How to Boost Your Vacation Rental Bookings on Booking.com

With global reach and millions of monthly visitors, Booking.com is a vital partner in marketing your properties – just as they’ve been a great partner to Kigo in helping us test and improve our offerings, make vacation rental bookings more successful, and help your business run more smoothly.

This pioneering company features 1.4 million unique locations with 28.5 million bookable listings, so they’re a recognized giant people look to first. And they’re constantly evolving, presenting new ways to make listing vacation rental properties faster and easier.

Expand your reach by listing on Booking.com

An industry leader for both hotel and vacation rental accommodation types, Booking.com syndicates your listings to over 5,000 affiliate sites. Dedicated regional account managers and thousands of staff members worldwide are standing by to help you generate bookings. The company translates your listings into over 40 languages, exposing your properties to many who might otherwise skip them.

At Booking.com, your properties are listed free of charge; when the site generates vacation rental bookings, you pay only a small percentage of the booking value. So there’s no risk, and immense potential reward.

Learn more about converting website visitors and increasing bookings in this eBook.

Create an outstanding experience

The Booking.com platform is remarkably easy for guests to use. They can search by destination, country or property name, indicating check-in and checkout dates and travel companions. They can filter by specific property types, such as holiday homes or properties near historical sites, and can access over 115 million verified reviews to help them make a final decision on what to book.

The actual booking process is simple as well. After providing basic personal information, customers receive a confirmation instantly – a direction most of the industry is following these days.

Booking.com has provided the following four tips they rank highly for improving the experience of both you and your guests when you generate rentals through Booking.com:

1. Let guests know how to collect your keys

Key exchange can be a hassle. Save time and make check-in easier by telling Booking.com how travelers collect the keys to your properties.

2. Communicate that you offer 24-hour reception

Sometimes it can be difficult to organize the check-in with your guests. Make the process easier by letting Booking.com know if your reception is open 24 hours, or if it’s necessary to submit an arrival time.

3. Use automatic replies

For check-in, check-out, parking and bed preference requests, automatic replies can save up to two hours a week and support great customer service.

4. Answer questions before guests book

Make it faster and easier to reply to guests, even with last-minute requests. Message templates are customized responses to the kinds of requests and questions you get most often. The relevant details can even be added and updated automatically – depending on who you’re responding to.

Perfect partners: Booking.com and Kigo Channel Manager

Kigo Channel Manager makes it easy to make the most of Booking.com, doing all this and more:

• Keeps calendars updated and synchronized across third-party websites and portals
• Merges and manages all of your bookings in one universal reservation system
• Maximizes property exposure in the largest marketplaces in the world
• Keeps your rental rates competitive across portals

If you’re not already benefiting from the travelers Booking.com can send your way, we strongly encourage you to get on board.

Use Kigo Channel Manager to manage this and other booking venues and you’ll have a hassle-free, time-saving way to stay on top of all your booking sources. Get a free demo today!