Insights: Blog updates

This is a common question we get from our Vacation Rental Property Managers. The answer isn’t yes or no. To answer, it takes more of an evaluation process of your location and your target markets. This Marketing Monday, we want to give you some advice on if you are sending too many emails. The industry average of unsubscribes is 1%. If you are sending out weekly emails, and all of a sudden you see a high number of unsubscribes it is time to take a look at what may be going on. Is it the content you are providing? Is it the right messaging? Your email campaigns & blasts should be set up to send to the right people, with the right messaging, at the right time. For example, you wouldn’t send an email about golf specials to a list of guests who visited your spa page on your website. Your messaging should be clear and concise and segmented appropriately, so that your unsubscribe rates stay low and your direct bookings stay high! If you are looking for help with your email marketing, don’t hesitate to reach out. We would be happy to schedule a meeting with you and evaluate your current strategy.

The travel and hospitality industry continues to evolve, consolidate, and change on a daily basis. The same can be said of travel demographics, especially during COVID-19. According to TravelPulse, Millennials were shown to be 13 percent more likely than Gen-Xers and 80 percent more likely than Baby Boomers to feel comfortable traveling by the spring of this year.  What makes this generation unique is that they’ve grown up during the age of the internet explosion, part a which plays a major role in how they digest information. Social media, constant connectivity and on-demand entertainment and communication are innovations millennials adapted to as they came of age. So why should your VRMC focus on Millennials? This question really has two answers: Millennials have different travel preferences than the generations that preceded them. Millennials are entering their prime earning years and are increasingly likely to travel. Millennial Travel Preferences Let’s break each of these answers down a bit further, starting with travel preferences. Millennials use mobile, but more importantly they trust mobile. Almost two thirds of millennial travelers feel comfortable booking an entire trip on a smartphone. In addition to mobile friendly users, millennials also prefer a more personalized experience, and it’s not just a preference — it’s an expectation. Part of creating a whole customer view is understanding the social aspects of these travelers. As I mentioned earlier, millennials grew up alongside social media platforms, and as such, many use the platforms to a great degree. Millennials Increasing Earnings/Likelihood to Travel “To fully capitalize on this generation’s $200 billion spending power, companies need to adapt the information to their new buying trends.” When millennials travel, they want an experience. With increasing wages, they also have more money to spend on travel. 55% of millennials want to increase their volume of trips in the coming years. Almost 75% of millennials surveyed said they’d prefer to stop buying physical products to increase their travel spending, again pointing to the trend of experiences over physical goods.  3 Things You Can Incorporate Into Your VRMC For Millennials There are a number of things you can do to connect with more millennials, but here are four concrete items you can try to incorporate into your VRMC this year in order to drive more engagement with this growing younger generation. Optimize Your Social Media Presence – It’s important to be where your travelers are, and that’s becoming especially true on social media. Your MySpace page from the Y2K ages probably isn’t helping your brand anymore, but that doesn’t mean you need to create a profile for your business on every channel possible either. To start, I’d stick with these three social media channels: Facebook – Millennial users are spending roughly 2 hours and 38 minutes per day on Facebook.  You’d be hard pressed to find a better outlet for sharing guest stories, images, and video in many different formats. Facebook profiles are very comprehensive allowing you to give travelers as much, or as little, information about your property as you’d like. Instagram – A picture is worth a thousand words, and by that logic Instagram lets you tell an amazing story about your property. Some new developments for IG users include Instagram stories and reels that you can use to engage your travelers at your property or get them interested in booking with you. Pinterest – Depending on the statistics you’re looking at, women account for 70-80% of decision making in travel. Knowing that, it’s important to be visible on a social media platform dominated by females. Look no further than Pinterest, which is roughly made up of 70% females. Pinterest is a great spot to give inspiration to your travelers, and with a little practice and a few boards, you can attract quite a following. Communicate and Market through their Preferred Channels – As I discussed previously, smartphones are millennials preferred mode of communication. That’s not to say that they’re using these smartphones to call properties — quite the opposite in fact. They’re using various applications to check email multiple times a day and connect via social media. However, to optimize your communication with this generation, here are two main channels you should be implementing into your VRMC operations: Webchat – The old way of reaching a property directly was picking up a phone and dialing. Millennials have found that they can get quicker responses by going online to accomplish the same task, and this typically is done through live chat. Live chat was initially used as a support mechanism in the hospitality industry, answering questions someone may have about their stay. Now you can actually have reservation agents help a prospect complete a booking through platforms like TRACK Chat. SMS Text Messaging – Because of their reliance on smartphones, millennials are very open to not only receiving email communication through these devices, but text messages as well. And SMS messaging can be used for a variety of reasons, from sending reservation details, stay information, and room codes to in-stay promotions and post-stay surveys. One disclaimer in using text messaging (and it’s a similar concern in social media): Don’t focus on selling. The biggest impact you can have with this channel is using it to improve the guest experience and build customer loyalty. Create a Cohesive Brand Experience – When companies make a big push towards innovation, one thing that occasionally falls by the wayside is consistency. It’s important to ensure that your brand experience is the same across your website, social media channels, and even a brand app (should you choose to really push the innovation envelope). If a millennial is not seeing similar messaging across all of these channels, or feels that the experience is detached in some way, they are less likely to book their stay with your property. Pushing the envelope is important, but do so with an eye on consistency. If you want to learn more about TNS Digital Marketing Solutions or ATLAS Commerce, schedule your meeting today!

