Five Questions About Last Minute Lodging Bookings

Reading this piece about how much the booking window (how far in advance a guest confirms the booking) for hotels has continued to decrease raised more questions than I realized I had... "A recent Priceline survey showed that 60 percent of customers with mobile web access booked their stays within 20 miles of their lodging. Of those travelers, more than a third confirmed bookings just one mile from their hotel." according to: Fighting the Incredible Shrinking Booking Window | ehotelier.com News Archives.

1. Is this nuts or what?

2. Or do people just not really care where they stay?

3. Or has the traveling public bought all the press about "last minute deals" during the last 3 years of recession?

4. Or is it because we CAN book last minute as the author suggests?

5. What happens when the economy recovers and there is no room at the inn? Will the quality of service at lodging establishments decrease because management cannot plan staffing adequately?

Bonus Question: When do vacation rental managers get an automated RevPar based pricing model in their property management systems based on mathematical modeling, not our guts? Escapia has a clumsy tool, but it's far from the norm.

10 Questions to Ask Before Booking Your Vacation Rental

10 Questions to Consider Before Renting Vacation Accommodations Direct from an Owner or Property Manager:

1. Where exactly is your vacation rental cabin, condo, or cottage located? Can I see a map and or have the address? You want to ask details about location, not generalities.
2. Look at all the photos online and then ask (if it isn't clear) When was this rental last renovated or updated? With this question you are trying to find out if the owner has taken good care of their property. Renovations are not as important as a continual investment.
3. What are all the fees associated with this vacation rental? Be sure that you know how much you'll be paying for cleaning, tax, security deposit and anything else. Agencies often add on booking fees. Also find out when payments are due and what the refund policy is.  Purchase trip insurance if need be.
4. Do you have an online guest book for your vacation rental (these may be on their website, on TripAdvisor/FlipKey/HomeAway/VRBO - check them all)? Or Do you have any references I can call or email?
5. Do you have a list of furnishings and amenities in the vacation rental? This will help you plan what you need to bring.
6. Do you clean or have the place cleaned between guests, or is this something the guests do? What kind of departure cleaning is expected? How do you ensure your place is clean?
7. Does the rental include parking passes, private beach passes, private country club membership? Or any other pass you might need.
8. Do you accept PayPal or Credit Cards? These payment methods offer the guest more security if after all your research, the place is fraudulent. Keep in mind that it is up to you, the guest, to make sure your vacation rental by owner or via a property manager is what you expect. Individual owners cannot offer refunds just because you don't like the weather, decor, or the area. Property managers may not be able to move you to an alternative property.
9. What time can I arrive and what time will I need to depart? What should I bring when I check in?
10. Last but not least: make sure that you and the owner or property manager complete a clear contract and/or that you read the terms and conditions when you make the reservation online. It is in everyone's best interest to have a record of expectations and the contract.

Meeting Guests' Expectations for Vacation Rentals

I hear potential vacation rental guests worry about the same thing over and over again: confidence that the property will be as advertised. The truth is whether they know it or not, guests worry if the property will be as they expected.  I've found that the only time the typical vacation rental guest is unhappy is when the property they rented turns out that it's not what they thought they rented.

Guest expectations are comprised of many factors, only some of which are under the vacation rental owner or manager's control. For example: everyone expects a sunny day when they visit the Palm Springs area, but guess what? It  occasionally rains in the winter, and when it does...it really rains. You can't control the weather, but the more information you give guests, the more you can control their expectations, and in turn be a honest AND successful vacation rental owner or manager.

Check out this video our our Palm Desert golf condo from this summer to see what anyone can do with a camera and a computer:


With a 1 minute video, you've shown them what they'll see when they first arrive, where they'll sit outside, what kind of BBQ they'll have, what their views will be, and where they'll be able to have fun (including the size of the pool - there are 46 at Palm Valley Country Club).

I'm Lost or Not?

I arrived in Portland Maine sometime after 11:30 PM which is about 12 hours after I left my home in San Diego. My Maine camp is just 45 miles north of Portland, so I set off in the rental car happy to be "home." Alas, there were some obstacles to overcome, minor for me, but major had I been a first time guest to Maine.

