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| View from Palm Desert Golf Condo |
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.
Melinda, I applaud your efforts to extract ROI information from your historical inquiry data. I too am pursuing this line of reasoning, but on a larger scale. I am now building a company that will, among other things, bring these types of analytics to VR owners. I'd love to speak with you about your needs in this area.
ReplyDeleteRemember VRBO is a HomeAway company :)
ReplyDeleteIf you don't keep Homeaway, then stick with VRBO. That's obviously working.
ReplyDeleteI would say possibly give (depending on if you have this data for last year and HA did better in the past) one more year. Then cut if similar results. I do get better ROI from VR.Com and VRBO as well, but my HA ROI is about 18.00/1.00 spent.
ReplyDeleteBut I realize every market is different. One suggestion, how often do you update your HAC calendar? HA placement depends on how often/how recent your calendar was updated. More Reasent, higher placement. Food for thought...
It is great to see someone really tracking the data on their leads. We don't see this very often. We track and monitor what we offer our advertisers very carefully and currently are thrilled to offer the highest number of visitors per property of any major site. This translates into solid value for our owners, especially knowing that our prices are up to 75% lower than the competition.
ReplyDeleteCheck out more data at: http://www.slideshare.net/VacationHomeRentals/vacation-home-rentals-owner-introduction
Brendan McGonigle
Vacation Home Rentals LLC
HomeAway does poorly in other markets like Hawaii as well.
ReplyDeleteI don't like their marketing strategy or their product. With the new calendar search tool VRBO is better than HomeAway from a consumer point of view. And vrbo isn't that great to begin with (tiny photos, slow to use).
I think they're wasting vast volumes of marketing money advertising their product to us instead of focusing on selling our product (rentals) to our customers (vacationers).
At the end of the day it just comes down to the numbers. You have the numbers and they don't work for you. There's no harm in dropping them now and returning in the future if you get 0 bookings today.
Melinda
ReplyDeleteGreat topic. I, too, find that HomeAway inquiries & bookings rank in lower than VRBO - in fact, the only HomeAway inquiries I even receive come from people who tell me they found me on GreatRentals.
When I analyzed 2010 results I did see a huge jump in bookings from another HomeAway site, HolidayRentals.co.uk - perhaps because my VR is based in Greece, this other HA site ranks higher in searches? Not sure, though with the way 2011 is starting I think that they just might tie with VRBO for bookings this year (although they do both get blown away by inquiries (not resulting in bookings) from TripAdvisor and FlipKey.
Carole Heiman Kezios
greekvacationrentals.com
Hello, Am new to this blog but would just like to say that we used to advertise on Holiday- Rental UK, A1Vacations, etc until they got"taken over or absorbed" by Homeaway. We have noticed a definite drop in enquiries and subsequently firm bookings since then, even with regular updating of our calendars. I think the reason is an excess of properties on HA and would suggest finding and advertising on smaller more dedicated sites that really invest in google positioning, clear ads and plenty photos without breaking owners'pockets. Any suggestions??? We have country type accommodations in Alicante, Spain and am looking to find sites specializing in European holiday homes.
ReplyDeleteOver 80% of my bookings come from HA Holiday Rentals and its German/French etc add ons. I am in France so it might be due to the geography of the situation. They out perform everyone for me. Have you got the French, Spanish, Dutch, German sites or just the US one? They are also my most expensive listing site. Do you update your availability every 6 days, if not there is not a prayer of anyone finding you. My enquiries peak in the 48 hours after I update.
ReplyDeleteIt will be quite interesting to see if HomeAway can become more profitable without purchases. I don't use any of the foreign sites since it seems most search on the use sites.
ReplyDeleteI continue to track performance and am finding that fewer sources are responsible for more revenue.
3 year data:
Palm Desert CA:1. VRBO 2: SEO (my sites) 3. Repeat
Oceanside CA: 1. repeat 2. Referral 3. VRBO
Georgetown ME 1. Repeat 2. VRBO 3. SEO
Feels like we're back in 2004 again!
Does HomeAway report numbers by division?
10kVacationRentals.com, offers unlimited photos on each listing, and pricing from $99.00 to $59.00 a year for each property. No extra charge for calls or emails. The number of emails/calls will be less than VRBO, but so is the cost. They are growing. Get in on the ground level of their new format property listings. They have changed the site a ton (for the better). As we all where told by our mothers, don't put all your eggs in one basket).
ReplyDeletewhy would you renew a website if you have never received a reservation from it?
ReplyDeleteI have over 20 properties on homeaway and generate around 15 - 25 reservations per property per year, you are clearly doing something wrong
Anonymous from 8/22/11 I'd love to hear what location you are at that you are so successful from HomeAway. I do think many people are successful, which is why I wrote the post: to start a conversation. Why consider renewal or re-sign up? Because HomeAway Corp. has huge $$ backing and they are investing in the HomeAway brand to the vacationing public rather than the VRBO brand. I do know that change is inevitable and that owners and managers have to stay on top of changes to stay full.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your info. I really appreciate your efforts and I will be waiting for your further write ups thanks once again.
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