Barefoot Technologies Blog- Vacation Rental Industry News

As a vacation management company trying to get a new owner to come to your program, I am sure you have a page that outlines your value proposition. This of course must be more than a discussion about price. Here are a few items to consider when crafting your owner onboarding value proposition:

Barefoot Partner PointCentral, offers some thoughts on automating energy management for vacation rental management companies and homeowners.

Ed Ulmer took some time to speak with DojoLive on Wednesday, November 22, 2017. In this interview, Ed further discusses how to use technology to dominate the vacation rental market and compete against the larger portals.

At the most recent National VRMA, Orlando, October 16-18, 2017, I coordinated a presentation on Owner Growth, Retention and Competing Against RBO with three clients, Mike Connolly (Triumph Mountain Properties in Vail CO), Kelley Cotton (Young’s SunCoast in Orange Beach, AL) and June Buttner (Killington Group in Killington VT).  The topic resonated for the attendees, attested to by the fact that we had attendees stay 20 minutes after the scheduled session end.

A deep dive from VRM Intel into the new pricing tools from Airbnb and HomeAway. Do you want to share your data? 

From time to time we have guest contributors on our Blog. In this instance, it is Jamey King of Point Central. 

July 25th and 26th Barefoot attended VRM Intel Live in Denver, CO.  The theme of this series is the Tech-Enabled Vacation Rental Manager.  The show had many great education sessions, and panels discussing how the Vacation Rental Manager needs to approach the industry and their market to have an advantage over their competition. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

I am a stat guy and love looking at numbers and I love analyzing data related to the Vacation Rental Industry.  The goal in my opinion with all this data is to increase revenue or have the best insight to make great decisions that will yield the best profit possible.  If you have read things I have written you will know I talk about how our industry is changing rapidly and you will see that echoed by other folks throughout our industry.  One of those changes I keep seeing and hearing about is related to ancillary revenue or activity services property managers have an opportunity to bring into their business.  

To bring home that point I thought I would share with you some statistics I found through a Travel Statistics and Tour Operators Survey that was posted online by Rezdy.  If you want to look at the entire survey you can download it here.  Keep in mind that the results are not specific to the VR industry and based on international participation.  However; I feel this is relevant and appropriate information that the VR industry can learn from.  We know that every year our industry is growing and taking share from the hotel industry.  When people book their trips, they are looking for things to do and the ancillary revenue potential is very exciting to think about.  

• In the US, there are about 67,000 businesses worth an estimated $20 billion in the tour and activity space.  
• Top things travelers are more likely to spend more money on as a treat: 
  • Sight Seeing 53%
  • Special Dining 41%
  • Accommodation 41%
  • Activities 35%
  • Shopping 24%
• 40% of tour and activity bookings are made online
• 97% of people prefer to find business online
• 92% of consumers say they trust social media, word of mouth, recommendation from friends and family above all forms of advertising. 
• 85% of consumers expect businesses to be active in social media
• 70% of travelers look at up to 20 reviews before booking
• 30% of all direct online booking are made on mobile devices.  
• Mobile Phones are the #1 item to bring on holiday.  
• 94% of TripAdvisor customers are using mobile devices to research local things to do. 
• 23% of leisure travelers use their mobile devices to book vacation activities.