It's drizzly and the roads are wet. This instantly makes signs harder to read. First stop: toll plaza: $1 please. Thank goodness for the crumpled up $1s in my purse. Who carries cash anymore? Next stop taking 295 which seems confusing, and another $1 toll.

I had forgotten there are two seasons in this part of the country: winter and construction. As usual there is plenty of road work and signage to distract anyone on this dark night. The lane markers and the lack thereof add to the discomfort. Mind you,I know where I'm going,but it's been 2 years. I'm driving a rental car and still figuring out the windshield wipers and trying to remember I'm heading north with the water on the right instead of south. By the time I get to exit 31 for Topsham I'm Doubting my memory. The local landmarks are reassuring and I'm feeling good. Until the first detour sign for Rte 1 north. I followed the signs faithfully and end up by Bowdoin, fortunately I knew the way from there because the signs disapparated.

By this time it's well after 1 in the morning and the rest of the winding lightless drive seems so much longer than I remember. When I arrive at the end my signs are illegible and the camp as dark as night. I would be very discouraged if I were a first time guest to this vacation rental. All I could feel was "I'm in the middle of nowhere and it's damp & dark. I wonder how our guests ever get there!

VRBO Gouging in most competitive locations?

Is it just me or does anyone else feel gouged by VRBO's pay for photos pricing model. Back when VRBO started out they sorted by listing number, so the older your listing, the higher you appeared in results. If I remember right 4 photos came with that listing. As VRBO grew and technology improved they started allowing more property photos at a price which would give you a higher position among your competition. Listing number still factors in all else being equal. When The competition heated up and the cost to store media came down, the same cycle repeated itself until we got to 16 photos being the max one can buy. I'm in one market where that still puts my listing at #19, even with a low listing number. So for my add I pay approximately $299 base rate plus $29.99/ photo more than 5. That's nearly $330 more to get those photos so I might get noticed. This was almost justifiable...but then came search by availability and more. No longer is it necessary for VRBO to find a way to justify listing rankings since the search algorithms can kick in. Only one thing! VRBO does not use a random appearance algorithm even when guest choose what's important to them. The properties are filtered and then show up by number of photos & listing number.

I ask: Why hasn't VRBO come into the 21st century where photos are free and virtually un limited(because guest want photos)? Why is every last dime squeezed out of the owners who are in the most competitive market places? I feel gouged. Do you.

A Young Adult with Brains

I just hung up from a follow up call with a guy who clearly sounded 20-30 years younger than me. He lives inland and wants to come to the beach for a weekend with his friends to celebrate his birthday. I didn't ask which birthday, but needed to find out a bit more before I waived my three night minimum for a very "un-busy" weekend in May.

He was real up front that there would only be 6 sleeping there (yeah right "Joey I know you're toasted, but you've got to drive back to Corona because we might get caught with too many people here") because he knew there was a limit. He was also real up front that they'd be partying in downtown Oceanside - which is fine, after all, I understand, I was young once.

I listened, preparing in my head to tell him, "no our 3 day minimum is strict" when he said "hey this is a condo isn't it? I'm a little concerned about someone making noise when they come back to the place." Whew, a young adult with brains. Why make hassle for yourself? I quickly referred him to someone who rents in an area where the neighbors might enjoy a little party on a Saturday night and where he won't be hassled unless his friends don't have any brains! Hope he has a great birthday party and that he'll come back to stay with us when he's having a chill long weekend.

Vacation Rental Surveys: Why They Need to be Resurrected from the Dead.

I just read a short article by a respected vacation rental management colleague, Michael McFadden, entitled: Do you have a good guest survey? His work is always thought provoking as he caters to the luxury end of the vacation rental market and getting things just right is his business, but his article left me thinking...not about what I want to know from a guest survey (which is the focus of the article), but what information I'm getting from collecting online guest reviews and how does this information serve my goal of providing a BETTER vacation rental experience? This was an "aha" moment, because surveys and reviews aren't the same, and I've been trying to kill two (or three) birds with one stone since the rise in popularity of online vacation rental reviews.

