Owning a direct booking website is an incredible investment and opportunity for vacation rental owners outlined below are a few tips for preparing your website for direct website booking online.
Although demand for vacation rentals has been steadily increasing for over a decade, it catapulted into life during the pandemic as leisure travellers flocked to home rentals, local stays and the existing supply of available vacation rentals has not kept up with demand.
However, solely listing homes on OTA's like Airbnb and Vrbo is not a sustainable marketing strategy. Travel behaviour is cyclical when demand compresses and supply catches up, simply listing homes on Airbnb and Vrbo will not bring in enough revenue to support current business models and importantly owners must reduce dependency on single source booking outlets (don't have all your eggs in one basket!). Building direct online booking model for the small business is critical and complimentary for long-term success.
But how do you attract these guests that you would usually expect to come through the major booking platforms, (OTA's?)
Marketing your vacation rental business through website & mobile is the future and right way to help build your authority, increase your direct bookings, foster repeat bookings, and grow your revenue to new heights.
So let's delve deeper into how the small hotel entrepreneur starts the process?

Marketing Strategy for Direct Bookings
Below are key areas of focus when preparing a marketing plan to engage in direct bookings.
Develop your hotel website
Identify your target market/s
Create an SEO plan
Conduct an effective keyword search (online presence audit)
Claim your Google my business listing
Create guest initiatives
Develop your own customer database