Holiday property marketing online

Be found and booked on the web

Almost everyone books their next holiday home or holiday flat online these days. It is therefore very important that your holiday property is found by potential holiday guests on the web and presented in such a way that they would prefer to book it directly. Nowadays, this is hardly possible without so-called holiday apartment portals. We will show you how they work, what they cost and what advantages and disadvantages they offer.

How do portals market your holiday property?

Holiday apartment portals offer owners of holiday homes and holiday flats on the Internet a platform to present their holiday property in the best possible way. The most important goal here is reach: the more holiday guests looking for holiday accommodation find and click on the respective holiday home portal, the greater the reach. The second important criterion is that holidaymakers actually book their next holiday accommodation on the holiday apartment portal.

Expert tip:
"Good to know: Almost all portals only take care of the marketing, not the landlord activities on site such as handing over the keys, final cleaning, repairs etc.. If you can't do this yourself, you will still need a letting agency or local management."

How to find the right booking portal:

Which portal does your target group use? Sometimes small search portals that specialise in a particular group of holidaymakers are even better suited than the big market leaders. For example, anglers, surfers, holidaymakers with dogs, mountain bikers, etc.
Which portal specialises in your region?
Which price model suits you best?
With new portals such as Airbnb or 9flats, you can also attract guests from abroad.
Which holiday apartment portal is the easiest and most convenient for you to use?
Who offers you a booking portal and a local rental service at the same time?

Expert tip:
"Just do the test yourself and "google" a typical search query, as you might ask your holiday guests. For example, "Holiday home Baltic Sea with dog." Only the holiday apartment portals that appear as high up as possible and on the first page of the search results promise the most booking enquiries for your holiday property."

Advantages of holiday apartment portals Holiday property marketing:

Optimum, modern presentation of your holiday property on PC, tablet and smartphone
Specialists permanently take care of the best position on Google and Co.
the more visible your holiday property is on the web, the more enquiries and guests you will receive
some practical extras such as a ready-made booking calendar, payment processing, etc.

Marketing costs via a holiday apartment portal

The portals with the greatest reach and the most extensive functions usually charge fees. Some portals charge an annual or monthly fee, others charge a certain amount per booking.

Expert tip:
"Billing on a commission basis offers you maximum transparency in terms of costs. Fees are only due when your holiday property is rented out. In contrast, a fixed monthly or annual fee incurs costs for the letting agency throughout."

When should you cancel your holiday apartment portal?

If you are dissatisfied with the service, prices, etc.
If the portal receives too few booking enquiries for your holiday property. As a rule of thumb, there should be at least 10 serious enquiries for your property per year. If there are fewer, the Google placement of the portal is not good enough and or your holiday property is not optimally presented there, e.g. because the operation of the portal is too complicated.