Let me guess, you want to attract all holidaymakers to your property. The more flexible your accommodation is then the greater the chance you have of filling those beds. This is true and I’m not going to argue that flexibility is great when it comes to being available for all types of enquiries from all types of holidaymakers. The problem is that your marketing will be unfocussed and will not yield the results you hoped for. So whilst other, more niche accommodation continues to post the ‘no vacancies’ sign on it’s window you can’t understand why you aren’t getting the same sort of response .. especially when you have flexibility on your side!

Here’s some possible reasons why you are not getting the bookings you thought you would:

1. Your accommodation is ‘too’ flexible
   It’s neither a luxury upmarket villa or an idyllic honeymoon retreat instead it’s a 3 bed holiday home just like all the other 3 bed holiday homes out there.
2. Your marketing is random and unfocused
   You use the scatter gun method rather than isolating groups and targeting them with very specific messages. Essentially you think of an idea [possibly after a couple of glasses of wine] throw it out there and see what happens. The problem with this is that every other 3-bed holiday home is doing the same and at the same time trying to compete with niche offerings. For example, a young couple decide they want to stay in a romantic beach house. Sure your property is great and would fit the bill but they’ll more than likely be focussing their search on specific criteria and anything that exclusively advertises itself as an ‘ideal destination for a romantic break’. You might be lucky but with thousands of properties all vying for the same business, chances are you won’t even get seen.
3. You don’t know how or where to attract new holidaymakers.
   You start with the best intentions, you find every magazine, website and you put your accommodation out there, you get your first enquiry and everything is rosy. Then as time passes you realise your spending lots of money on untargeted advertising and actually seeing less return for your money.

Okay so you know some of the reasons why, what can you do about it?

The first thing you need to do is target your audience. You need to be specific about the kind of people your accommodation will attract. Be realistic about this, don’t try and attract film stars and ‘A-list’ celebs if you have a 1-bed apartment with no pool. You need to create a demographic of the kind of people who would be perfect for your accommodation. Look at your property and see who’s stayed before, this will give you an indication of the sort of people you could attract. Do you get a lot of families with small children or elderly couples looking for a relaxing and quiet holiday. Your previous guest list and their comments / reviews will point you in the right direction. Your demographic might contain age, income, whether they have children and what age, employment status and even location. You might be close to a major airport which means you could possibly attract the corporate travellers for short-term stays. Don’t worry if your demographic changes, the great beauty in this notion is that you can adapt your marketing strategy to include other aspects into your demographic. For instance you might have just had a pool fence fitted which changes your demographic to include children under five.

So now I know my target audience .. how do I increase my bookings?

This is where the fun starts. You can now be more specific about what you’re offering eg 3-bed child friendly villa close to theme park. You then need to find specialist media in which to place this very focused message. Searching the internet is an excellent starting point. Look for all the specialist websites, products and services relating to your message and see if they have cheap or free advertising opportunities. Lots of sites these days have a resources or links section. The main reason being that it increases their search engine visibility by having reciprocal [they link to you and you link to them] links to sites that offer related products. So by having a targeted link on their website you already create interest in your property with people who are in your demographic ie they have children. The trick is that by being niche and appealing to a smaller audience it actually increases your potential for enquiries and bookings because you have less competition. And the great beauty about knowing your demographic is that it allows you to try, measure and then change your messages depending on the responses you receive.