What does an vacation rental owner or manager want to know from a guest:

• Why did you choose to stay with us; was your reservation and arrival made easy; were you comfortable; was the place clean; does anything need repair or replacement; do we need to supply something we didn't; can we book your next stay now; will you give us a quotable testimonial?

What a guest wants to be assured of when they read an online review:

• Is this vacation rental for real; will it meet my family's needs and expectations of a place to stay; will I be able to reach someone if there is a problem; is it clean; will I get my deposit back without hassle; is the rental safe; is the vacation rental a good value; is the place the same as in the pictures and description; will we enjoy our vacation?

Back in 1999 when I first started with a vacation rental cottage in Maine, my collection of information from guests after arrival came in 3 forms:

1. A quick phone call to check in on the guest during their stay (satisfied guest's need for being able to reach someone);
2. A paper and pen guest book left at the property year after year, which I checked at the end of each season (satisfied my need for a quotable testimonial);
3. A paper survey mailed with a SASE (satisfied all of my other needs regarding guest feedback).

With those three methods, I had the perfect trifecta of information:

1. Fix any problems the guest was having and answer property or area questions;
2. A collection of guest thoughts, activities, emotions, while enjoying our property for use in marketing;
3. Comprehensive information for our own needs regarding why they booked with us, what maintenance we needed, what they enjoyed most, and even what they wished we could improve or provide.

For years, my system seemed perfect. Happy guests. Happy owners. Continually improving property and service. Over 90% of our paper surveys were returned, our guest books filled up, and our phone calls were more like welcomes than anything else. That said, it still took a leap of faith for guests and make the initial booking. 

Over the last 12 years things have changed just a little: 

• guests can now do extensive research and even book online;
• scams are easier to carry out with the anonymity of the web;
• guest reviews are easily collected and shared online via a multitude of sites and social networks, whether the owner or manager asks for them or not;
• guests expect to see reviews from other guests online before they make their decisions;
• guests new to vacation rentals are expecting stays to be more hotel like than "old school" guests.

I embraced the world of online reviews. Before TripAdvisor was in the vacation rental marketplace,  the big four online vacation rental marketplaces (now owned by HomeAway) supplied a free place for owners to manage calendars and reviews online. We at first entered reviews from our guest books (which of course were all glowing), and later provided the link to leave a review directly to guests. Then a few years ago, FlipKey (who's majority shareholder is TripAdvisor), began offering an easy and free system to collect guest reviews and publish them online. Included in this was a little whisper that yes, TripAdvisor would start carrying these reviews soon. "SIGN ME UP"...without abandon, I was all in. Confident from years of good reviews, with a business platform based on being "Better" (company is BETTER Vacation Rentals after all), and knowing from lodging industry research that quantity of reviews was even more important than quality of reviews, I was happy to quit using paper surveys and guest books. I had already switched to in room questionnaires instead of mailed surveys in an attempt to catch maintenance needs, and the phone call had become intermittent as I grew Better Vacation Rentals from 1 rental, to 3 rentals (by owner), and then to about 25 rentals and a full blown management company. 

What I didn't count on was that fewer people would respond to my requests for online surveys (I'd like to know why) and that the surveys would not have the same feel as the in rental guest books. Instead, electronic surveys intended for review publishing seem to elicit less personal and more functional responses, including a list of even the tiniest maintenance issues.  My first response was to take it all personally and begin to believe that the company was failing in critical areas like cleaning and maintenance.  After today's epiphany, though, I know this isn't the case.  We began failing in communication with guests. My zeal for collecting guest reviews for the number of stars and number of reviews (as a marketing tool to satisfy potential guests) left out what I needed for information and what current and former guests needed as a feedback mechanism, while satisfying the needs of only future guests.

