By Asli Theobald, Dream Home 30A
They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the proof of vacation rental stays is in the reviews. Each time a guest stays at your luxury rental and doesn’t leave a review, it’s like bypassing the chance to advertise for free on a billboard visible to thousands each day. No other advertisement for your home can be as effective and convincing as an abundance of good reviews from actual, real guests.
A good vacation rental manager knows how to elicit five-star reviews from appreciative guests without having to ask, meeting the high expectations of those desiring a luxury experience.
Does your vacation home’s listing appear to have acquired only 1, 3, or 10 or 15 reviews so far despite having been on the rental market for years? If so, this often means your rental keeps getting unlisted and re-listed on booking platforms, to wipe out any bad reviews before you get a chance to read them and find out what’s going wrong.
I know a Panama City Beach condo bought for $165.000 in 2019, pulling in almost as much profit as a home acquired for over a million dollars in Watercolor. The PCP condo utilizes the selling power of trust, having acquired more than 200 great reviews from actual guests. When most Americans can take only one vacation a year, can you blame anyone for wanting to be sure they’ll enjoy it?
In 2017, Airbnb Luxe was born when Airbnb acquired the successful platform Luxury Retreats. Has your luxury home made it into Airbnb Luxe, when Airbnb is currently the world’s largest booking platform? Many 30A homes never make it into the most popular luxury home booking platforms out there, causing countless vacationers to never see those homes.
If a vacation rental doesn’t have enough visibility and reviews and doesn’t seem to be booking, its manager must keep lowering the rates until it does start booking. If your rental doesn’t have or doesn’t seem to be headed towards acquiring hundreds of great reviews with a great overall star rating on at least one major booking platform, you’re not seizing the opportunity to make a sizeable amount of additional profit each year, there’s no ifs and buts about it. This applies to whoever lists your rental on whichever platform or local luxury vacation rental management company website. Trust always sells and lack of trust fails to sell.
In addition to not keeping track of reviews, another common mistake is not putting the right “make-up” on a luxury home. A million-dollar home whose décor looks outdated and/or unattractive may need around $100,000 worth of trendy furnishings and accessories. Expecting renters to pay top dollar requires increasing a home’s perceived value with updated, attractive design elements. Beautiful interiors produce beautiful listing photos (worth a thousand words), preventing you from losing countless bookings to competitors. And when your guests arrive, they can fall in love with your home at first sight, getting a great first impression likely to linger throughout their whole stay.
In a nutshell, success in vacation rental management boils down to creating happy guests, also with the help of local trip planning advice guaranteeing a wonderful time on 30A. Happy guests keep coming back year after year, ensuring your investment’s continuing success.
Asli Theobald is the owner / operator of Dream Home 30A, call 850-867-5449 or visit www.Dreamhome30A.com for more information.
Author: SoWal Admin
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