16 tips to increase your low season vacation rental bookings

An entrepreneur must not only plan his success but also manage the shortcomings in his/her business.

If you are a vacation rental business owner who is worried about the low/off-seasons, these tips will help you grow your business efficiently.

In this blog post, we'll go over the 16 best ideas you can implement to increase your direct vacation rental bookings.

The tips offered are from a technology and business standpoint.

😎 Let's get started!

15 easy to implement tips to get more bookings in low season

1. Website loading speed 🚀

According to the stats by Blue Corona, 47% of people expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less. Also, they found out that the average load time of the top ranking websites in Google is under three seconds.

If your vacation rental website takes more than 5 seconds to load, the customers might abandon your website and look for other alternative services. The bookings can get less if this problem continues to persist.

It also makes it difficult to convince your customers to re-visit the website in the future.

2. Identify the customers who book during the low season 🔎

Usually, regular customers and people who book property for vacations differ. As an entrepreneur, it is important to understand the difference between these two.

When it comes to off-season, large families are not going to rent the property but small families do, during short holidays (perhaps a 3 day weekend).

Therefore, it is important to understand customer psychology before renting out property listings.

3. SEO of the website 💻

SEO can help businesses to rank their web pages higher on the search results.

To successfully run a vacation rental business online, SEO is important to maximize your visitor’s count.

SEO includes,

1. Deciding the page layout
2. Finding right keywords
3. Publishing high-quality content
4. Setting the meta description and title for every web page
5. Setting appropriate alt text for the images
6. Deciding the URL structure
7. Updating sitemaps and robots.txt file
8. and lots more.

4. Remarket to your website visitors with ads 🏹

People who know about your business are more likely to convert than others. You can run remarketing ad campaigns on Google and Facebook targeting your website visitors.

Here are some tips:

✳️ Use highly-attractive images of your rental on ads.
✳️ Provide a value emphasizing why they should book a stay.
✳️ Use a clear call to action - whether they should call you or visit your website.

5. Deduct prices of your listings only if it is necessary 💰

Some people tend to misinterpret when the prices of the properties are reduced. Also, it means that you’ll be lowering the standard of the property with so many amenities and other benefits.

Therefore, it is not always advisable to reduce the price of the property on the whole during the off-season but only if it’s necessary.

6. Multiple payment options 💳

Sometimes, customers like to have many options to choose their mode of payment. It is because people have a specific preference on how to make the payment that seems convenient and secure to them.

Some people prefer to pay with cash, while others prefer to pay with a credit card or via other payment portals like Apple pay.

Multiple payment options help to attract a diverse range of users to the platform. It also enhances your holiday rental bookings tremendously.

When building a vacation rental website like Airbnb, make sure it is designed with multiple payment options and is integrated with famous payment gateways like Stripe and PayPal to cover more audiences.

7. Lessen the minimum stay days 🏠

Make sure your website's property listings have fewer minimum stay days requirements. Because many take brief vacations during the off-seasons to rest.

As a result, having fewer minimum stay days attracts more people and helps you increase direct rental bookings.

8. Create more content ✍️

The ranking of a website in search engine results is heavily influenced by its content. A website with readable and easy-to-understand content can help it rank higher in search engines.

Furthermore, straightforward and legible content helps customers in understanding the brand and service you provide.

Search engines utilise bots to crawl websites on a regular basis in order to provide visitors with the best possible search results. They look for content that is both distinctive and relevant to the user's inquiry.

When creating blogs and other content, keep the user's intent in mind. Assist them in planning their holidays and creating bucket lists.

Blogs assist in attracting travellers and explorers with a desire to discover new places.

9. Come up with attractive weekday offers 🏷️

As we already discussed above, people take short breaks for themselves during the off-season.

To cover such people you’ll have to give attractive weekday offers to keep them interested (this is called seasonal pricing).

You can even extend the check-out time for 2 hours more than your usual time to make their vacation experience more enjoyable.

10. Uploading high-definition pictures of properties 🖼️

A picture speaks a thousand words.

Customers usually trust in renting a property after seeing enough photos on the website.

High-definition photos of a property help in improving your vacation rental bookings. The aesthetics of the property captured as a picture will attract more users to the platform.

11. Highlight the amenities of the property 🏕️

The most important factor that people look into while booking the property is the amenities. Make sure that you highlight the amenities that are the crown jewel of the property in the listing’s description.

12. Marketing 📣

Today, businesses market their services on both online and offline mediums to target millennials and Gen Z customers.

Vacation rental businesses use social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to market their business.

They create and post content that resonates with their target audience. You can create informative, funny, or BTS content, which helps your audience take action.

Social media also helps businesses to market directly to customers and build a strong community.

13. Inform your previous guests about the off-season offers using email 📧

You might have the emails of your previous customer and leads in your CRM.

Take that information and use it to produce an awe-inspiring email that highlights your rental offers. You may also add images, GIFs, or even a video of a customer testimonial.

This will make them aware of your offer. If they do not wish to take a vacation, they might decide to share it with their friends and families.

14. Update the listings 😉

Updating the listings is crucial when it comes to gaining customers during an off-season.

Some people would have wishlist’ed your property listing and check regularly to find something new about the property that would make them come visit.

15. Revise the customer reviews 💯

Check to see if the property listing's reviews are recent. The prospective customer must be aware of the existing state of the property they intend to rent.

Regardless of how positive or negative the reviews are, make sure they show underneath the listings.

Because, even if you supply the best in the market, no service can have only positive feedback, right?

16. Build the platform using the latest technology 👨‍💻

Using the latest technology such as React.js and GraphQL to build your online marketplace can help you operate more efficiently and make the webpage load faster.

It enhances the performance of the platform, ensures flexibility, and becomes futuristic during business development.

Think about it!

Wrapping up

I hope this blog is useful in picking your strategies to improve your vacation rental bookings.

For more information on creating an online rental marketplace that converts better, check out our exclusive product RentALL - Airbnb Clone that helps business owners build a better vacation rental website.

Feel free to try our free demo and contact us for any questions at [email protected] or ping us on WhatsApp. We’re ready to answer all your queries!