  Traditionally, marketing and distribution leaders view the role of reservation agents as being to field inquiry calls, answer questions, and to attempt to close the sale on the first inquiry call. Surely, we should always have the “winner’s mindset” when we answer. Yet sometimes callers are just not ready to book regardless of what we say. This is especially true at resorts and at vacation home rental companies. Here are a few reasons: Longer stays. Larger parties and therefore… More people involved in deciding. Restrictive deposit and cancellations. They are overwhelmed by the number of options viewed online. Perhaps the biggest reason of all is that leisure callers are far more emotionally vested in the outcome of their buying decision than business travelers because few things are more important these days than one’s annual vacation plans.  Therefore, it is important to shift from a “sales fishing” to a “sales hunting mindset. Marketing leaders have become increasingly obsessed with the “sales fishing” paradigm, which is to wait for the digital “bait,” such as the website, SEO optimization, and OTA presence to lure-in the digital bookings. Those with a “sales hunting” mentality will view every call, every email inquiry, and every inbound chat or OTA IM as a potential sales lead to follow-up on. These days, inbound reservations leads are disguised. Rather than asking “Hi, I need info on booking…” today’s callers often start with “I just have a quick question about…”: Check-in times. Pandemic era questions. (What’s open? Cleaning protocols? Any pandemic specials?) Pet policy. Parking. Bedding. Smart agents will turn those inquiries into leads by asking a key transitional question:  “Now that I’ve answered your questions, may I ask what dates/homes/rooms you are looking at so I can assist you here in our on-site reservations office?” To succeed as a sales hunter, your team will of course need a system such as TrackPulse that makes it easy to: See pop-up text box with details when the call-back. Trace the lead on a “lead stream.” Read a summary of previous correspondence in order to personalize the messaging.    Here are some additional tips. Asking the right questions to narrow down the options, vs. listing what is available. When callers say: “Can you tell me what you have available for these dates?” respond with “Sure, I can assist. Let me ask you a few questions so I can help you find the best options.” As the conversation progresses, investigate further with questions such as: “Which is more important, location or view?” and “Are you looking for something more upscale or economical?” When, after you have just presented three or more options, callers continue to ask “What else do you have?” avoid falling into the trap of listing more and more options which in the end only confuses them further. Instead ask questions such as: “How do those sound so far?  “Is there something you’re looking for that I’ve not yet mentioned?”  “Can you tell me more about what you have in mind?” What To Say To Get The Caller To Provide A Phone And Email For Follow-up Of course, to be able to “hunt” after the call, you will need to get an email and phone number. Here are some tips. Do not ask “Would you like me to email those to you?” or  “Did want to give me your email?” Instead say: “Okay. Let me get your email address so I can send you these links along with my direct contact information.” Getting the email is the most important task, but try also to get their phone number and implied permission to call to follow-up. Do NOT say: “Would you like me to call you to follow-up?”  Instead say: “Super. I’ll shoot you over an email with my direct contact information.  I’ll also check back with you to see what questions you have and what else we can do. May I have the best phone number…” How To Follow-up: Be Persistent But Not Pushy Start all follow-up calls and emails by restating something specific you learned about “the story” behind their plans… “It was wonderful to hear about the plans for your (insert special reason for travel…)” End all emails and calls by expressing interest and offering personal assistance. “Again, my name is Doug with in-house reservations. Let us know what else we can do to assist you with planning this important trip.” You should generally follow-up at least two additional times: One to three calendar days after the initial inquiry, depending on their “story.” Three more days after that, unless they state a longer decision-making timeframe.  Make at least one phone call. When calling: Start by introducing yourself, your company to refresh their memory.  Do not say: “Hi, is this Mr. Johnson?” Instead say: “Hello Mr. Johnson, this is Cindy from Brand X Resort, I had spoken with you a few days back about your (insert reason for travel)…” One final reminder:  Never throw guilt!  Do not say: “Since I didn’t hear back from you…”  Instead say: “Just wanted to see what else I can do on our end to secure your booking.”

