Behind every successful property manager is a great booking website. Property owners and managers can no longer ignore the importance of an integrated online booking engine. Having a booking engine will allow your guests to book directly through the business’s website, providing you with all the guest information, increased revenue, and lower commission costs. As you start to increase your vacation rental property portfolio, you may decide to develop your own vacation rental website. However, designing a website can be time-consuming and frustrating if you do it yourself.
In recent years, direct bookings rose slightly to 40% as a percentage of all online bookings from 2019 to 2020. Meanwhile, the share of OTA sales slid from 33% to 31%.
Whether carried out electronically or by telephone, sales carried out by hosts are called direct sales or direct reservations. Having said that, what is the real importance of these sales for short-term rentals?
The answer is straightforward: more profit for your business! Online travel agencies (OTAs) commissions can range between 13 and 42 percent. It costs less than that to have a seller website and offer a great booking experience for your customer. In fact, it’s much more than that. From the moment that the customer has a tool to make reservations on your website, he is in a direct relationship with you.
OTAS vs DIRECT BOOKINGS
OTAs provide a valuable service as a key distribution partner for property managers, but at a cost, not only in terms of the commission that must be paid but also in the ability of hosts to engage directly with the guest pre-and post-stay.
The OTAs should be seen strategically as additional marketing and sales channels with a short-term focus. For this role, they are without a doubt, very important and necessary for you and your business. Therefore, you need to know how to use an OTA in favor of your business, but it is not interesting that she becomes your primary source of bookings.
BENEFITS OF DIRECT BOOKINGS
There are countless perks why is it worth having your own vacation rental direct booking website, such as:
1- Your website, your rules
2- You will avoid OTAs commission
3- Customizing your website how you’d like
4- Building your brand
5- You can build stronger customer relationships with your guests
TRY OUR ALL-IN-ONE SHORT-TERM RENTAL SOFTWARE
To support our clients and their rental businesses, Hostify offers its clients the opportunity of having their own booking engine. And the best is: it’s free of charge! (included in our monthly fee).
A stunning website you’ve always wanted for your vacation rental business. Whether a professionally designed theme or a custom solution, we can help you! Customize it with your logo and company colors, upload your own content and automate direct and start turning every visit into a new customer!
The booking engine is automatically integrated with all other Hostify features and tools. Such as calendar, availability, automatic price synchronization, customer payments, reporting, and more.
In case you use WordPress as your direct booking site, Hostify will also easily integrate with your page to ensure you avoid double bookings and easily automate your daily hosting tasks.
HOW TO WOW YOUR GUESTS
1- Choose the Best Website Builder
2- Embed a booking engine like Hostify
3- Make sure it is user friendly on mobile
4- Fast Load time of the pages
5- High-quality content and photographs
6- Add guests reviews
START BETTING ON DIRECT BOOKINGS
The decision to give due importance and relevance to direct bookings is vital for your business. While highly attractive, increased profit is not the most important benefit to consider. The search for this additional profit requires knowing how to invest in marketing, reorganizing sales channels, thus obtaining independence from OTAs, and seeking greater proximity to your customers.
Looking for a high end booking engine integration? Hostify will make your vacation website stand out from all the others. Book your free demo or write us through our contact form. Our team of experts will answer all your questions!
