7 Reasons Direct Booking Could Help Your STR Business
Why Should You Allow Guests To Book Directly?
When immersed in the online vacation rental industry, it might seem like OTAs like Airbnb and Vrbo are your only distribution options. However, an often-overlooked but highly advantageous approach is to encourage guests to book directly with you. This method not only helps you avoid commission fees but also allows for a more personalized guest experience.
While you can’t necessarily rely on direct bookings exclusively, especially when you’re first starting out, there are several reasons that adding them into your business strategy can be a boost to your vacation rental business. In this blog, we’ll outline some of the advantages to setting up your own direct booking site.
#1: Direct Bookings Save You Money on Distribution Platform Fees
The services that OTAs like Airbnb offer are invaluable for short-term rental owners, but the commission fees they charge can eat into profits. This is why direct bookings are so valuable–instead of paying a commission fee of between 3-16%, you’ll only have to worry about minimal processing fees on your own site. While you won’t get the same amount of traffic on your direct booking site that OTAs will provide for you, if you can figure out how to market your vacation rental outside of distribution channels and get more direct reservations, you’ll stand to make more overall revenue.
#2: Gain More Control Over Your Business and Property
One disadvantage of exclusively relying upon distribution channels like Airbnb and Vrbo is that you have to follow their rules to the letter, otherwise you risk getting your account deactivated and losing a huge source of revenue. However, when you utilize direct bookings for your vacation rental, you can not only gain an additional stream of profits, but you also don’t have to worry about following arbitrary rules and restrictions. You’ll be free to cancel a reservation without being penalized, for instance, and you’ll also have more control over which reservations you accept and which you don’t.
#3: Form Closer Relationships With Guests (and Keep Them Coming Back)
Because direct bookings give you more control over the entire reservation process, you will naturally form closer and more meaningful relationships with your guests. Whenever they have inquiries or concerns, their questions will be answered directly by you, the property owner, and this obviously helps guests to foster a deeper connection with both you and the place they’re staying at. In addition, this relationship can build customer loyalty, and putting a bit of extra time and energy into your direct bookings can pay off big time with repeat bookings and yearly visits.
#4: Give Guests a Better Deal (While Still Earning More Revenue)
Another advantage of setting up a direct booking site is the ability to give your guests a better deal on your rental. Since you don’t have to worry about building commission fees into your nightly rate, you can offer a better price to your guests and still earn more revenue than you would’ve through OTAs.
#5: Direct Booking Your Vacation Rental Allows You to Not Have to Rely Exclusively on OTAs
No vacation rental owner likes to think about the possibility of losing a source of income, but it’s never a bad idea to plan for the worst. Disruptions in the travel industry (like the pandemic, for instance) can be devastating if you rely entirely on OTAs. Even something as common as an outraged guest can cause you to lose your account, so it’s wise to have additional means of generating vacation rental bookings. Direct bookings can be beneficial to your business in numerous ways, but in the case of big changes like a pandemic or an unfair account ban, they can also help save your business from going under.
#6: You Won’t Have to Worry About Metrics Like Cancellation Rate to Stay Relevant
The algorithm on vacation rental distribution sites is brutal, especially if you haven’t paid much attention to metrics like your cancellation rate or average review. In fact, you might find that your listing has been relegated to the 200th page of search results in your area if the algorithm finds you unworthy. But when you have a direct booking site, you won’t have to fret about keeping your stats perfect. If people like your property, they’ll book with you, regardless of whether Airbnb or Vrbo recognize the worth of your listing.
#7: Streamline Your Brand Image With a Direct Booking Site
The final reason we recommend creating your own direct booking site is to streamline your brand image. On sites like Airbnb and Vrbo, your images and listing description are your only opportunity to position your brand, but on your direct booking site, you have total control over the style, tone, and aesthetics of your listing. You also have the ability to go into as much detail or as little detail as you want, with no limits or restrictions on the number of images or characters you can feature. If you’re interested in ways to set your short-term rental brand apart from the rest, a direct booking site allows you to fully unleash your creativity in whatever way your heart desires.
Don’t Miss Out on the Advantages of Direct Bookings
Direct bookings can be incredibly advantageous for your short-term rental business, not only as a means of increasing your revenue and lowering costs, but in the long-term relationships you can form with guests.
Looking for more ways to market your vacation rental? Check out our guide to SEO for vacation rentals or our tips for utilizing social media to market your vacation rental.