Current (in house) guests need a forum to tell you that a lightbulb is out or that the drain ran slowly. To many guests on vacation, these small things don't warrant a call to management or owner during their stay, but when asked in an online survey about cleanliness, maintenance, service...the guest has found an easy forum. A guest review becomes a performance survey and small things end up looking bigger than they are.  If a minor issue is cared for properly, instead it's either skipped in a review or turned into a "moment of truth" story. In addition, a third party online review provides a certain level of anonymity and lack of personal relationship that tends to pull out gripes rather than praises. How often do YOU leave glowing reviews vs less than glowing reviews. How many times have you told friends of bad service vs good service? My point exactly...

We're getting it all wrong. Online guest reviews are great. I'll keep collecting them. They are an invaluable source of information for potential guests to vacation rentals and hotels alike. Never, not once, have I personally experience, nor know anyone personally whose experience has been lower than the expectations set by TripAdvisor reviews. However, online guest reviews are NOT enough for the vacation rental industry. We still need guest satisfaction surveys that are used as a feedback mechanism for owners or management, and we still need to touch base with vacation rental guests during their stays to enhance the quality of the stay and let the guests know we are available to them for even the littlest things.

I've stayed in dozens of vacation rentals myself. Some great, some less so. NOT ONE ever called or emailed during my stay, and NOT ONE ever left or mailed a survey for me to complete. Several have asked me to leave reviews (with an easy link) on the vacation rental management site or on a review site like TripAdvisor, HomeAway, or VRBO. I think there is still a lot of room for BETTER achieved via satisfaction surveys and not just reviews. What about you?

When Did Cottages and Camps Become Vacation Rentals?

Midcoast Maine Camp

When the internet was born.

It never ceases to amaze me how few people consider a vacation rental when planning trips. I think they are just uncomfortable with the whole "vacation rental" term. Time to get back to our roots?

You see I grew up in an area with a cottage or camp culture: New England. Although my family never stayed or went anywhere but my grandmother's in Ohio, I was fortunate enough to be the guest of friends' families at Martha's Vineyard, Salisbury Beach, a Maine lake, a ski house in North Conway, and to be friends with the "summer people" from Revere MA who inhabited our own Millville Lake in NH. These weren't the summer places of wealthy people like the Bush's of Kennebunkport nor the glitzy places in todays' ads with granite counters. They were the type of vacation rentals where you didn't flush and shower at the same time. There were three things these camps and cottages had in common with each other and with modern vacation rentals: location, location, location.

Camps and cottages were by nature places to get away from everyday life in cities so they were located on lakes, beaches, and mountains. Whereas historic hotels like the Stanley, Hotel Del, and Wentworth by the Sea are becoming rarer and rarer; waterfront, slope-side, and lake front homes are becoming more available as people with second homes turn to renting out their places.

When I first had a family I had no idea how to find a vacation rental. I knew about Bed & Breakfast's, but with 2 little kids, we weren't very welcome. We couldn't afford waterfront hotels for four and we got tired of trying to lie still in a hotel room while the kids fell asleep (my husband always fell asleep first and bedtime was 7:30). Glossy specialty magazines like Down East and on location real estate offices were the primary sources for securing rentals. Some rental weeks were "passed down" generation to generation.

What's really changed is the ability to find these jewels via the internet and middle class affluence. When my family and I bought a "camp" on the midcoast of Maine in 1999 we put an ad in DownEast magazine and the WantAdvertiser and were full all summer and fall. Within just a few years I was building my own website and advertising on A-1 Vacations and Cyberrentals (predecessors to HomeAway). Now they're celebrating their second SuperBowl ad. No longer do families have to rely on knowing someone in a vacation area to beg a borrowed cottage; they can search online and get TripAdvisor reviews from the comfort of a mobile phone.

Why share this? Because I think it's time folks start thinking about todays' vacation rentals as camps and cottages again. We don't need to be compared to hotels because the cottage (condo, camp, villa, vacation rental) experience is unique. Find a location that can't be beat, hop on your favorite vacation rental site or do a search for " vacation rental," pack up the car and be on your way.

Cottage ON Champagne Pond HI

Here are my family's cottage rentals from our holiday stay in HI: Big Island Champagne Pond Cottage and eclectic Oahu Spare Room with Tropical Outdoor Shower. Were they perfect? Yes and No, but we sure had fun.

