That is some serious money.  I can add from experience, that the multiplier is much higher in the general eCommerce industry…….more like 10-15x.

Holding on to your guests and keeping them coming back is not rocket-science according to the recent discussion at the VRMA conference.  It is about making it a priority, and starting the sales process for the next visit, the moment they book with you for the first visit. 

The guest experience was broken into several stages, with ideas on each stage.

• Pre-Arrival – find out why they are coming, who they are bringing
• Arrival - ‘welcome home’, let them know how happy you are to see them
• Stay – treat them like family
• Check-out – provide special offers
• Post-Stay – stay in touch with emails, newsletters, offers

In my April Webinar, I will cover each of these areas in detail.  Please join us for this event on Thursday, April 23.  See details and chance to sign-up below.

Webinar:  Repeat Guests – 9 Ways to Make the Most of Guest Relationships

LiveRez.com

The Good:
Attention, publicity, and more recognition of our industry.  This enables a large portion of vacation home inventory to potentially be booked online.  This may spur interest in vacation homes across all kinds of travelers.  HomeAway will continue to be a good sales & marketing channel for vacation managers.

The Bad:
Competition – one of the advantages the vacation manager enjoys over the ‘rent by owner’ has been the ability to offer an online transaction.  A question comes to mind (let me know if you have the answer) – as a vacation manager, how do I synchronize a calendar with HomeAway to allow me to take bookings?  Sounds like you have to use the HomeAway reservation system to be part of theonline bookings on HomeAway.

The Ugly:
Lots of individual, lots of individual home, lots of one-on-one transactions, lots of $$’s, ………… this could create an environment with more fraudulent activity and undermine the credibility and trust we are trying to build into the vacation home rental industry.  Especially as it pertains to online transactions.

A comparison also comes to mind.  A spent several years working fro an eCommerce solution named Infopia.  Infopia provide small online retailers an eCommerce engine that allowed them to sell via their own website and via eBay.  Starting see where I am going?  Vacation managers have a brand (a valuable sign of quality & trust) on their own website, but no identity on directories, such as HomeAway.  Just like online retailers have an online store with a brand, but are just another supplier for an ‘I got it on eBay’ – even with branding efforts.

Which of these online retailers were most successful ?  The retailers who saw eBay as a sales & marketing channel.

Which of these online retailers were least successful ?  The retailers who saw sales on eBay as their goal – they lost their brand, competed only on price, and could not build their own business.  They became completely dependent on eBay.

An interesting analogy I think.

Ralf
LiveRez

Now this guys looks like he knows his SEO facts.

If you are like me, and most of the vacation home rental managers I talk to on a daily basis, you are always looking for an edge to get visitors to your website.  In the spirit of getting an edge, I ran across a great educational post about walking the fine line of kosher SEO tactics.  Beware the risks.

Dirty SEO tricks you should avoid by Rich Cherecwich