeeOT - I designed my own website from browsing other ones to fine one I liked, then tuning it to fit what I wanted to communicate. I used “Elementor” to help me build it (a drag-and-drop editor).
We bought our website from a service that is owned/managed by a friend of my husband’s. The only part that is OR is the rates/availability calendar and the booking form. So if you use the OR-hosted site, I can’t give you any guidance on that as they have their own template, I think.
2 Likes
Yes, but sending that email is just as important.
Cards get lost or thrown away.
But most people keep emails for decades, at some point they will look for you again and find you in their email archive.
Funny thing about that – I have postcards AND placemats with my money-saving direct booking contact information.
I’d say only about 5% of my guests have mentioned it or followed up, and I assume most guests don’t even notice. They are busy with their travels/business/activities.
If I was more motivated, I would set up some kind of periodic contact to cell phone numbers of prior guests offering a “coupon code” for a deal for them, or their friends and family, on direct bookings. I think that would work better.
2 Likes
I’m curious about what has the best impact on getting direct bookings. Is it social media presence? Swag? Business cards?
We’re home share hosts.
I believe the most effective way to get repeat offenders is to make them very welcome. Our repeaters get to know us, like us, spend time talking with us.
When we don’t see them for a while, I text them just to catch up. I also look for them on Facebook and friend them.
That won’t work for distant hosts, but it works for us!
1 Like
We get a lot of rebookers. We rebook at the slightly lower rate, sharing savings of the Airbnb booking charges. The next year we might raise the rate a bit less than inflation. Eventually I’m wondering if they are booking because they are way below market. If say a Jan booker drops out, and the Dec or Feb guest does not pick them up, then we go with market rate, which gets us a bit more, as market rate seems to jump higher than booking charges.
1 Like
I have cards in each room. However, most repeat direct books occur based on a conversation while the guest is here the first time or from them texting me later since they have my number. I offer it to a limited portion of our 20% repeat guests. I don’t offer or say no to repeat guests who are known to change plans often.
1 Like
@PitonView that’s a fantastic website! I particularly love that quick compare to area hotels, showing how you’re already in the head of your target audience. Nice work!
@HudsonNY to your original question, I’m using a channel manager that’s semi-automatically created through my platform manager (Guesty For Hosts, formerly known as YourPorter). That manages all aspects of the direct booking engine and builds upon rules I’ve setup to handle my existing multi-platform management/communications into the direct booking space. I know WordPress inside/out and had previously started building a custom site, but knowing the work that goes into maintaining a separate website atop how much time I’m already spending on maintaining pricing, guest communications, I pulled back and just used my channel manager’s templates site options. That site stays in sync with Air/VRBO/Booking and is able to leverage the same Stripe-based deposit rules/account I already have setup for Booking.com.
A key feature of many platform managers is conditional messaging (would you like another night? Early check-in?) as well as a customizable check-in form where I can better understand the reason for someone’s trip and personalize their stay. Recreating that engine on a different site would have been a lot of overhead and gets into the question of whether your booking site is actually for “booking” (like mine) or establishing credibility (PitonView’s) and gathering referrals for a separate booking contract/engagement. I’m not advocating for either side there, just pointing out that there’s a distinction there across most sites.
I would agree with what others say about ensuring you have the appropriate lead funnel setup to drive direct bookings. You’re right in starting with F&F and past guests, but may also want to consider “persona mapping” where your’e actively describing the type of guest that’s most interested in your rental depending on where you are and what you offer. That helps you clarify how you want your direct booking site to flow, what keywords you’ll highlight, and how you want to design the look and feel of the site.
I’d also consider integrating your bookings/guest info into some form of CRM that allows you you maintain and grow that guest relationship over time. Any sales person will tell you it’s far cheaper to get business from an existing customer than a new one and hospitality is no different: have a way to continue to reach out to past guests in a manner that’s appropriate to their past stay or interests versus generic advertising (I’m looking at your Hilton/Marriott).
2 Likes
Interesting thread. I don’t do direct bookings, but I have been looking into it. It sounds like there is a fair amount of work to set up and keep it going, and makes me feel ok about using only Airbnb right now. I know direct booking is important as Airbnb policies are guest friendly, so I plan to set this up the slow season.
I see these a few recommendations in this thread
- https://www.ownerreservations.com/
- Guesty for Hosts
- Houfy/Square
- List item
Thank you. I see latebnb charges 4.99 pounds a month after the first free month. I wonder if it is worldwide, just Britain, or includes the US in its searches.