HomeAway Launches More than Just a SuperBowl Ad..."it's a bird, it's a plane, wait no, it's a test baby."

Update 2/8/11: HomeAway issues sensitive apology AND changes their ads and social media campaign. NICE SAVE. Perhaps they should choose to support a preventing child abuse charity too. Read the HomeAway Superbowl Apology

I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a critic when it comes to $3 million dollar ad buys, but even more so when the company doing the buying is an important part of my own advertising plan. On top of that I'm a bit of a vacation rental nerd. Since 1999 I've been immersed in this world of vacation rental ownership, marketing, and management. When HomeAway placed their "Chevy Chase Vacation" ad in 2010's SuperBowl, I was unimpressed, but never the less very excited for vacation rentals to get national attention and press. After all, according to PhocusWright research, only 10% of US travelers even think of a vacation rental as a lodging option.  So when word started to leak out and the hype for SuperBowl XLV begain, I was a bit surprised, and excited to hear HomeAway would be launching their second ad for the Big Game, and that it would be interactive and have the potential to go viral in social media (since I'm a social media nerd too). Then I watched the trailer for the ad online.



Hmmm.

HomeAway didn't launch an ad campaign: they launched a "test baby."

Daring! Smushed test baby? British accents in the US? Ministry of Detourism? (I suspect they'll be running the ad across the pond). Not promising. Though I have to admit, I laughed the first time the test baby flung at the glass, even though I'm a very serious mom. I didn't laugh the next time when I watched it on the big screen during the big game.  I don't like the ad. I don't think it targets my audience. It feels like it was written by 12 year old boys (kind of like GoDaddy). My guests are a bit more sophisticated and much more family oriented to really think this is funny and want to go book a vacation rental instead of a hotel because of this kind of ad.

Showing a miserable crying baby in a hotel room, waking up the other kid in the hotel room, and the parents trying to have a glass of wine in the bathroom so they don't wake them up would make a commercial that rings true. That's of course because it really is true (Chicago Marriott c.1994). This ad reminds me of the tragic story of a mom recently shooting her two teenagers for talking back. Every mom can at first relate to a mother's frustration with teenagers, but carrying through with frustration with an act of violence? No we get disgusted.  The smushed test baby is pretty disgusting (even if we all know it's a test baby and meant to be funny). I don't see how gramps, mom, auntie, or golf buddies getting away are going to connect to that baby and remember vacation rentals supply more space when they make their next lodging choice. Plus smushed has taken on new meaning compliments of Jersey Shore and I have no patience for ad companies that don't properly vet everything.

There is a saying in publicity that no publicity is bad publicity, so at least HomeAway has some definite buzz happening. In fact "test baby" trended on Twitter for quite a while after the commercial.

What do you think? Is this ad a good thing for vacation rental owners and guests? If you are a vacation rental owner, are you excited about the message and buzz? If you are a guest, does this ad call you to take action? Will you play the games online (you can put your face in and choose the baby's fate or put your vacation rental in the ad)? Will you consider a vacation rental for your stay?

Looking forward to the buzz on this launched test baby.

Update 2/7/11

As the buzz comes in I wanted to share some more links with discussion on the HomeAway test baby ad. It looks like a cold blast is coming into Austin.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2011/02/07/2011-02-07_super_bowl_2011_commercials_top_five_best_and_worst_ads_of_the_game.html

http://www.facebook.com/HomeAway (comments section)

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/babies/story/2011/02/Parents-recoil-at-Super-Bowl-test-baby-ad/43392036/1

http://www.sbnation.com/2011-super-bowl/2011/2/6/1979154/super-bowl-commercials-2011-test-baby-homeaway

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/theticker/entries/2011/02/07/homeaways_super_bowl_ad.html?cxntfid=blogs_statesman_business_blog

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/breaking-news/will-these-super-bowl-ads-make-advertisers-money.html

http://mypostpartumvoice.com/2011/02/06/test-baby-superbowl-commercial/

@LizSzabo is tweeting about the issue and wrote the USA Today article.

http://kelloggsuperbowlreview.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/kellogg-super-bowl-advertising-review-2011-results/

http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011/02/homeaways-smushed-baby-super-bowl-ad-creates-controversy/141996/1

HomeAway is it all hype?

