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Marketing Vacation Rentals: The Importance of Understanding the Renter Journey

It is a great time to be in the vacation rental property business. Innovations in the industry are creating a perfect environment for marketing vacation rentals. According to research by Technavio, it is estimated that the global vacation rental market will reach $169.7 billion by the year 2019.

Maximizing Your Market Share

While the vacation rental industry may be experiencing explosive growth that shows no sign of stopping anytime in the near future, the question is, are you seeing the benefit of the boom? Is your market position improving, or are you missing out on the opportunities afforded by growing traveler interest in vacation rental properties as an alternative to hotels?

Understand the Customer Journey
Do you fully understand the journey guests take to find your listings?

To truly benefit from industry growth, you must step up your marketing efforts to establish your brand in the evolving marketplace. One way to do this effectively is to have a comprehensive understanding of the mindset and behaviors that characterize potential renters.

Understanding the Renter Journey

A true understanding of the renter journey includes a number of factors. You need to discern what renters are looking for when they begin a search for a vacation rental property, which features draw the attention of potential renters, and how potential renters prefer to perform a search to find their ideal vacation spot.

have best effect and where you need to allocate your vacation rental marketing budget to get the most bang for your buck.

1) How Travelers Search for Vacation Rental Properties

One of the most important elements of effective marketing is understanding how to make your product visible to your target audience. In the case of vacation rental marketing, this means that you must consider how a potential traveler tries to find a vacation rental property.

A recent survey of consumer vacation rental trends by Orlando Vacation Homes 360, Inc. yields some insight into the renter journey. Reporting on the results, VRMA lists the following statistics:

  • 62 percent of travelers surveyed begin their search for a vacation rental property on large search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
  • 32 percent use big brand sites like VRBO and HomeAway
  • 31 percent also prefer to work directly with vacation rental owners or managers to find the right property

What does this mean for your vacation rental marketing? Simply put, it means that you need to invest in a well-designed, mobile-optimized website, employ good SEO practices to make your website more likely to be found in a search query, and seriously consider working with channel partners like HomeAway or TripAdvisor to broaden your marketing reach.

2) What Travelers Look For When They Find Your Listings

Performing a search online for vacation rental properties is just half the battle for a traveler. With so many rental properties available, the traveler must whittle down the list of potential properties according to his or her particular tastes and needs.

Thus, the question is, what are travelers looking for when they arrive at your listings? The survey reports that 68 percent of respondents strongly agree that they check reviews carefully when vetting a particular property.

This means that if you are not using guest reviews on your site, or not taking active steps to ensure that you are offering superior service to your guests on every occasion, from original listing to booking and beyond, you are missing out on a golden marketing opportunity.

Making the Most of Lessons Learned

With the growth of the vacation rental industry projected to continue for the foreseeable future, now is the time to make the most of your vacation rental marketing for each of your properties. Understanding how travelers search for your property listings and what they are looking for in their search will help you focus your marketing efforts appropriately.

Kigo's beautiful web designs are mobile-optimized
Kigo's beautiful web designs are mobile-optimized and high-converting.

Kigo's vacation rental property management solutions provide all the needed tools for marketing success, including:

  • mobile-optimized, high-converting web designs that attract the attention of travelers
  • comprehensive, integrated reservation system that makes booking a breeze
  • robust channel management that extends your marketing reach
  • revenue management that provides dynamic pricing and keeps your listing competitive

To ramp up your vacation rental marketing strategy to the next level, download the ebook: Creative Marketing Tips for Vacation Rental Owners and take advantage of every opportunity afforded by the current growth in the vacation rental industry.

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