A curious family in need of a holiday get-a-way stumbles upon your rental property advertisement when browsing through the hundreds of rental options listed on the web. They think it is perfect and want to know more. Your hard work on marketing your property has been a success and now it is time to reel in the sale. However, before you do, it is important to communicate with the interested party and to define the rental procedure. Below are some tips for discussing the details of the property in the e-mail response and creating the perfect reply-to rental enquiries email template: *Begin by addressing the e-mail to the person or group in a courteous and friendly way. Note cultural difference, for example the French like to be addressed very formerly, never by their first names. *Be specific about the property's availability. Can they rent it daily? Weekly? By the month? Does the ...

Facebook is a great marketing tool for any business that wants to draw the attention of the masses and particularly useful for holiday rental owners who often like creating real bonds with their clientele. In this short post, we are going to look at ways in which you can use Facebook for the marketing of your holiday rental. Create a Business Page Facebook offers this basic service for free, and setting up a business page is easy. Once this is done, send invites to friends, and with time, you'll have a loyal fan base. Once you've accomplished this, your marketing efforts can start in earnest. Remember that people will react more positively to information that is seen as resourceful and timely. Spamming your friends' inboxes or walls with details of your holiday rental and driving a hard sale are surefire ways of keeping people away. Use the business page to share historical ...

A comfortable holiday rental makes for happy visitors. What are some of the amenities a holiday rental should have in order to enhance the quality of the entire experience for its visitors? We'll have a look at a few in the paragraphs that follow. To begin with, there are staples that a holiday rental must have as a matter of necessity. This includes a microwave, a kettle, clothes iron, television, radio, WI-FI, sheets, duvets and pillow cases. These are items that any guest expects from any decent holiday rental as part of the package. Next, let's have a look at some of the things a holiday rental may contain which are not essential, but would make the place comfortable, without breaking the bank. A foot massager in each room would add to the guest's comfort, helping them unwind after a long day out exploring the town. If the rental is ...

Twitter is a great social networking tool to help you market your holiday rental. The number of registered Twitter accounts increased by 182% in 2011, giving you access to up 500 million people, and all for free! Read on to learn how to use this growing marketing tool to publicize your holiday rental and increase your number of bookings. 1) Get followers: there is no point tweeting to an empty room. Increase your followers by following other related Twitter users; putting "Follow Me on Twitter" links to your Twitter account on your website and blog; and interacting with, and re-tweeting, other users. Twitter is a networking forum, and the more you put in to building relationships, the more you will benefit. 2) Follow others: good accounts to follow with a holiday let account include local television and radio stations; local newspapers; local blogs, especially those related to leisure time; the Chamber of ...

A picture is worth a thousand words. I know - cliché, but the truth is, a picture can be the main selling point when it comes to your holiday rental, and will be the first thing that attracts prospective customers to want to stay at your accommodation. In this post, we're going to look at a few ways in which you can take awesome photos in order to attract and retain your ideal customers. 1. Lighting is Key Before taking photos of your vacation rental, keep in mind the kind of lighting available to you. Factors to consider include the time of day, temperature of light and the amount of flash available. The best kind of light is usually a warm hazy early morning type of light, which can be edited using simple photo editing software like Photoshop. Since you would want to keep the costs down, the rule of thumb here ...

We often get people calling us describing their property and asking whether we think it can be rented to tourists. While it can be very fulfilling to welcome travellers from all over the world and earn you extra income, they are many things you need to take into account before even starting. In this short post, we are going to look at three of the most important things you should put your mind to before renting your property to tourists. 1. Research is Key If you're thinking of listing your place as a holiday rental, the first thing that should cross your mind is the adequate research that you need to do. I'm talking about finding out about the local rental laws in regard to accommodation, the types and numbers of tourists that visit your area, and the average prices that these tourists pay in a typical holiday rental in your area. ...

If you own a vacation home, it makes great economic sense to rent it out for those periods of time when you are not using the property. However, the management of a rental property can be time consuming, and you may prefer to let an experienced vacation rental agency handle the marketing of your property and the bookings for it. If you do not reside at the location of the property, you may also want to find an agency that can attend to maintenance, yard work and cleaning for you. These agencies are not all equal, and it is important to find one that offers a cost-effective and reliable service for both you and potential renters. Use these five tips, when searching for an agency to represent your property: 1. Find an established company that has an office at your property's location and that represents similar types of properties to yours. ...

According to research, 28% of travel-related searches happen to be of a fun and "browsy" nature. People want to be surprised and inspired, and are looking for something out of the ordinary. As a website owner specializing in holiday rentals, there are a couple of things you can do to attract and convince people to visit your destination and possibly stay at your holiday apartment or cottage, but here's what you need to understand: This is the internet, and in this neck of the woods, attention is finite. Earn it. Yes, you heard me right. People have no time to read long-winded posts about how great your establishment it. People need quick fixes, flashes of color and being able to make a connection with the content. Now that I have your attention, let's get this show on the road. 1. Relate, Don't Hesitate The first rule in making any type of connection is to ...

There is a plethora of social media sites these days, from Facebook to Twitter to Tumblr, and it is for this reason that most people are wary of news about new and up and coming sites. Pinterest has recently been touted as the fastest growing social media site, and with a current user base of more than 10 million subscribers, it is fast becoming the place to be seen and market your products if you are business or startup looking to target a particular market niche or demographic.   What is Pinterest? Pinterest is basically a social media site whose selling point are pin boards that one uses to post photos, text and video of things that they like or deem interesting and which they would like to share with others in the community. Pinterest takes a visual approach in telling a story, communicating an idea or passing on a message. Currently, statistics ...

As we start the low-season period, we thought to introduce you formally to the new "Discounts" tab you can see in your Holiday Velvet Owner Account. The simple question we've asked ourselves is "How to entice people to travel during off-season dates and fill empty calendars". The simple answer is: modulate your rates according to demand and availability. The hotel industry has been doing this for many years: it's called yield management. To put it shortly yield management in hotels is selling rooms and services at the right price, at the right time, to the right people. The trick is to decide when a room is likely to remain empty and then either package it up or slash the prices. What we are offering today is certainly not a yield management system but it aims to help you easily set-up discounts for dates that you have recognised are worth slashing rates for. ...