Top Ten Tips to Secure Maximum Post-Lockdown Bookings This Summer
What will it look like for the holiday cottage business when cometh the dawn of a new everyday world?
In particular, what trends will occur as people start thinking about booking self-catering holidays again? What will they do? Where will they go?
My Favourite Holiday Cottages has put together a few thoughts on how the recovery might look and what holiday cottage owners can do to prepare for it.
This first article looks at some easy-to-do things you can do now to keep the bookings coming in during the current lockdown period (and beyond).
The second article will dwell more upon the ‘new normal’ – what potential bookers will prioritise once the pandemic ceases to be a fear factor.
Action This Day!
During World War II, Winston Churchill was in the habit of sending memos to his chief of staff entitled Action This Day! Given the present war footing on which we stand in our battle against Covid 19, It seems like an excellent place to start to minimise opportunities lost.
As in all trends, the first rule is that if you don’t spring into action until it’s clear that people are booking holidays again, you’ll miss out on bookings. By the time you’ve rebuilt your advertising, ramped up your social media and updated your website, your property won’t feature in the initial surge. Actions you take to promote your holiday property after the lockdown ends won’t deliver the same level of returns as those you put in place NOW. It would be best if you were ready.
Fresh or silk flowers can transform the arrival experience
In some ways, recovery has already begun.
- People are using their enforced leisure time to dream and plan their next holiday. We’ve noticed an increase in people creating a private shortlist of properties to enquire about. If you’re not advertising on sites that allow bookers to prepare a shortlist, then this is one opportunity going begging.
- People are booking for 2021 on the assumption that by the summer of next year, it will be safe to return to the coast and countryside.
Our Top Ten Tips For Successful Bookings
To ensure your cottage appeals to the early bird market, holiday property owners are advised to:
1. Ensure their availability calendars are extended to at least December 2021.
2. Display rental prices through to early January 2022.
3. Add a short statement that your property is taking bookings for 2021 (or earlier if appropriate).
4. Review all your adverts - including those you may have cancelled - and update them accordingly with similarly worded statements. Don’t forget to review and bring up to date any adverts that you are re-activating.
5. If cash flow is crucial, consider offering an early bird discount for bookings made no less than twelve months before the date of arrival.
6. Ensure you continue to maintain – if not expand – the ways you market your holiday property – from adverts to social media.
7. Review your terms and conditions. Make them explicitly clear on the basis on which bookers will be entitled to a full or partial refund in the event of a force majeure, e.g., an official government lockdown ruling is in place during the dates booked; then, a full refund will be given. In 2020, many owners incurred losses from people cancelling bookings as far ahead as August and September.
It’s worth saying what refund entitlements there are if a guest cancels their booking, as opposed to the booking needing to be cancelled due to your property having to shut down to meet government requirements. Don’t forget to include any entitlements a guest may enjoy, such as the option to defer dates and the rule applied if their subsequent choice of date is for a different price band. Do they pay the balance – or will you refund the difference?
Make your terms fair – but transparent.
Click here to order your free copy.
8. Do a Photoshoot. If it’s been a while since you last whipped around with the camera, or your photos feature leafless and wintery trees, then May is a glorious time to take advantage of the emptiness of your cottage and fill it with flowers for a photoshoot. If you’d like a copy of our document full of tips for preparing a property for a photo shoot, click here to email me, and I’ll send you a free copy.
9. When it’s safe to do so, book a couple of nights in your holiday cottage and play at being critics. List all the things you love and the things that could be better – or need fixing. You’ll be surprised at what you find! Many of them will be subliminal – but you’ll find you get fewer little niggly complaints and an extra star in reviews.
10. Still got an unhygienic, tired, worn and much-thumbed House Directory? Throw it out! Replace it with an electronic version that you can email guests a week or so before they arrive. This way, they can spend a week planning their holiday and arrive knowing where essential appliances, switches and WiFi codes are BIG plus points - especially as it’s much less of a problem to update them. This final tip might not earn you a booking – although you might like to mention this on your website, it will go a long way to helping with repeat bookings, as your guests will love your care and attention well before they arrive.
Copper Kettle Cottage and Ladybird Barn in North Devon
“We took advantage of a gap in our normally busy calendar to enjoy a long weekend in our holiday cottage. We’ve always taken great pride in its appearance and have always enjoyed nothing but happy reviews. So we were surprised at finding little things we could easily do to improve the quality of our quests experience. These included sealing a draft in the family bathroom, purchasing a new knife sharpener and oiling a squeaky door. We have had more repeat bookings as a result!”
Amanda Budd, Ladybird Barn and Copper Kettle Cottage, Exmoor.
Click here to read our second article on the way people are behaving in the way they will choose and book holiday cottages in a new post-pandemic era. It will be what our politicians are already calling the ‘New Normal’.
If you would like to add suggestions as to ways holiday cottage owners could attract more bookings at this time, click here to email them to me. If they are appropriate, I’ll upload and credit them.
Curious About How My Favourite Holiday Cottages Works?
As well as giving out free expert advice and support to individual cottage owners, we are also pretty good at advertising holiday cottages - and currently have around 2,000 properties on the site. We don’t charge booking fees or commission rates to owners or guests - just a single annual payment backed up by outstanding customer service.
Rates start at £125 (2023) for a single cottage advert for 12 months, with generous discounts for multiple cottage listings.
Click here to view further information on the benefits of advertising with us - and what makes us uniquely successful.