View from Palm Desert Golf Condo

I just did an analysis of vacation rental stays in my Palm Desert California vacation rental home for the last 12 months. I've been in this particular market for 5 years now, so I've seen a lot change. Just when you think you have an advertising and marketing plan figured out for your particular location and property(ies), something changes. Like the formation of HomeAway in 2005. They bought up the big 4: Cyberrentals, A1 Vacations, VRBO, and GreatRentals. Next in was vacationrentals.com, and it continued. By 2010 the VRBO and Vacationrentals.com brands were still holding their own identities, but the others were really now distant memories and HomeAway got it's big launch with a SuperBowl ad.

By all measures things are good at HomeAway. Their inquiries are up, I'm told their inquiry per property is up, and the number of homes listed is up. However, as a homeowner, I wondered if they were up for me, since in the past the individual companies that made HomeAway worked.

So here are my top producers for the last 12 months. The numbers are based on revenue generated, not inquiries as I certainly got plenty from all parties.

VRBO 63.5%
FlipKey/TripAdvisor 10.7%
Bettervacationrentals.com 8.9%
Vrconnection 4.6%
Coachella 3.9%
Unknown 3.1%
Craigslist 1.3%
Email Marketing 1.3%
Referral 1.3%
Repeat 1.3%

Keep in mind if we add up Bettervacationrentals, Coachella, Craigslist, Email, Referral, and Repeat we get 17% of revenue generated by efforts under my own control. I truly wish that number were much higher as advertising costs have become out of hand for VRBO because of their charges for photos (which are what sells a listing).

Interestingly 37% of my inquiries were from VRBO, whilst 50% of my bookings were. That's a high quality lead. Ironically, I don't like the payment and listing priority model of VRBO, nor their stiff arm management, but that's another blog post. FlipKey/TripAdvisor for whom I have so much hope yielded 19% of inquiries but only 13% of bookings which means they are a lower quality lead. I noticed that even though my calendars are up to date on both, I received more inquiries via TripAdvisor for dates that were already booked.

How is it, though, that there was not 1 single booking sourced from HomeAway? This is the biggest vacation rental listing site in the world! I received at least 30 inquiries from HomeAway guests in the last 12 months. I should have statistically booked 3 stays if they were an average inquiry source. How can the biggest vacation rental listing site underperform so badly? Is it all just hype? Bad luck? A poor presentation of my property? The wrong customer base?

Finally, should I renew my listing with HomeAway?

Would love to hear. Please weigh in.

Tax Reporting Burden Buried in Health Care Reform Impacts Vacation Rental Owners

2/11/11 STATUS UPDATE: According to Accounting Today in the 2/2 issue:
"Senate votes to repeal 1099 reporting requirement
The Senate has approved a measure that would repeal the expanded Form 1099 reporting requirements that were part of last year's health care law. The move has broad support because the Form 1099 rules, which are set to require businesses to report any purchases of more than $600 of goods and services from vendors in a year to the Internal Revenue Service, are expected to increase accounting costs for small businesses. The AICPA supports repeal of the expanded Form 1099 reporting requirements; however, it has asked the Treasury Department for guidance on several pressing issues if the rules are not repealed."

Vacation Rental Owners and Property Managers who pay for goods with cash or checks now have an extra IRS reporting burden in 2011. Our solution: use credit cards for every purchase possible. Unfortunately, we all know that using a credit card is not always possible and often can cost us more as cash prices are often lower because the retailer saves the processing fee.

You should already be issuing 1099s for service providers that are not corporations. Keeping good records and saving receipts just got more important, all at a time when our costs are going up, rentals are still soft, and rates have come down from historical highs...

For an excellent review and explanation of the changes visit HomeAway's Community forum.