70% of travelers are researching and booking vacation rentals from their smartphones and tablets. It is imperative your website adapts to every screen size and shape.  Put yourself in your traveler’s shoes. When you visit a website, would you want to see cut off images or not be able to see where you can check availability? No. You would move on to the next website immediately. Your website needs to be professional and showcase all the great features your property has to offer.  You can use this Google tool to tell if your website is mobile friendly! Alongside vacation rental industry leading companies, Meredith Lodging, Premier Island Management Group, and CaymanVacation.com, we have designed over 300 hospitality Websites, support over 39,000+ units on our Booking Engine platform, and manage over 400 hospitality companies with their digital marketing solutions. If you would like help or discuss how to improve your current website, schedule a meeting today!

Company Lynx Name Resha Shroff & Dipen Gala Position CEO & Co - Founders

Health, safety and financial concerns are key considerations for today’s traveler and property manager. While you do your part to enforce cleaning protocols and make sure your rentals are as safe as possible, and as your guests continue to look for ways to get away from home without compromising safety, we at Generali Global Assistance would like to share how travel insurance can help during these times. Specifically, we want to make you aware of the ways you can rely on travel insurance in the eventuality of a guest getting sick with the virus, either before or during a trip. What Travel Insurance Can Do Trip Cost Coverage Sickness is one of the most common reasons for purchasing and utilizing travel insurance. This was the case prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and remains so today. Although COVID-19 is a known event and has been for some time, travel insurance continues to provide coverage for COVID-19 sickness. This choice is one that Generali and other major travel insurance providers decided to make when confronted with the COVID-19 crisis. If a guest, family member, or travel companion has to cancel or interrupt their reservation because they are sick with COVID-19, travel insurance provides reimbursement for the prepaid trip costs. Other guest expenses are also covered, such as out-of-pocket costs for overnight lodging, meals, and local transportation during a trip delay and additional transportation costs for guests to return home or rejoin the trip earlier or later than scheduled. Telemedicine and Referral Services Getting sick while away from home is stressful under normal circumstances. Today, the worry of contracting COVID-19 while traveling is universal. While travel insurance can’t keep guests from getting sick, it can help if they find themselves in a scary and difficult situation. During their trip, insured guests receive access to telemedicine services so they can consult a certified physician virtually. 24/7 Travel Assistance is also included, for help anytime. Coverage for Medical Expenses When some guests travel away from home, they aren’t only traveling away from family doctors and local clinics, they’re also traveling out of their primary insurance network. In addition to being scary and uncomfortable, getting sick and needing to seek treatment out of network can be expensive. Travel insurance can help if this happens. While telemedicine and medical referral services connect guests with the treatment they need, travel insurance Medical and Dental coverage reimburses the costs. Coverage is provided for amounts that the guest’s primary insurance doesn’t cover, including copays, deductibles, prescriptions, and other expenses. This coverage for resulting expenses is available for up to a year after the guest gets sick on their trip, even after they return home. What Travel Insurance Can’t Do In addition to effecting travel restrictions and business closures, COVID-19 has instilled fear and a heightened sense of caution in the travel community. Adhering to restrictions is a responsible choice and feeling afraid to travel or not wanting to travel are relatable feelings. Unfortunately, travel restrictions, shelter in place orders, fear of travel, and not wanting to travel because of COVID-19 are not covered reasons for cancellation under most travel insurance plans. Plans include defined lists of covered reasons that qualify travelers for refunds, such as unforeseen sickness. Although many travel insurance plans cannot cover pandemics and other known events, coverage for COVID-19 sickness remains available. Other reasons related to COVID-19, however, will most likely not be covered. How Claims Work If an insured guest has to cancel because of COVID-19 sickness or another covered reason, they can start their claim online at Generali’s eClaims portal. The portal walks the guest through a few prompts and asks them to provide supporting documents, such as a signed physician’s statement from the treating doctor. Once the claim is started, it is assigned to a representative, who will reach out to your guest directly. Generali travel insurance products are seamlessly integrated with TRACK Software. Helping your guests get coverage for their reservations can improve your overall guest experience and you earn revenue while offloading the risk of cancellation. To learn more about travel insurance, call 866-999-4018 or visit Generali online. About Generali Global Assistance When you partner with Generali, you’re working with an industry leader backed by one of the world’s largest insurers. Offering travel insurance plans with region-specific coverages and protection against accidental damage to your rentals, our vacation rental insurance programs easily integrate with top software platforms and have helped property management companies earn more revenue and improve guest satisfaction for 30 years. Our success is built on our reputation for assisting travelers in the most difficult of circumstances and delivering vacation rental protection solutions designed to meet your needs. Travel Protection Plans are administered by Customized Services Administrators, Inc., CA Lic. No. 821931, located in San Diego, CA and doing business as CSA Travel Protection and Insurance Services and Generali Global Assistance & Insurance Services. Plans are available to residents of the U.S. but may not be available in all jurisdictions. Benefits and services are described on a general basis; certain conditions and exclusions apply. Travel Retailers may not be licensed to sell insurance in all states, and are not authorized to answer technical questions about the benefits, exclusions, and conditions of this insurance and cannot evaluate the adequacy of your existing insurance. This Plan provides insurance coverage for your trip that applies only during the covered trip. You may have coverage from other sources that provides you with similar benefits but may be subject to different restrictions depending upon your other coverages. You may wish to compare the terms of this Plan with your existing life, health, home and automobile policies. The purchase of this Plan is not required in order to purchase any other travel product or service offered to you by your travel retailers. Travel retailers receive payment from CSA related to the offer of travel insurance. If you have any questions about your current coverage, call your insurer, insurance agent or broker. This notice provides general […]

