This final post on
Building the Ideal Listing Series endorses the need to keep your pricing and availability, as well as your contact information, current and up to date on your online vacation rental listing. Although you may not have considered either of these areas integral parts of your marketing efforts, they really are.
Your Pricing and Availability Calendar
Keeping your pricing and availability calendar current gives prospective vacationers a much higher degree of confidence that your information is accurate and trustworthy, and it can also affect your listing's rank in the search results. We often receive feedback from vacationers frustrated that many of the calendars on our listings are “stale” or out of date – and their reaction is, “Why should I bother to inquire about the property when it’s probably not available and the homeowner just hasn't entered the bookings?” On most online listings, a date stamp appears on the calendar informing vacationers when the information was last updated. So, if you have a WeNeedaVacation.com listing, and even if there haven’t been any recent changes to either your pricing or availability, be sure to click “Submit” at the bottom of your calendar page to update the date stamp on a regular basis or simply click the
icon from your Homeowner Center. (I always like to think that, when vacationers see my freshly updated calendar, they will think that I've just made a booking, and they’d better hurry up or they’ll miss out!)
Your Contact Information
Although the contact information on your listing is not directly related to your marketing efforts, there’s no point “selling” vacationers on your property, only to find that your phone number or email address have changed, and they can’t reach you! Naturally, this isn't something that you need to monitor regularly, like your calendar, but it’s a good idea to take a look at what you've got there near the beginning of each new rental season. We strongly recommend that you provide both a phone number and an email address with which to receive inquiries, too, in order to avail vacationers of the quickest and most reliable way to get in touch with you.
Log in now to check/update your contact info and refresh your calendar.
