Four Easy Ways Your Vacation Rental Company Can Secure More Direct Voice Bookings
If you have not done so recently, now is a terrific time to remind your frontline reservations sales agents of the importance of securing direct “voice channel” bookings. Although potential guests who are doing “distribution channel surfing” from their smartphone or computer have always called to double-check rates and to ask location-specific questions, with all […]
Your Vacation Rental Company Is Actually A Memory Factory
Recently, while presenting hospitality training for a cabin rental company in the mountains of North Georgia, I had a participant in my class whose job was to take the after-hours calls from inhouse guests. Knowing that these calls are usually from distressed people who have encountered a problem or quandary, I remarked something like, “Wow, […]
The Battle For Direct Bookings Is Hand-to-Hand Combat, Not Aerial Strafing
For years now, vacation rental companies have been fighting desperately to win back market share from third parties, such as Online Travel Agencies, and thus reduce the cost of customer acquisition. Huge sums are spent on strategic initiatives such as email campaigns, improving organic and paid SEO, making sure the website tells the company’s story, […]
11 Ways To Secure More Direct Bookings Through Personalized Sales and Marketing
As most of my readers and clients in the vacation rental (VR) niche of lodging know, I have also been providing training in the hotel and resort space for even longer. In the late 1990s, my company, known at the time as HSA International, trained hotels on how to use this then-new concept we called […]
Obsess On Hospitality During The Summer Of COVID-19 and Turn First-Timers into Loyal Repeat Guests
In speaking with KTN’s vacation rental management clients recently, the vast majority are experiencing a surprisingly strong return of demand, especially for last-minute summer vacations. Most spent the months of April and May wondering if there would be any demand this summer, then saw a tidal wave of bookings coming through. Of course, there are […]
How To Sign More New Homeowners And Keep The Ones You Already Have
As I often say in on-site workshops, “If you want to get as much business as everyone else gets, then do the things that everyone else does.” Until recently, that approach ensured that any given vacation rental company would get its “fair share” of the market. To find new owners, all one had to do […]
Differentiating Your Vacation Rental Company From The Competition With E.P.I.C. Hospitality™ Training
As I often say in my conference presentations and private workshops, conveying authentic and genuine hospitality during guest interactions is the single most important task that any lodging company can do to stand out from the competition. This is especially true in the VR space, as traditional differentiating factors such as location, décor, and amenities, […]
Owner-Operated Vacation Rental Management Companies: Beat the Disruptors by Playing Your Game
Like virtually all industries these days, the vacation rental business is experiencing a period of extreme disruption. For so many years this niche of the lodging industry was overlooked by large corporations and travel distribution companies. I remember when I spoke at my first VRMA conference in 1996, as I was expanding my hotel training […]
Email Overload: Train Your Vacation Rental Team To Overcome Flooded Inboxes
No so long ago in lodging business, a long meeting or day-off would mean returning to a stack of handwritten notes scribbled on pink message pads. Then came the age of voicemail, and the pink slips were replaced by flashing light indicators on our phones and a computer voice announcing “you have 19 messages.” These […]
How To Explain High Season Rates
The phone conversations vacation rental agents are having with today’s callers has changed in many ways. Now that potential guests can see multiple photos and virtual tours, there is still one question that callers continue to challenge our agents with every day: “Why are the rates so much higher this time of year?” Now, depending […]