When it comes to the highly-competitive world of Google Ads, finding ways to lower the Cost Per Click (CPC) for the keywords of your campaign is a key step in succeeding your goals. This Monday, we are going to go over an exclusive tip that we use as Digital Marketing Experts to keep costs low and clicks high. There are several benefits to using PPC to advertise your vacation rental website. Google Ads are relatively easy to turn on or off and can be adjusted within minutes. They also instantly start driving targeted traffic to your website. When you start your ad, your keywords are the most important. If you have a property in Destin, Florida, then going against others on very high search volume and expensive keywords like “destin fl vacation rental” is difficult and costly. Instead, you may want to find low competition keywords to target with your campaign. Our Exclusive Tip You must take the time to manage and update your ads. This lets you drive the right traffic at the right price. You need to go in and set up your conversion tracking immediately. This way you can track contact forms, questions about property leads, property management leads, email newsletter signups, completed checkouts and any other special leads forms too. Once you have this set up, it is time to analyze. Don’t be afraid of change–we have learned that staying stagnant doesn’t help decrease your CPC. Add in different keywords that are not performing well or switch out your negative keywords.  If you are looking for help with your Spend Management, we would be happy to set up a meeting and discuss how we can help!           

Ascent Payment Solutions focuses exclusively on providing the best, most secure payment processing services available to the property management, vacation rental, and lodging industries. Offering seamless, easy-to-integrate payment solutions has been our mission for the last 20-plus years, and it’s why our vacation rentals and lodging partners turn to us time and again. TRACK by Travelnet Solutions offers a complete enterprise software solution for today’s ever evolving short-term rental industry. This integrated solution provides professional management companies cutting-edge reservation technology coupled with the strongest payment processing solution and support available in the industry. Ascent and TRACK have already been partnering together for the advancement of our mutual clients, and now we are excited to introduce our new gateway integration within TRACK software. Our SLIM CD gateway solution provides our mutual customers with the seamless payment solutions needed to successfully grow your business. We provide the Application Programming Interface (API) directly through TRACK* (Currently in Beta release). Using an API, the payment gateway manages all the tasks necessary to complete the transaction, allowing you to accept a wide range of payment types. This integration within TRACK ensures travelers stay within your brand while receiving a high-quality checkout experience. For our clients, it means deposits made within the normal 48 to 72 hours, not waiting for up to 30 days. Along with superior gateway functionality, our customers receive assistance from our team of experts that will help through the entire integration process. We believe good partners offer the highest level of security. That’s why we provide these benefits: Tokenization: Sensitive cardholder data is not stored by your software during any point of the transaction process. Tokens can be used to post additional payments to a guest’s card. Secure Sessions: Our solutions ensure your software never touches the guest’s credit card information. Automatic Authorization Reversals: Our gateway processing handles automatic authorization reversals. Card Load Feature: This allows the software to capture the cardholder information without performing an authorization. We help our clients easily, quickly, and safely accept payments while also remaining PCI compliant. One of our PCI experts can help you get compliant and stay compliant to protect your business, your guests’ data, and your reputation. Our gateway is certified on all types of industry in the United States, including lodging, retail, restaurant, mail order/telephone order, and e-commerce, and on most major payment processing networks providing this functionality: Can securely process credit card and ACH/e-check transactions in multiple scenarios, including card/check present and not present. Provides access to payment reporting on any Apple, Android, or Windows-supported device. Our SLIM CD gateway solution allows us to provide our clients with the seamless payment processing solutions they need to succeed, and our team of experts has the tools, experience, and resources needed to assist clients