Vacation Rental Marketing I’m often asked which listing sites are the best to use to attract a particular target market and my answer is usually the same – if you have invested in a couple of major sites that get a ton of traffic, and one or two free sites that may be rising in popularity, the next step is to work on your own site and associated social media activities. It’s just not enough to post a listing and expect to get people flocking to book. The competition is just too big in many areas. I was recently researching a Disney holiday and started looking for an Orlando villa that would suit my family. I know nothing about the Orlando area so just seeing a bunch of cloned properties with the same kidney shaped screened pools and Mickey Mouse themed bedrooms didn’t help the search at all. The closest most got to telling me something about the location was giving the distance to Disney, which really offers absolutely nothing in terms of useful information. I wanted to know other stuff – are there areas to walk, what the shopping is like, is there any local produce available nearby (this is my #1 requirement), and any other supplementary information that could help me make a decision. Along with all this, since I’ve never been to Disney before, I wanted to know how best to organize the trip so we didn’t have to wait to get there before planning. I know there‘s lots of sites out there that offer this info, but these listings didn’t even have any links to help me out. So, what would have helped more? A link to a comprehensive web site that described the property in relation to the local attraction would have worked really well and given me the opportunity to stay on the site. I’m guessing that such a resource would have been so welcome, I might have booked the property too, or at the very least I’d have bookmarked it and gone back to it later. It really is interesting how the travel search has evolved but disappointing in part that those seeking to promote to travelers are not keeping up with the demand for more information. However, for the owners who have ‘got it’ and know how to capture the attention of the fickle market, the rewards –and bookings – are there.
