Marketing Services
Lodging managers like to talk about occupancy, revenue per available room (rev par), the friendliness of their staff, and the quality of their services and amenities. Those are all fine things to talk about, but we believe the lodging industry has fundamentally changed and that 90% of the people still managing resorts, hotels and rental programs have let the times pass them by. The travel industry began to change with the advent of websites like Travelocity, effectively revolutionizing the access travelers had to information, and allowing them to effectively manage their own travel plans, and the prices of each travel component. One of our founders was just entering his first executive position with a resort company in the southeast when two things occurred: online travel began in earnest when global distribution systems like Sabre (American Airlines technology arm) made their travel information available to the general public on sites like Travelocity (1997), and a site called Vacation Rentals By Owner (VRBO) was founded.
"I remember being in an executive meeting trying to figure out how to deal with new-fangled online distribution networks like Travelocity to help stay relevant and continue to fill our very successful resort, and I mentioned VRBO. Nobody had heard of it, and the suggestion that it mattered was brushed off. We had about forty individual villas at this oceanfront property that were independently owned, but we controlled the management of their rentals 100%, and charged them 55% of the gross revenues for this service while only allowing them a max-occupancy of 6 owner-weeks per year. It was like robbery. The owners of the individual villas provided all the bricks and mortar, took all the financial risk, and we reaped most of the benefits of using their property. I had checked VRBO out, and thought it was cool, that it could ultimately pose a risk to the entire resort business model. I mean, we were charging $200 per night for 400 square feet rooms in 1995, and you could go on VRBO and book the condo next door on the same beach for $100 a night with 1,200 square feet, two bedrooms and a kitchen with nicer furnishings and accommodations to boot. It wasn't genius to extrapolate out into the future and realize that the fledgling VRBO was onto something."
VRBO was started in 1995 by a couple looking for a way to market their one listing of a condo in Breckenridge, Colorado, and by the time of the sale of the company (reportedly for $100 million) in 2007 they had over 65,000 listings. Today they have over 160,000 listings and over 42 million site visits a year and they're owned by another on-line player in the "by-owner" world, HomeAway. Why such a staggering level of growth in such a short period of time? Here's a list of advantages VR advertises, which we think summarize why so many consumers are changing their habits when making lodging reservations:
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Vacation Rental |
Hotel Room |
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Big Savings on Nightly Rates: Average Nightly Rate: |
Average Nightly Rate: |
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Room to Stretch Out: Average vacation rental is 1,850 square feet |
Average hotel room is 325 square feet |
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Privacy Whether you're seeking rest and relaxation or a little romance, stay in a space of your very own with no interuptions |
Thin walls mean hearing voices in the hall and from the room next door. |
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Pets: Pets are welcome at many properties |
Limited hotel chain choice with dog weight restriction |
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Dine on your own time: Most of our vacation rentals come with a fully equipped kitchen and private dining space which means you can save money dining in and plan meals around your family's schedule.
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Who wants to eat breakfast according to the strict buffet dining hours? Why resort to eating out of vending machines or overpriced mini-bars when you're hungry for a midnight snack? |
These are just a few of the obvious differences that have shaken the foundations of the once solid lodging industry. Other differences include the lack of hidden fees (think internet fees, in-room dining charges, telephone fees, movie fees, etc...), and more tailor made lodging choices (homes, condos, town homes etc...). People are moving away from traditional lodging in mass. And for us, that's a really good thing.
So, that's part of the history, why does it matter to your property? Because our experience and revenue statistics tell us that we can compete with the largest provider of rental program management services in the market by strategically taking advantage of this shift in consumer behavior using sites like VRBO and others, and by utilizing our own strategies within these marketing pipelines to attract customers. Our revenue history is comparable per unit to a company that spends over a million dollars on advertising and marketing a year, yet we charge 10% less of the gross revenues for our services. We'll be happy to explain our strategy in further detail when we talk to you in person. What does it mean to you? More money toward your bottom line, or, if you prefer, less occupancy with a higher yield.
Here are a few of the ways we market your property:
- All properties in our program are required to be on VRBO. It's the 500 pound gorilla of lodging internet marketing and it's still growing by leaps. For many sought-after properties and locations, this site will provide most of their lead sources and may be more than enough. We handle all of the set up and administration of your VRBO listing. We have mastered the art of gaining prominence for our listings on this site, and because of our buying power, we pass the discounts offered to us onto you.
- Some properties need more, whether they are immersed in a large field of competition, off the beaten path, or have other challenges. For these properties we have several other sites we work with including HomeAway and vacationrentals.com. We'll work to find the right combination of on-line presence among the 100's of available sites to list your property on. We'll add these one at a time as a property's individual performance signifies whether additional web-presence is needed.
- Professional photography - We strongly feel this is one of the most overlooked elements of the on-line presence for lodging properties. Since most of the competition takes an amateur approach here, it's easy for our listings to stand out and immediately communicate a sense of quality and professionalism. We have our own professional photographer photograph every unit in our program.
- No deposit - Wait a second, no deposit? Are we crazy? We utilize an insurance program that allows your guests to simply pay $19 for $3,000 in damage coverage on your unit. Other operators have disclaimers that say they'll charge a credit card, which are easy to dispute, or they take a small deposit, usually less than $500. Large deposits discourage guests, while low security deposits make property owners nervous. We offer the best of both worlds, and we mention it right on our listings.
- Yield Management - We're experts at managing the yield, or optimum rate at the optimum time of year for each of our properties. This means that our properties are perceived as a value to our guests, while we're actually maximizing the rates charged, occupancy and revenue for our owners. Price is one of the most critical elements to any marketing plan. We know when to charge more, and when to charge less, and we do it in an intelligent, systematic and highly-successful strategy.
- Durango Premier Vacation Rentals is listed on the local Travel and Tourism site www.Durango.org
- Durango Premier Vacation Rentals is listed on the local Chamber of Commerce site www.DurangoBusiness.org
- DurangoPremierVacationRentals.com is our on-line listing resource that consolidates all our listings. We hired the area's preeminent expert in website development and search engine optimization to ensure that we're at the front of the line with most Internet search results like Google.
- WE ANSWER THE PHONE PERSONALLY and return email inquiries immediately. The statistics on this are staggering. VRBO tracks statistics and inquiries that are responded to within 3 hours have a 57% higher chance of converting to a reservation. We waste no time at all. One of our owners answers the call personally and if on the phone, we call back immediately. Email inquiries are handled within ten minutes of receipt, and we follow-up instantaneously with a phone call. Wouldn't it be great if you talked directly to the General Manager, or better yet the owner of the company when you called to book your resort reservation? That's what it's like when customers and owners call us - we get it, and we know our success is primarily founded on how that first interaction goes with all our customers.
- A-rated units only. Many of our guests are repeat guests, and we continually strive to make this a larger part of our market. Many who come to Durango now just call us directly instead of perusing the listings. They know we only handle exceptionally nice product, and therefore they have confidence that their vacation and the hard-earned money they are spending on it is in good reliable hands.
- Professional Writing - One of our principles is a professional writer who has written for the likes of Inside Outside, Durango Magazine, and Ski Magazine. The narrative presentation of our lodging offerings is unsurpassed in the industry.
- Rack card advertisements at area Information Centers
We are constantly innovating, trying to find ways to drive quality customers to your property. After all, we're in this business together.