through the entire integration process. All reporting for your account is available through the SLIM CD backend administration. We provide you with the robust report information you need to derive from your merchant account, including: End-of-day reports Batch Settlement reports Open-Auth and Clerk Reports Daily Volume summaries Reports by Card Type / Payment Type As an independently owned provider, we consistently deliver payment processing solutions that rise above the competition. Ascent has the expertise and experience to protect clients while making sure you receive your money in days, not weeks. Ascent holds itself to a higher standard. A standard that includes trust, transparency, and accessibility. At Ascent our clients and partners come first, and we always strive to provide the best customer service, support, and education. At Ascent we never let our clients become account numbers and we always look at them as people first. With extensive experience in not only payment processing, but also years of lodging management experience, our team provides you with the best possible solutions suited to your business model. Let us work with you and show you the Ascent difference. At Ascent it is more than just offering better rates. We provide expertise, innovation, and the highest level of security. We are your destination for payment solutions. For more information, complete the form on this page or contact info@ascentpaymentsolutions.com. **Slim CD is in Beta testing with TRACK Hospitality Company Currently. Please reach out to info@tnsinc.com to become a part of our Beta testing**

Consistency is key to providing a five-star experience to guests, and maintenance/housekeeping is at the heart of being able to deliver this promise.  TRACK is providing multiple ways to ensure that your maintenance and housekeeping program never misses an opportunity to wow your guests and owners. We offer automation to generate work orders based on reservation events occurring. Numerous conditions can be applied to fine-tune work orders for very specific properties based on events occurring. Additionally, Track offers the ability to create recurring maintenance work orders, repeating based on a schedule. Or to create bulk work orders on the fly. Work Order Triggers   Location   Work order configurations are located in the configuration section, path: Configuration >  Company Setup > Business Rules > Triggers Overview   Both maintenance and housekeeping work orders can be created with this automation tool. Work orders created by triggers get created immediately when the object and event occurs. The simplest way to understand this is when x event (such as checkout) occurs and immediately creates a work order. Interested in learning more what TRACK Property Management Software can do for you? Schedule your meeting here.

Today we are going to talk about a hot topic in the Marketing world; Retargeting vs Remarketing and the best practices to use to increase your direct bookings. The terms “remarketing” and “retargeting” are often used interchangeably, but they are not quite the same. Retargeting: The term “retargeting” is often used when you are showing your guests your ads on other sites in an ad network after they leave your site. Retargeting usually involves “cookies”. The most common is Facebook retargeting. Remarketing: The term “remarketing” is often used when you collect guest information from prospects in order to deliver email campaigns to them. Now that we know the difference, let’s discuss how retargeting works and the most effective way to implement a strategy.  When a traveler visits your property’s website, a cookie is automatically installed on their browser, so your property’s ads keep appearing when they leave your site. We use this and other retargeting techniques to help bring that same site visitor/traveler back to your property’s website to complete a booking or purchase.  Retargeting Best Practice Different products warrant different retargeting time windows. For example, people shopping for travel should be retargeted immediately; people shopping for luxury goods should be retargeted later. You want to make sure if a guest visits your website, they see your ad and keep your property top of mind, not a competitor down the road. TNS has shown a 288 unit VRMC client success by providing over 17,000+ impressions and 248 website visits over a 30 day period. The most effective retargeting ads promote a special offer or promotion specifically to your target market’s interest. We hope this helps you know the difference between the two. If you want to learn more, TNS would love to  help you drive more site traffic and get those travelers back to book directly with our Retargeting strategies. Schedule your meeting today!