When a short term rental owner decides to invest in getting their own website, you’d think this would be a step in the right direction, right?
By having your own website you are making a sound business decision. Every business needs to have its own website these days and it’s a great way to get more guests.
However, there is a major mistake that short term rental owners can make when they get their website built, and this happens all too often.
An accommodation website without an effective direct booking function is flawed.
There are actually two ways that short term rental owners get this wrong: your own website links to your Airbnb listing, or your ‘book now’ button is really a ‘send us an email with your preferred dates and we’ll get back to you’.
Firstly, if your website links back to your Airbnb listing.
What’s the point of having your own website? In this case, your website is the middle man that could be cut out. If you are doing social media marketing you might as well just direct people to your Airbnb listing. The obvious problems with using Airbnb as your sole booking engine is that you’ll be losing commission to Airbnb, plus Airbnb shows off other properties in your area.
Secondly, the dreaded ‘send us an email to check availability’.
Nobody, I will repeat, nobody, likes this method. This is a frustratingly slow way to book a service. People want to lock things in and if they can’t view available dates or confirm a booking straight away then they’ll likely move on to the next option.
Imagine trying to order a pizza this way:
Hi, can I order a pepperoni pizza?
…
…
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In this day and age of 24/7 service people expect to be able to make reservations promptly.
What’s needed is your own direct booking engine. This will give your website the same functionality as Airbnb, except that all the revenue is going directly to you!
Our Guest Getter website package resolves this issue. We take your content, build your website, and set up a direct booking engine. It’s as simple as that.
We don’t just build websites, we specialise in building websites for short term rental properties.
As short term rental owners ourselves, we understand the issues faced by our industry. We are constantly working towards solutions and want to share this you.
