Your Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty? Overflowing for Vacation Rentals, I say!!!
Latest report from PhocusWright on Leisure/Unmanaged travel shows that both overall travel (2-4% per year) and online travel (7-9% per year) will GROW in the next couple of years. Grow!! Have you been paying attention to what is going on in industries all around us. Builders, Bankers, Car Makers, Manufacturers, and others are flailing to avoid bankruptcy and get gov't bailout money.
Vacation homes should be at the forefront of this and take advantage of it. Let's use this time to sharpen our value proposition, our marketing, our services, and grab more market-share.
Way I see it, 5% of 1,000 is 50. OK, this only grows 7% to 1,070. Now the 5% is 54 - so that is your growth plan? HECK NO!!! Vacation homes have a distinct advantage for value, we have great online tools, and a killer message...............we can crank up that 5%. That is where the growth will come from. Get that 5% to 6% and all of a sudden you have grown to 65 in the same scenario - an over 20% growth.
Let us not get caught in the 'bummer the growth is so small' talk. Let's be the ones that attack, that make lemonade from lemons, the fighters & survivors.
Ralf
LiveRez.com
Emotions – that is how you hook the travelers in a tough economy
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The TIA (Travel Industry Association) recently shared the following news (TIA Article about Holiday Travel). Not sure what the numbers came in at for the Thanksgiving travel, but what is clear is that there is an incredibly emotional driver to travel for the holidays. Most of us tend to focus on our relationships during tough economic times. |
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The survey of 2,256 adults conducted earlier this month showed that despite economic concerns some 60 percent of those visiting with out-of-town family or friends strongly feel the time and money spent is a small price to pay to be with people they love.
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Some Good Travel News…Europeans Booking More Travel Online
I scoured the internet for a graph that was going up and to the right. Found one! This study from PhocusWright shows that the online travel booking will continue to grow in Europe.
Not sure that this is directly related to your business but, I made me think of two things:
1. There is good news out there. My advice, look for it. Do not get bogged down on the bad sensational news.
2. Online......Online.....Online - That is where the growth is and that is where we should be focusing much of our energy and effort.
Ralf
LiveRez.com
Holiday Season is Here! Get your share of the frenzy……
I am not one to sleep at the mall or in the Walmart parking lot in anticipation of the Black Friday sales. That said, I do enjoy watching the frenzy and mayhem of this shopping extravaganza. This year, I was in Salt Lake for Thanksgiving, and decided to take a jog early Friday morning and to run by the local Walmart.
It was entertaining. What I learned was that there seems to be plenty of money out there waiting to be spent. There is definitely less money for the Tiffany's of the world, but the Walmart's of the world seem to be selling stuff, stuff of all kinds. Is this because people want cheap? I argue, no. People want (1) Useful, and (2) Value.
So what does this mean for the vacation home rental industry? It does not mean that we should focus on price. Let me repeat that, it does not mean we should focus on price. A focus on price implies that cheaper is better.
Easier said than done you say. OK, yes. But think about what people want Useful, and Value. I suggest we focus on the usefulness of a vacation home vs. a hotel. The value for a larger group. The value of having a kitchen and laundry. The usefulness of having a family room, and not 3 separate hotel rooms with nowhere to hang out.
Get you message together and send those email campaigns out there. Now is the time to fight for that very sparse disposable income. Get them to put a great vacation under the tree.
Ralf
LiveRez
Ouch!! $4,000 Vacation Rental Scam Hits Canadian Family
Read the full story here: Canadian Family Gets Scammed for $4000 By Vacation Rental
This is so painful. Painful because a family lost out on a vacation, lost out on some money, and also because it is another black eye for our industry. The ability of the vacation rental industry to break into the 'mainstream' - real mainstream, like being on Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, etc. - hinges on our ability to create an environment of trusted vacation experiences and sources for travelers to book with confidence.
So where did this family book their trip? On www.flybynightvacationrentalscam.com? No. Actually it was on www.forgetaway.com. A site associated with the Weather Channel. If you cannot trust the weather guy, who can you trust?
I am interested in what you have to say about what we can do to change the perception and reality within our industry.
Ralf
www.LiveRez.com
Faith in your Website Service Provider
I had an interesting meeting with a gentleman from Akami last week. Akami is a web hosting company and an expert in web performance. An interesting part of the conversation revolved around the consumer's reactions to a website and its performance.
When you understand all that happens between your vacation rental website and your prospect guest's computer, you realize how critical the quality of the many service provider's between these two point is to the traveler's perception as you as a company. Performance issues could be caused by your web hosting provider, by another internet service provider, by the traveler's service provider........lots of factors that you have no control over. But guess what? The traveler who has web problems while going to or on your site, will not differentiate between you and the problems.
