Every vacation rental will have low seasons where reservations dry up and certain months where occupancy rate drops. There are still lots of off-season bookings you can achieve by putting the right strategy into practice.
In this article, we will guide you so that you can make the most of your vacation rental off-season to get in.
Identify your off-peak period and guests
● When you start planning a year ahead, make sure to have in mind about those off-peak seasons where you get fewer bookings.
● Find out the type of guests that travel during those periods.
● Consider special events that are taking place at your destination such as fairs, festivals, shows, events etc.. and target potential customers guests that are looking for accommodation when attending these events.
You should be looking at what kinds of guests you will be attracting during the low season. Is it Budget travellers? Budget travellers? Retirees? Always know your ideal prospects is one of the biggest parts of successful selling. Accordingly, you can create strategies to better cater to these specific customers.
Update your listings
You will have a better chance of appealing to customers by replacing the old photos and highlighting the features that suit the season. This is an ideal way to earn authentic customers.
Capture high-quality images to captivate off-season guests. Consider hiring a professional photographer to take amazing photos that you can show on your website. Change the photos for marketing according to different seasons. It is also good to update the features that suit the particular season.
Offer discounts
If you have a loyalty program in your place, you can use your customer base to send promotions. Offer a discount; research found that hotels who offered a 5% or 10% discount instead of no discount, increased their conversion rate by over 10%. Each one of the discounts has the potential to increase your bookings. Offering discounts when none of your competitors doesn’t is a pretty good way to entice customers to your rentals.
What are the ways to reach out to existing customers and leads?
● Simply keep contact with the customers, particularly those who stayed during a previous low season.
● Consider giving out discounts or offers as repeated customers. Try offering them referrals for not interested customers.
● Use social media campaigns to target potential clients.
Promotional strategies
Before you go creating the promotional offers do remember to follow these methods which not only aids you to get bookings but also drive more traffic to your website.
Seasonal pricing
These are the rates you create based on special events or holidays and special prices for fairs or events in your area.
Last-minute deals
Travellers always look for the best deals. Make sure that you do not get them used to this type of discounted prices. Otherwise, they will have a sense that the price is too high when you offer your normal rack rates again.
Package deals
It is a good way of promoting your properties by offering package deals. You can negotiate with local partners that offer complementary value-added services to create demand while not falling back on discounts. To make it more appealing to guests just ask them to give you their net rates.
Pricing strategy for low season
By creating a pricing strategy for the low season you can earn customers. Make your low season pricings attractive and affordable by offering them the charges that they wish to. Look at your competitors and see how they are listing on low seasons.
Before you start your pricing strategy, you should first have a rack rate which remains the same during the high season but vary in off-peak seasons. This will probably help to reach higher occupancy rates. Based on rack rate you can plan prices and create promotions.
Make the most of the off-season
Now that you have all the steps to boost your off-season sales. There are many more ways that you can put into practice. Get in touch with us today to learn more and check back here often for tips and strategies.
