BestBeachRental.com newsletter

Customers feed-back in short term and vacation rentals

03/01/2010

A lot of people are asking me lately what is that tourists look for when they book their vacation rental. Some of the same questions come back from individual owners, realtors or people who want to rent their vacation condo to offset some expenses and/or make some money on the side.

Are people looking for balconies, for granite counter tops, do they by any chance need marble floors or they'd rather have an oceanfront? Do they need one bedrooms and two bedrooms or the studios and junior suites are just fine? How about amenities of the unit / building? Generally speaking is in-unit Internet access a deal breaker or not?

From my experience here are a few things that people look for:

(1) Location

Location is by far #1 aspect considered when people choose their vacation rental. Proximity to beaches, attractions, utilities and infrastructure are key elements and the first things customers ask for. No matter of the quality of the unit, a beach unit on Collins or Ocean Drive is by far easier to book than an inland unit. Moreover there are crowds that shop for specific locations, i.e. South Beach goers, Miami Beach mid island goers and South of Fifth goers.

(2) Rates / deals

In this sluggish economy and with this ever challenging competitive environment, having competitive rates is paramount and the days where you were able to charge an arm and a leg for your unit are gone for good. Do a market research and study the rates in your geography and remember: when managing short term vacation rentals you do not compete with the hotel chains but with the local ma&pa and small business owners who very often crave cash and drop rates to get business.

Tip: the published rates on by owner vacation rentals sites such as homeaway.com and vrbo.com are generally over what the actual market closes at.

(3) Ample and comfortable bedding

These days people are looking to split the bill and consequently the space of the unit. The number of bookings for 2 people per unit is decreasing a lot and many times you have deal with a family of 4-5, two families of 2-3 looking to share a junior suite or with a group of 7-8 looking for a 2 bedroom unit. Also the sleeping arrangements can get quite complex as many times people come up with separate beds requirements.

Hence you have to have ample, comfortable and flexible bedding. We found that the best combination is between a queen size bed, two twins and a sleeping couch for a junior suite allowing to sleep 4-6 people and two queens or a queen and 2 twins for a studio allowing to sleep 2-4 people.

Tip: quality of the matresses is very important, do not cut back on that expense, it will come right back at you; even they are ok for some younger people / spring breakers air beds or air matresses are generally not acceptable anymore.

I would say with the triplet right location, right rate and the right bedding you can win 70%-80% of the deals. You just have to figure out what those are in your geography.

(4) Views and balconies

Ocean views and balconies are growing in importance especially when marketing to snow birds / people from up North. An oceanfront unit is easier to book than a unit on the bay side and a unit on the bay side is easier to book than a unit with no view at all. The queen of them all is the oceanfront with balcony which some people are ready to pay more for.

(5) Professional cleaning

People often ask if the unit is clean and having a team member who does that for a living really helps. But make no mistake about it: no matter how clean your unit will be every now and then you will run into people who are not going to be happy with your cleaning services. As cleaning and general maintenance of the unit is one of the first causes for cancellations, pay a special attention to cleaning.

(6) Building amenities

People are looking for things like all inclusive parking, washer and dryer, gym/fitness center, front desk service with 24/7 check-in, pool & beach chairs and sometimes for pool and beach towels. While in unit Internet access is not a deal breaker yet, in building (lobby) Internet access is required.

(7) Trusted source

Vacation rentals business is a business like any other and the general guidelines and rules still apply. People do want to know who they deal with and how reliable that person is. They want to make sure their reservation is guaranteed and the key will be there when they will check-in. We had good results with referrals and written recommendations from past guests so prepare a portfolio of those. Some of the people will even ask you to show up for the check-in just to meet you. So be real, show up, be helpful and smile! It makes a huge difference.

Good luck with your vacation rental and don't forget to visit our new New York City site as well:

http://BestNYCVacationRental.com

Your host,

Adrian Corbuleanu
Miami Beach

What's hot this Season in Miami Beach and South Beach

Arts Basel

This Winter we did very well in South Beach with Corporate Rentals for arts handling companies. Our proximty to the Convention Center attracted a significant number of business bookings in the range of 7 units per group (groups of 30 persons). We will use these case studies to attract more business bookings and develop.

Super Bowl

Super Bowl was a really hot event here in South Florida and, even if we don't specialize, neither specifically target events renters we rented 20+ rooms to this event's participants.

Boat Show

Our traditional Florida and California traffic for the Boat Show was doubled by a number of new bookings coming from maintenance companies and locals. We arre excited about the event.

Winter Music Conference

Our traditional youth market sold out our inventory as of the end of January. On top of regular repeat business from NYC, the Midwest and California we started to generate some bookings from international geographies like UK and Argentina.

This year WMC partially overlaps Pass Over chunks it was easier to sell out the last week of March.

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Coming up in April and May of 2010

We look forward to a quite exciting and unique Spring Season with the regular Pass Over, Easter traffic and Hip Hop Festival but also with some new stuff that we were able to unveil such as proms, weddings and other group events plus a newer stronger influx from international geographies.