Any problems will reflect on you. So do all you can to ensure a quality web experience, by selecting your partners carefully. Control what you can control in this dynamic environment.
Your website can be an awesome tool to differentiate yourself. Make it count.......make those 5-8 seconds you have to make an impression count.
Ralf
LiveRez
Representing the Theme of PhocusWright 2008 – Search, Shop, Book
The theme for the show was 'Search, Shop, Buy'. We changed that around a little into 'Search, Shop, Book'. The key - no email or phone exchange required, the traveler can choose to book completely and seamlessly online. Something that is critical for the mainstream adoption of vacation rentals and the aability for vacation rentals to be part of the mass OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) like Expedia, Priceline, and Travelocity.
Ralf
LiveRez
PhocusWright – Day 3 Report: Too much to put in one post……
First, I had an incredible run this morning in the LA hills. I found a little regional park that leads up hills overlooking the LA valley. It was an incredible morning - clear skies and 65 degrees. The day was filled with some great meetings, as well as sitting through some facintating presentations.
I will focus on only one of the presentations for this post. Travel Channel. Yes, they had a bunch of cool videos. Really cool travel videos - short, snipet videos. What makes a great video in the eyes of Patrick Younge, their CEO? Here are 4 items:
- Searchability - must be able to find the video online and integrate it into the website
- Quality - does not mean it has to be expensive; good story, narrative; 1.5 to 3min
- Relevance - expert and trusted advisor tone, not commercial
- Mobility - able to publish to various formats including a mobile device (I will discuss mobile in travel in a future post)
Video is worth doing. But it is only worth doing if you do it well.
It was interesting in my conversation with Priceline, Orbitz, MSN Travel, Yahoo Travel, and others, how prevelant discussions about the future of the vacation rental market are. Our market is definitely seen as a great oppty and a new fronteir for the mainstream online travel and booking business.
Much more to come......stay tuned......I have content for post for the next couple of weeks from this show. Also coming soon, the picture I took with me, Darth Vader, and a Stormtrooper.
Ralf
LiveRez
PhocusWright – Day 2 Report: Blogging & Customer Experience
On day 2, after a beautiful run in 70-degree sunny weather to start the day, I had the oppty to attend a few interesting sessions as well as meet many leaders in the travel industry. Two of the sessions I attended were about Blogging and about Customer Experience. Way too much info to give you a detailed summary, but here are some key points I took notes on and apply to online vacation home rentals:
Blogging. Couple of takeaways that I thought might be useful to you.
- When creating, or starting, or continuing a blog, these are the critical questions to ask:
Why are you blogging?
Who is your audience?
What value are you delivering? (you cannot use this as a promotional tool)
New 'online tools' that were discussed were Facebook and Twitter. Honestly, no one could come up with a compelling use of Twitter. As cool and as fun as it may be.
Be significant, meaningful, less data and more structured information.
Customer Experience: Some interesting notes.
In the past year, 9 out of 10 online customers experiences problems shopping online.
41% of those abandoned the website right away.
47% of those attempted to contact the website company for help.
Only 50% of those 47% were able to resolve their issues. (75% of these will never return to the site)
80% will share their negative experience. 58% sharing online and 80% sharing offline.
More to come from LA. Stay tuned.
Ralf
PhocusWright – Day 1 Report on Travel & Vacation Conference
I arrived in Los Angeles on Sun afternoon. Welcoming me to Burbank were the burning and smoking hills of the Los Angeles area. It was pretty scary actually.
Monday morning opened with the Innovators Forum - this was a collection of 32 innovator companies in the Travel space presenting their solution. The focus was on demonstrations and it was very interesting to see what is out there. I categorize what I saw into a couple of categories:
- Trip Planning - planning the destinations and how to get there
- Trip Info Aggregation - aggregating the info that is all over the web into a new personalized results
- Vacation Rentals - creating a complete online booking and distribution solution
See a list of all the companies that presented - PhocusWright Innovator Summit
It is exiting to see vacation rentals take on such a prominent role at this conference. The recent investment of $250M into HomeAway certainly has a lot to with this.
Over the next few weeks I will review some of these innovator companies. One that stood out to me as being a potential partner for us, both LiveRez and you the Vacation Manager, is rezgo. Go check them out.
RezGo manages the planning and online booking of vacation tours and activities. This is something that some of you may be able to use for services you provide, or something that your friends in your destination could use. It is a web-based solution. Stephen Joyce, the founder of rezgo, also has a blog on Travel, Tourism, & Technology Trends Blog - go check it out. His knowledge and passion come through.
More to come from LA.
Ralf
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