VRS055 – Rich Guest Profiling for Vacation Rental with Louise Brace of Rental Buzz

Spain is home to thousands of vacation homes, villas, condos, many of which are owned by UK residents who have been vacationing there for decades. At a little over 2 hours from London, UK, and having a beautiful climate, it’s a perfect destination for a vacation at any time of the year.

My guest in this episode loved it so much that she moved there permanently thirteen years ago and is now the face behind Rental Buzz, the owner blog of Spain’s premier online rental site, Spain Holiday.com.

We talk about the legislation issues that are dogging owners in Spain as different areas have different requirements, restrictions and regulations. Louise attended an event in Andalucia recently where a representative of Fevitur, – The National Federation for holiday homes and apartments explained the difficulties involved in bringing the communities together –

“how difficult an ambition this is to achieve; when every autonomous community has its own agenda, resulting in complications. Every region is dictated by the political goals of the regional government, which are often influenced by third party lobby groups, wishing to curb the success of holiday rentals.” (Rental Buzz) – The Future of Holiday Rentals in Andalucia

tweetRich guest profiling for #vacationrental is key to 5*reviews and repeat guests. @cottageguru with @louise_brace

The main topic of the episode was learning points Louise took away from a recent webinar on rich guest profiling. Louise explains this in a recent post on Rental Buzz:

“Rich Guest Profiling is a marketing term coined for the hospitality industry, which relates to the understanding and analysing of guest information; not limited to contact and booking information. It also encompasses information such as demographics, preferences and interests and experiential i.e. reviews and feedback”

What this means is that by collecting information from guests in the pre-booking, reservation and on-site segments of a stay, owners/managers can personalize the experience for their guests.

In this episode we talk about:

  • How rich guest profiling can benefit owners and managers
  • Personalised promotions are nine times more effective than generic marketing
  • Why social sharing is an essential element of rich guest profiling
  • Ways in which information gained with RGP can be used
  • How the ‘surprise and delight’ effect can generate repeat business
  • The value of an ice-cream scoop
  • Why post-stay contact is important and rewarding
  • Ways of collecting information for future marketing impact

Sites mentioned in this episode:

Rental Buzz
Tnooz Webinar – Rich Guest Profiles will Transform Hospitality

 

Where you can find Louise:

Spain-Holiday.com/Rentalbuzz

Website

@louise_brace

Twitter

Facebook.com/louise.brace.1

Facebook

+LouiseBrace

Google+

LinkedIN

LinkedIN

About the author

Heather Bayer

  • Heather Weiermann

    Great podcast Heather and Louise. As booking a vacation home becomes easier, we cannot expect our guests to be loyal to us, we need to be loyal to them. Being able to have personalized conversations (over the phone, via email and through email marketing) is more important than ever. Gathering information on our guests can be a challenge but USING that information effectively once you have it can be even more overwhelming. Those who can use the information well will be exponentially more successful than those that just collect it.