International guests - alternatives to airbnb?

1

Hello, does anyone have tips on alternatives to Air to better serve particular country markets?

For example, I’ve heard that Germans like to use Wimdu.

2

Wimdu is a German company, but not many people use it.
I had only 1 Wimdu Booking this year.

The only real alternative for international travelers are HomeAway and Booking.com.
Homaway has many names, like VRBO, FeWoDirekt etc.

I do not like Booking.com, but they are the biggest player on the market. It would be stupid to not use them.
Booking.com is working very hard to become more host friendly, where AirBnB is becoming less host friendly by the day.

3

Thanks @Chris!
@cabinhost i heard you list on Expedia - how do you get a vacation rental listing on there, and how effective is it in attracting guests?

4

I did the listing on expedia throught atraveo (part of expedia), no booking with them at the moment (I am still new with them).

I got most from booking and bedandbreakfast.com (home away)

5

Can I ask you where most of your guests come from?

6

Our place is in Sweden, we got many swedish, then norway, finland, french, netherlands and rest of europe. We got only one from USA

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7

I’ve had a handful from Wimdu this year - very low percentage of my bookings - but for some reason they have been the best guests - very quiet, respectful, and more likely to bring a gift. It’s almost like Wimdu guests have been through some kind of training. I have a family checking in today - we’ll see how it goes.

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8

Two years ago I had almost half of my bookings from Wimdu, now it’s a trickle. I agree that Wimdu guests on the whole seem to be respectful and conscientious which may or may not have to do with the majority of my Wimdu guests being Swiss/German so traditional rule-followers.

I used Booking.com for a while and absolutely hated it and couldn’t shut it down fast enough. It was like a series of catastrophic events with every single booking. I rely now on VRBO/Homeaway and Airbnb mostly although I list on GayBookings (very few bookings over the years), FlipKey (awful), HouseTrip.com, 9Flats, etc.

The sites are all merging - VRBO is now inviting ‘select hosts’ to participate in Instant Booking…

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9

@superhostnyc Do you notice any particular tendencies re. geographic market and preferred booking site?

10

I get about 40% of bookings from holidaylettings.co.uk - their listings are picked up by trip advisor, among others. Fees are similar to airbnb, but no guest reviews so more work ensuring you’ve a good guest/host match. Most of my US guests have arrived via this route.

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11

My last guests were so amazing, in the box at the end of the review that says “anything you want to tell us about this guest in private” I said “Yes. Hire these people to train other guests. And while you’re at it…give them a travel coupon because they were awesome”. Haha.

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