Miss the HomeAway Summit in Austin this year? You don’t have to wait until the Orlando Summit to get caught up. Here are our 10 biggest takeaways from the summit this year.
Nearly every presenter at the HomeAway Summit emphasized this point, and it seems a lot of owners are still not aware. Online booking doesn’t mean your property is instantly booked. (It doesn’t even mean online payment – you can still have a traveler pay by paper check or money transfer.)
Online booking simply means those dates are temporarily reserved so that other travelers don’t nip in and book the same property for dates that have already been requested. This gives the traveler the peace of mind of knowing they’ve done everything they can to confirm their vacation plans. As the owner, you have 24 hours to vet the traveler and be sure you’re okay with renting to them. If you decide against that traveler for any reason, you can cancel the booking with no penalty.
This was another point repeated through nearly every talk: owners who want to stay competitive should look into methods of automating and digitizing their businesses. For some owners, that will mean looking into apps that help them communicate with travelers or automate their finances – for others, it just means using the tools already available to do a lot more.
HomeAway has recently changed both its online dashboard and its mobile app to make it easier for owners to see how they’re performing as well as manage their various properties digitally. The mobile app in particular has seen a complete revamp – it’s not the 1.0 version you might remember, so it’s worth downloading again.
Bottom line: the more data owners have, the easier it will be for them to stay competitive.
Owners have been blaming the recent decline in bookings on the traveler fee, but it turns out the problem is much older and more deep-seated than that. The traveler fee has only existed for a few months, but HomeAway has seen 95% of travelers leave the site without booking since long before then.
Why such a low conversion rate? Usually because the travelers can’t find what they’re looking for or make a booking easily. With the old tier system, the top results were the properties in the highest tiers – not necessarily the most relevant properties. Travelers would see the first page full of properties that didn’t fit their specified needs, decide it was too much hassle, and leave the site.
Much like any online search engine, HomeAway is starting to rank its properties in terms of relevance to the traveler, rather than simply prioritizing the highest-paying owners’ properties.
HomeAway reports that 95% of travelers would like to book online, so that is also a high priority – but it’s not the only one. The universal traits that all travelers are looking for: great professional-quality photographs, a lengthy and informative description, availability for their dates, and an easy booking process (i.e., an owner who answers queries promptly).
Douglas Quinby of Phocuswright gave a fascinating talk on the up-and-coming Millennial generation, and recommends that owners start thinking now about how to cater to this highly lucrative market. Millennials travel far more than their parents did, and they spend very nearly as much as the generation before their own – even though their incomes are smaller. A few stats from Quinby’s talk:
HomeAway has said that a portion of the traveler fee will be going to their marketing efforts. At the Summit, we got a look at what those marketing efforts are: a huge national commercial, a complete rebrand, and the Eiffel Tower Giveaway, which allows 1 winner and 5 of their friends and family to be the first to sleep in the Eiffel Tower.
In addition to these large marketing efforts, HomeAway produces over 1,000 pieces of content every month for their social media channels. They’ve also invested heavily in targeted marketing – one example given was that travelers receive offers by email for destinations within driving distance of their homes, in hopes of coaxing them into a weekend getaway. Finally, they’re working on retargeting: making sure that travelers who leave are shown ads of the exact properties they were checking out so they are persuaded to return and finish their booking.
Many cities are considering bans on vacation rentals, and others are amenable to reasonable regulation. HomeAway’s Senior Director of Government Relations Matt Curtis showed us data that proves most city residents are happy to have vacation rentals in their neighborhoods as long as they obey local laws (such as noise ordinances) and pay lodging taxes to the city.
Even though general public opinion is favorable, Matt says, a few loud dissenters can easily force through legislation because vacation rentals are a tiny percentage of the housing market – just 0.001%. Owners need to take the initiative to educate themselves, their neighbors, and their city council on why vacation rentals are a boon to any neighborhood, not a burden.
Owners benefit from regulations as long as they are clear and transparent. Many cities have either antiquated laws regarding short-term rentals or no regulation specifically targeting them at all, which means owners don’t know how to comply with the city’s requirements. For example, many owners don’t pay “hotel tax” because … well, it’s called a “hotel tax.” Many owners are completely justified in being confused about which local regulations apply to their vacation rental.
Matt Curtis says the best regulations are the following:
In 2007, 60-70% of calendars weren’t updated, making it impossible for travelers to be sure a property was really available for their dates. Those numbers haven’t improved substantially in the intervening years.
HomeAway reports that they track your acceptance rate relative to your peers. If you accept only 50% of booking requests and your competition accepts 90%, HomeAway’s algorithm assumes you’re declining because the traveler requested dates that appeared as available on your calendar, but were not actually available because you accepted a booking without updating your availability. HomeAway can’t become a trusted source for travelers if owners don’t keep their calendars updated, so those owners who don’t update will find their properties penalized.
We reported on this announcement a few weeks ago, but at the Summit we got into the details of how traveler reviews will work. You’ll be able to rate travelers in a variety of categories, ranging from “communication” to “cleanliness” to “adherence to house rules.” You can also leave a review of the traveler in your own words, much as the traveler does for you.
Owners and travelers both have 14 days to submit their reviews, and reviews are revealed simultaneously. If the owner leaves a review for the traveler on day one and the traveler reciprocates on day two, both owner and traveler will see their respective reviews on day two, and those reviews will appear publicly. If the owner reviews on day one and the traveler doesn’t leave a review, the owner’s review will be posted on day 15, and the traveler forfeits their chance to review.
We learned a lot about the changes at HomeAway over the course of the Summit, but what we took away first and foremost is this: HomeAway is doing its very best to stay competitive in an ever-changing online space. They want to educate more people about vacation rentals, and they want to provide a booking site that the internet-savvy generation will want to use.
To stay competitive in the new environment that caters heavily to travelers’ needs, owners will have to work a little harder to provide the seamless, hassle-free booking experience that travelers expect. But HomeAway wants each owner to succeed at this goal. We saw improved dashboards, an improved HomeAway app, and tons of additional features to help owners stay ahead of the game. The best way to rank in Best Match is not a secret – HomeAway wants owners to know what will help them rank better so that they can provide those features.
Owners are going to have to work a little harder to stay competitive as vacation rental becomes a bigger industry – but not all of them have the time to learn the new rules of marketing and booking. Evolve makes it easy for you by providing incredible marketing and booking that’s always in line with the latest developments, so you can enjoy owning a second home without having it become a second job. Click here to learn more about how Evolve works.