From apartments to mortgages, credit scores are already heavily utilized in real estate. Since owners/property managers are always trying to mitigate their risk against bad guests, perhaps it is time we leverage them in the vacation rental market as well.

While credit scores are a great indicator of financial risk, the truth is that credit has predictive power across many industries. For example, according to Insurance Information Institute, people with higher credit scores are much less likely to file an auto insurance claim and their claims and are lower when they do.

As demonstrated by their financial patterns and insurance data, people with good credit scores are generally considered more responsible suggesting they will be more responsible guests as well.

But how do you target or verify guests with good credit scores?

Target Advertising on Sites That Attract Consumers With Higher Credit Scores:

According to Credit Karma MSN and Google attract visitors with higher average credit scores compared to sites like AOL.

Ask Guests to Take a Screenshot of their Credit Karma Score

 

Second home owners are always concerned about ‘who’ is staying in their home, so why not deliver some piece of mind.  If you are a detailed oriented owner or represent owners that are keenly interested in ‘who’ is staying in their homes, why not offer guests $10 off if they share a screenshot of their Credit Karma score?

CreditKarma.com is a relatively new service that offers completely free credit scores, no strings attached, in return for displaying targeted ads to its member base. Unlike other “free credit score” sites, CreditKarma is truly free, so as long as your prospective guests have two free minutes and want to save a few dollars, why not give them a small discount to pass on some piece of mind to yourself and/or your owners?

Last week Travel + Leisure released its ‘Top Travel Website” winners and we’re happy to announce FlipKey was named the web’s Top Vacation Rental Website.

(Yeah, cheers, several high fives!!!!)

Travel + Leisure is one the world’s most prominent authorities in the world of travel and boasts circulation/audience of 950,000 readers.

Citing FlipKey’s growing properties – now over 60,000 throughout North America – and unique collection of verified guest reviews, Travel + Leisure identified something truly unique about FlipKey.  We hope Travel + Leisure’s recognition of FlipKey will help drive additional awareness of vacation rentals and the wonderful experience afforded by our vacation homes.

THANKS!!!!!!

We are excited to announce the release of online booking functionality on FlipKey.com.  Vacation rental guests will now find our Online Reservation widget in the right-hand column of any vacation rental property accepting online bookings on FlipKey.com. Properties not offering online bookings will continue to feature email reservation forms and phone numbers that will allow guests to contact the reservation manager.

Why we are excited: 

The combination of guest reviews + online booking functionality is the holy grail of establishing trust in the vacation rental industry.  FlipKey guest reviews help prospective guests learn from the experiences of past guests, so they can select the right home and feel comfortable and confident in their decision.    Once the guest has found the perfect home, the booking process is straightforward and as simple as booking a hotel online.   Although many guests may prefer to call your reservation number or send you an email inquiry, simply knowing that your operation offers the ability to book online helps the consumer understand the professionalism of your operations….

The powerful combination of guest reviews and online booking functionality has several tangible benefits.   Most relevant to FlipKey, is FlipKey’s RepScore (short for Reputation Score), a scoring system that determines promotional listing placement on FlipKey and TripAdvisor (coming soon!).   By simply offering online booking functionality on FlipKey we can determine a more confident user experience compared to a similar property not offering online booking, which improves your listing placement on both FlipKey and soon on TripAdvisor.

If your software company supports online bookings and you’re interested in (i) collecting guest reviews and (ii) accepting online bookings through FlipKey contact us at myreviews@flipkey.com for more information.

FlipKey currently accepts online bookings for property managers using any of Instant Software’s services (V12, PropertyPlus, First Resort, Entech) or Escapia’s online distribution service EscapiaNet.

Over the years vacation rental managers have become intimately familiar with the value and importance of their website.  With 80% of consumers using the internet to research and purchase their travel plans, our websites become our most important marketing front.

Over the years we have observed vacation rental manager sites becoming more sophisticated, easier to use and overall a more enjoyable experience. Whether managers are making the investments internally or leveraging industry experts, such as Blizzard Marketing or Blue Tent Marketing, the message is clear, “vacation rental websites are REALLY important.”

