Marketing to Disney Travelers

Our small AirBnb is literally right off I-75 in the middle of Georgia, and on the route that most drivers take to get to Disney (we are 5 hours from the Magic Kingdom). We get occasional visitors stopping for the night on their way to see the Mouse, which I think is pretty cool, and potentially lucrative if I could figure out how to tap that market regularly. So, my question is, how would you market your AirBnb to attract drivers headed to Disney and the Orlando area?

Google and FB ads? @Scott_Davis

No, and no.
Both Google and FB ads are a complete waste of money for small business.

Get on FB interest groups and regularly post there. A group like this for example: https://www.facebook.com/groups/orlandoaddicts/?ref=share

There are plenty of groups like that. With thousands of members.

Every time you have guests make a picture and post it to these groups with a title like “another happy family having a stop-over on their way to Disneyland”

It takes a lot of time but at Some point you will get noticed.

Also do the same in IG, start an account with a descriptive name like I75georgiatodisney or something. And start posting pictures of your room and loads of hashtags linked to Disney.
It will take time and effort, but it will work.

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Is that the disney with that new Star Wars land?
If it is, your gonna be rich!!!

HI, Chris, thanks for the good information. Facebook groups are problematic for me since most of the ones say no soliciting or no advertising. I like the Instagram idea a lot, though, and will try that. As far as Google and FB ads, I have used them in the past to SEO my guest house, and it worked. I am now listed No. 1 for the area. I’ve also tried to use Reddit to promote the place, but continually get trolled and disrespected from some readers. Not worth the aggravation. It’s all trial and error, but thank you so much fore responding.

Thank you for responding. I’ve used FB and Google ads to SEO my AirBnb, and it worked great.

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Star Wars land opens in late August. Hopefully, the Force will be with me and I get some guests out of it. Yeah, I know, bad pun. Thanks for responding.

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It’s on this big kids bucket list for sure. It’s sure to drag people your way. Best of luck.
Pm me your listing if your comfortable with that.

Yes, I am in many FB groups that do not allow advertising either.
But I just post and share a lot about my area, I often post interesting things on my FB page and share them to the groups.
5 groups with over 100k in members is a lot of exposure.

How do you know you are #1 in your area? What kind of search words do you use? Will you come up #1 if I put in “hotel Georgia I75”?
Remember google uses cookies and other stuff to fool you like AirBnB does, only when using an anonymous browser you will be able to know what position you have.

If you want extra guests the best option would be to list with bookingdotcom.
Google has introduced the hotel search Funktion a short while ago, and it will soon be the main place to look for a room. And you will only be visible when you are listed on one of the big OTA’s. BDC spend about 300M a month on google ads, you will never be able to beat them.

Chris,

I can use incognito mode and see my listing, “Byron Bungalow,” as the third item in the Google list. Also, using incognito mode, my listing is No. 1 in the AirBnb list for my city/area.

I have my listing both on AirBnb and VRBO; I’ve heard too many bad stories about BDC.

Thanks for your interest.

Scott

My listing is the Byron Bungalow in Byron, GA. Thanks for the reply.

Your not on booking.com?
I think this picture proves my point:

What point is that, Chris? No, am not BDC. Weird that it shows up in search, but if you look on the site, i am not there.

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He’s probably saying that you’d come up first in search? Then again, the Airbnb result is right there and when you click on it, it actually takes you to the site where you can book. I don’t know what it is about booking dot com that I don’t like. I’ve never booked a place using it. I only use it to look and then book directly, usually hotels.

The point is that it really does not matter how much you spend on google ads.
You will never turn up first. BDC spends 300.000.000 a month, and will show up first in every STR search.
Even if you do not list with them they will hijack the search.

Also if you look at all other links showing up, they are all from other OTA’s doing the same thing.

Btw… if you just search “Byron Bungalow” you will end up in Australia.

True about Australia, but if I just type six flags, I get six flags american, not Six Flags over Georgia, which is a lot closer. You have to be a little more specific. In my incognito search, I turn up first after Airbnb (of course) and after any ads. I realize that it’s all I can hope to be, but the point is, at least my point, is that I come before any competitor in the area. A year ago, I wasn’t even on the page, and even after I clawed my way to the first Google page, there was another local one ahead of me. Not any more. This can be attributed, in my opinion, to my Google and Facebook ads that I ran for a bit when I first started to try to give myself a little publicity.

But all this is missing the point of my original question. How do i market my guest house as a great place to stay for those headed to Disney. I like the Facebook group idea, but no group that I found allows any kind of advertising. Instagram might work, but like you said, Chris, would take a lot of time. Both Facebook and Google ads allow you to pinpoint your target audience up to a point, but now to the level of “couples or small families driving through Georgia on the way to Disney World.”

Thanks for your input, Chris.