Adjust your rates

Consider reducing your nightly pricing for the shoulder season – the quieter period sandwiched between high seasons. Lowering your rates slightly will help your listing stay competitive and affordable in order to get more bookings on Booking.com as well as other booking sites. Find our more about the peak seasons and how to master seasonal rates with our partner channel VRBO. Adjusting nightly pricing based on seasonality and occupancy is a great way of managing revenue for hosts. You can read more about our revenue management tips here.

Offer discounts

Offering promotions to guests is a proven way of boosting bookings and attracting more views to your listing due to increased visibility in search results. With Travelnest, it is easy to offer promotions such as Early Bird and Last Minute, on our partner channels Booking.com and Airbnb. Our hosts have seen a 37% increase in occupancy each week since offering discounts for mobile bookers, and those who use the Booking.com Genius programme have seen a 68% increase in bookings on average.

Be flexible

If you operate with a strict cancellation policy or require a lengthy minimum night stay, it may benefit you to make changes to your house rules. Throughout winter months, guests are more likely to be looking for shorter breaks of one or two nights. Further research from VRBO found that 75% of guests are also more likely to book a property with a flexible cancellation policy. By flexing your calendar and policies, you are opening up the opportunity to getting more bookings, as well as tapping in to a wider variety of bookers.

Optimise your listing

If you offer amenities such as a hot tub, a highly sought after feature in the colder months, make sure to photograph this and include it in your listing. Focus on the amenities and features which make your property unique and give guests a reason to book. Show off your property and the surrounding area to it’s best by adding autumnal photos to your listing, and maybe even some autumn decor. We found that 73% of guests pay the most attention to photos first, when viewing accommodation options  – so make sure yours are appealing! These simple listing updates can help your property stand out against the competition. 

Start using Travelnest channel manager software for free today and take advantage of the our property score feature, available to all of our hosts. Travelnest property score gives hosts tips and suggestions within their account which optimise listing features. The closer your score to 100, the more likely you are to get booked! For further advice on getting started with marketing a holiday let, we also have a beginners guide.