As such, I wanted to emphasize one basic, but critical recommendation:

Your website needs to be browser compatible.

What that means, is that your website must, at a minimum work properly for all supported versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox. 

To the geeks out there, this is a no brainer, but for many of us Firefox is still a fairly new name. Without getting into the details, Firefox is the #2 browser in the market and as of today has officially laid claim to 20% markets share based on a report from Net Applications.  

There was a day when only the technophiles used Firefox, but at 20% market share you can safely assume the average consumer is also using Firefox.  So, whether you manage your website internally or use an agency, be sure to require that your site work seamlessly with all supported versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer…. In addition, given Apple’s continued rise in popularity we would suggest adding Safari to that list.

(Browser market share graph taken from Wikipedia).

Vacation rentals have often promoted themselves as a more economical and personal lodging option compared to hotels. Often these claims are backed by hard daily rate data and thus it’s not a stretch to conclude the current economic climate may have less of an impact on the vacation rental market compared to more standard travel and lodging categories. In general I would agree that vacation rentals are more insulated from the economy compared to hotels, but like most things in life “it depends.”

Aspen Feeling the Effects 

I was able to attend an educational session held by Liza Hogan of Resort Rating Specialists at last week’s Annual VRMA Conference. Liza helps VR managers institute rating programs that help accurately market vacation rental units, but also provide structure and guidance to help owners invest appropriately in upgrading/maintaining their properties. As such, Liza is a recognized expert in the space and has collected data points and case studies across the country. During her presentation Liza mentioned Aspen, CO was preparing for a “down” season and was only at 50% occupancy for the holiday season as of mid-October. Typically, premier ski destinations, such as Aspen, are nearly completely booked for the holiday by the end of October. 

With most Colorado ski resorts within a 2 hour drive of Denver, Aspen’s western location (4 hours from Denver) doesn’t play well to the regional market.  Instead Aspen is a magnetic for the out-of-state family…. Thus, tack on a plane ticket, extra baggage charges (over $100 if you bring your gear on most airlines) and a car rental and suddenly you have a pretty expensive trip, vacation rental or no vacation rental.  Destination markets like Aspen are inherently vulnerable during these times.

Regional Markets Seeing an Increase in Bookings

In contrast, I had a separate conversation with a reservation manager in the White Mountain region of New Hampshire who indicated they had seen a year-to-date 9% increase in bookings. Apparently, many of the folks in Boston and New York are still planning on going skiing, they just aren’t going to fly anywhere to do it. As such, ski areas like Loon, with its proximity to several large cities, is yielding an increase in vacation rental demand.

Ultimately, vacation rentals, in general, will fare better than most travel categories in the current economic environment.  However, for every two markets that are benefiting from a change in travel plans/preferences there is likely another market struggling.

We’re happy to announce another winner of the FlipKey Guest Reviews Monthly Contest.  Congratulations to Dave and Becky from Las Vegas on winning a $200 gift card to Amazon.com!

Dave and Becky vacationed in Hawaii in July and took time to share their vacation experience staying with Great Vacation Retreats by writing this guest review for Whaler’s Cove Unit #212.

Dave and I spoke on the phone and he was thrilled to hear they had won the contest.  He wrote in to add:  “We were already a winner when renting Whaler’s Cove #212, so to hear we won the review contest is just added icing on the sweet Kauai cake.”  First a fantastic Hawaiian vacation, then $200 to spend as you wish at Amazon.com.  Yes, like Sir Rod Stewart sings - Some Guys Have All the Luck - perhaps that’s why they live in Vegas.

We love to hear about the personal travel experiences and tips of vacation renters.  Dave and Becky provide a great personal tip to visit Joe’s on the Green for breakfast and many agree on this recommendation.  Even when writing in October, three months after their vacation, Dave and Becky say “we still talk about our vacation multiple times a week” and “can honestly say, we still miss it.”

Thanks to Dave and Becky and all the folks who submitted guest reviews with FlipKey recently and participated in our contest.  Mahalo.