Your Complete Guide to Direct Booking in 2024
LocalVR’s Direct Booking Guide for 2024
If you’ve been a vacation rental owner for a while now and you’re only listing on sites like Airbnb and Vrbo, you may be missing out on a whole new source of revenue: direct bookings. While it can be tempting to utilize OTAs exclusively for your short-term rental business, there are many downsides that come along with using a listing distribution site as well, such as the high commission fees they charge or the lack of freedom you have with crafting your listing.
For those of you who have been searching for a complete guide to direct booking, you’ve landed in the right spot. Today, we’ll go over the benefits of utilizing a direct booking site, how to create one, and how to market it successfully.
Benefits of Building a Direct Booking Site in 2024
You Don’t Have to Only Utilize OTAs
A direct booking site comes along with many advantages, but perhaps the most important one is that you won’t have to rely entirely on OTAs like Airbnb and Vrbo. You never know when a disruption could happen, such as the site going bankrupt and shutting down. You also never know if your account will be safe from hackers or a ban from the site itself due to unfair guest feedback.
When you earn your sole income from only one or two websites, one shutting down or getting banned could lead to you shutting your business down if you’re not able to make up the earnings. That’s why, instead of relying exclusively on Airbnb and other OTAs, building a direct booking site can help you have an extra source of income should a disruption or calamity occur. Because you have total control over it, you won’t have to worry about the website shutting down or banning you–which can be great for your peace of mind.
Commission Fees are Much Lower for Direct Booking Sites
Another common cause for complaint you’ll run into when relying exclusively on OTAs is commission fees, which can be exorbitant on some sites.
If you’re sick and tired of allowing commissions to eat into your profits, a direct booking site comes in quite handy, as you won’t have to pay these fees when utilizing one. Also, because you’ll be paying a much lower rate for your direct booking site, you also will be able to give your guests a better price on your vacation rental, which can make your site all the more enticing for potential guests. Click here to learn more about the benefits of building a direct booking site.
How to Create Your Own Direct Booking Site
Step 1: Find a Website Builder for Your Direct Booking Site
To create a direct booking website, you’ll have two options: you can use a website builder to do it all yourself, or you can hire a team to create a direct booking site for you, which will of course cost quite a bit more.
Obviously your budget and the amount of free time you have available will dictate which of these choices you make, but if you’re wondering how hard it is to create a direct booking site, it’s actually quite easy. You don’t even need to know HTML or how to code when you utilize a website builder, either–these sites can do it all for you, allowing you to have total control over how your listing appears.
Step 2: Sync Your Calendar with Your Direct Booking Site
Once you’ve created your direct booking site, you’ll want to ensure that you sync your calendars to prevent any double bookings. Your calendars should be synced with all of the sites that you use already, especially if you’re utilizing a multi-channel marketing strategy, and most direct booking site builders will come along with a way for you to do this.
Use These Marketing Tips to Direct Traffic and Get Bookings on Your Direct Booking Site
Invite Previous Guests Back To Stay With You
Once you’ve created the direct booking site that you’ve always wanted to, now’s the time to invite back previous guests to stay with you. Hopefully you’re already using a guestbook to capture contact information of previous visitors. You can use this information to send them a quick message to let them know you’ve created a direct booking site, where they can find much better deals than on Airbnb or Vrbo. Look for those who left especially good reviews to send this message to–they’ll be far more likely to come back if they can book your vacation rental for a stellar price.
Don’t Forget About SEO and Mobile-Friendliness
Another important aspect to marketing your direct booking site is to follow the basics of vacation rental SEO, or search engine optimization. To get the organic traffic that you’re looking for, you’ll find that it’s essential to make your direct booking site one that’s friendly to both search engines as well as mobile devices, so that potential guests can find you easily and book you while on the go.
SEO isn’t extremely complicated like it may appear–instead, all you need to do is perform some keyword research, then implement those keywords onto your direct booking site in key places. This will help boost your search engine performance and get you the organic traffic that you’d like to see.
Don’t Want to Build a Direct Booking Site Yourself? Find a Property Management Service Like LocalVR
Building your own direct booking site comes along with many benefits, but if you don’t have much free time and want to concentrate on other things, think about utilizing a property management service, like LocalVR. At LVR, we will not only manage your property and ensure flawless upkeep, but we also ensure you have multi-channel distribution, including a direct booking site where you don’t have to pay insane commission fees. To learn more about how the experts at LocalVR can help you to maximize your short-term rental potential, click here.