Don’t sleep on Direct Booking Sites for your STR

Did you notice last month there was an Airbnb glitch that caused a ton of reviews to disappear?!

Facebook groups were blowing up. Sure enough, I went to our cabin Airbnb listing and our 50 FIVE-star reviews were down to only 16!!

Did you notice it on your listings? You know, reviews are HUGE!

Anyways, it did resolve and correct within 24 hours or so but, if you relied on Airbnb alone, that would be detrimental to your business…

It’s so important to protect your assets by leveraging Airbnb, VRBO etc. as TOOLS but not your only lifeline. If something happened and these platforms got too expensive, went under, set restrictions etc. what would happen to your business?

Consider maintaining your own marketing strategy. Think -- a direct booking site and an email list.

Direct booking sites allow you to keep more money in your pocket and your guests paying less. Don’t get me wrong, Airbnb and VRBO are 75% of our bookings but we continue to attract more direct bookings. We see these bookings come from repeat guests, friends of friends, and folks who find us on social media.

Email campaigns allow you to share property updates with past guests, last minute deals, etc. If you had a last-minute cancellation, wouldn’t it be nice to hit send on an email to all your past guests offering them a special deal to fill the gap?

Guests are also getting savvier. Did you know if you put your property name in your Airbnb listing, people are Googling it to see if there is a direct booking option?

More and more people are realizing they can get better rates by booking direct.

PLUS, Hosts who have a direct booking site generally treat their STR as a business and in turn, offer a better guest experience.

Guests want curated, hands-on hospitality and understand they’re more likely to get that with local, active hosts vs. big companies focused on quantity over quality.

Your direct booking site doesn’t have to be anything crazy. Keep it simple, clean and support your own individual goals. Check out ours HERE if you’d like some inspiration.

As always, never hesitate to email us with random questions. We’re always here as a resource.