Comments for http://www.liverez.com/blog Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:22:45 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 Comment on Only 5% of Vacation Rentals Booked Online by Brent http://www.liverez.com/blog/index.php/2008/only-5-of-vacation-rentals-booked-online/comment-page-1/#comment-4 Brent Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:22:45 +0000 http://blog.liverez.com/?p=3#comment-4 Online booking is pitched as such the holy grail for vacation rentals, but as the owner of 7 vacation rentals, I can tell you flat out, it isn't. It's more a pain in the ass then anything else. Some of my rentals are $6000 a week, I like to talk to these people first... I like to know who is renting my place.. Additionally, I have many different minimum night requirements...and then those requirements change as the date approaches, I just end up taking reservations I didn't want for the wrong dates, calling them back, refunding their credit cards... Additionally, you think online booking is so great, but the business model everyone thinks of when "booking online"is more prevalent is percentage of booking... but I pay $400 per year total to a couple of listing sites and book my entire year for all 7 units from those services. I am not going to pay a percentage of revenue model for bookings I can get at a much lower cost from flat fee models. It's reservation cannibalization. I get the same results at a much higher cost per reservation. Online booking has a place, for property managers, etc. and you can go on thinking of these huge market share gains once everyone is "booking online", but you heard it here first, it won't happen. I am seeing all sort of new vacation rental sites based on that model, it won't work. Vacation rentals are not hotels and the sooner you get that, the better. Online booking is pitched as such the holy grail for vacation rentals, but as the owner of 7 vacation rentals, I can tell you flat out, it isn’t. It’s more a pain in the ass then anything else. Some of my rentals are $6000 a week, I like to talk to these people first… I like to know who is renting my place.. Additionally, I have many different minimum night requirements…and then those requirements change as the date approaches, I just end up taking reservations I didn’t want for the wrong dates, calling them back, refunding their credit cards…

Additionally, you think online booking is so great, but the business model everyone thinks of when “booking online”is more prevalent is percentage of booking… but I pay $400 per year total to a couple of listing sites and book my entire year for all 7 units from those services. I am not going to pay a percentage of revenue model for bookings I can get at a much lower cost from flat fee models. It’s reservation cannibalization. I get the same results at a much higher cost per reservation.

Online booking has a place, for property managers, etc. and you can go on thinking of these huge market share gains once everyone is “booking online”, but you heard it here first, it won’t happen. I am seeing all sort of new vacation rental sites based on that model, it won’t work. Vacation rentals are not hotels and the sooner you get that, the better.

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