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Interactive Maps: A Quick Way To Arrive At More Bookings

Today’s blog is all about a quick feature that you can add to your site today that will help you convert more visitors to your site into bookings. This is the simple addition of an interactive map on your website. An interactive map is one that shows the local area as normal, but that you can add the location of your property and places that your guests might be interested in. From there you can see the proximity, read reviews and check the distances and times between attractions all whilst keeping customers on your site.

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If you guest selects a property you can feature the location on an interactive map on the page for that property. As well as showing the property that has been selected, your interactive map can also show the locations of other available properties in the area. So, if the property is booked people on your site can choose available properties that are closest to their original desired location. You can even have the price of the properties on the map, and photos with a short description when your guests hover over the points on the map. This prevents people from leaving your site to start a new search based on the area they want to stay. Rather than having to search through the pages for different vacation rentals on your site, or possibly leaving your site, they move on to the next best property in just one click.

A map that shows all the properties in the area can then be distilled to a map showing just the selected property. This would then feature highlights of the local area. Local restaurants, museums and bars can all have pins that lead straight through to reviews, their own websites and contact information. The same goes for tourist attractions. An interactive map can then show the best routes to get around these attractions either by walking, driving or on public transport. You can then have blog posts about the places on your map. Showing your knowledge and passion about your local area will bring this to life and engage the people that come to your site. You’re turning your site into a complete and definitive resource for people looking to book a holiday. You already have your property listings set up, but now you have all the information that people need to make the leap from research and comparison to an actual booking.

We’ve spoken before about how a good vacation rental website not only provides all of the information that your guests will want to know, but taps into the anticipation of the holiday that they are planning. You should show your guests what they can do when staying in your property. Show the local knowledge you have amassed and give them an insight into the area they are hoping to stay in. You are allowing people to visualise their holiday, making it more real, and leading to more bookings from first-time visitors to your site.

Using tools like Google Street View and reading reviews can all help this but being able to see everything on the same page, whilst they are considering their booking means you are in a great position to convert that visitor into a booking right there and then. Showing your local knowledge and your commitment to ensuring every guest’s enjoyment of your property helps to show that yours is a business that can be trusted.

And, if you are using a Kigo website template, you can simply add your properties and the attractions in your local area to the back office and they will automatically be added to your interactive map. It is one of those smaller features that helps professional and innovative hosts stay ahead of the competition. Click here to find out more about this feature.

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