Managing vacation rental properties? Especially if you own or are managing holiday cottages by the beach, you would probably be interested to find out that there are quite a few emerging trends that can help you decide how to handle the property more efficiently.
Here’s a peek at these trends to help you think about how you can manage your vacation rental properties better, especially in terms of vacation rental marketing. Note that these are even more prevalent for holiday cottages around or by the beach.
- Booking windows are now shorter.
If you remember the time when families planned their vacations way in advance, that season is definitely over. Now, it seems that people are inquiring about places to rent a few weeks before the actual vacation, sometimes even days before.
These last-minute bookings are not exactly a sign that your vacation rental marketing isn’t working. It’s just an after-effect of the financial uncertainty that people experienced after the recession. You may have also noticed that there have been an abundance of online deals recently. People wait for better deals before finally finalizing any form of booking, and most of the time, they get it.
- Larger holiday cottages are more popular.
Yes, size does matter, especially when you consider the fact that more and more families are spending time together. There seems to be a higher demand for properties with 6 bedrooms or more. In addition to that, it also seems that these families are repeat customers who probably want to honor tradition by going to the same place year after year.
This is great news for those with bigger properties. You may want to add a few more rooms, or make changes to the way things are designed to make way for more people.
- People want pet-friendly vacation rental properties.
Do you have no issues at all with your tenants bringing their pets? Then I suggest you highlight that fact in your vacation rental marketing.
More and more people are seeing their pets as an integral part of the family, which means that they also get to tag along during vacations. This is also why people are always putting pet-friendly rental properties at the top of their list. And although a lot of property managers are already telling their potential customers that they are pet-friendly through their ads and other promotional materials, a lot still forget this teensy-weensy detail. This detail may seem small to you, but it can help you tap into more customers and bigger profit.
Now, if your property has a strict no-pet-allowed rule, maybe it’s about time you rethink the rule and start considering the market that you’re unable to tap because of it.
- More people are now taking vacations during fall.
Now, people aren’t just excited to go to the beach during summer. It seems that they fancy the waves and the sand during the fall season, too.
Knowing this, you may want to think about increasing your marketing efforts just before October. If you used to put all your effort into preparing for the summer crowds, maybe it will also be a good practice to start preparing for fall visitors, too.
- People know more about vacation rentals.
Technology isn’t just helping property managers and owners. It’s helping potential tenants as well.
Another trend that’s clearly on the rise is vacationers having more information than they used to have. Now, they’re doing their own research instead of merely trusting a travel agency or a 3rd party to handle their holiday plans for them.
So be ready to face well-informed tenants from here on out. A lot of their information will also probably come from online sources, so it is important to watch out for those who may have been misinformed about anything related to rental homes and the guidelines being followed.
Should these trends worry you? Absolutely not! If anything, these trends are a great way to start thinking about ways to innovate and improve your service.
Don’t get left behind. One of the biggest mistakes a property manager can make is assuming that just because business is good now, there is no need for improvement. The vacation rental industry is ever-changing. This means that what works now, may not work a year or two from now. Because you now have insider information on the latest trends, make sure you act swiftly. Otherwise, you may find yourself facing yet another onslaught of even newer trends, which means that there were a hundred opportunities you could have allowed to slip right through your fingers.