Blog - Cape Town Holiday Accommodation - Places to Stay in South Africa

I love facts and stats and on Friday The Guardian Newspaper (where I incidentally used to work) published a new South Africa country profile. No long prose, no fluffy narrative just a good old fashioned stat sandwich with a healthy topping of ‘wow, I didn’t know that’ facts to finish. You can read the full profile here but here’s just a few of my faves to be getting on with:

• Modern humans have lived here for more than 100,000 years
• Size: 470,693 square miles
• Population: 48,687,300 (24th largest in the world)
• Population mix: Africans (blacks) 79%; Europeans (whites) 9.6%; Other (11.5%)
• Average life expectancy: Male 50, Female 53
• Average number of children per mother: 2.7
• Foreign tourist visitors per year: 8,508,806 (yip, and they all need somewhere to stay)
• Media freedom index (ranked out of 173): 36

If there’s one area you should NEVER skimp on with your holiday rental accommodation it’s the photographs. Why? Because holidaymakers scan properties on sites, they NEVER read what you’ve written until you’ve given them a reason to read it. AND the reason they read it is because they like what they see. Think of it like dating, you walk into a bar and are confronted by hundreds of potential matches, but which ones do you engage with? You engage with the ones that catch your eye and push your buttons. The same goes with holiday accommodation. You only view the ones you like the look of. So get a professional to take some killer shots of your rental accommodation and then use them everywhere. I guarantee you’ll have more enquiries and more interest as a result and the cost of getting them in the first place will soon be swallowed up in the avalanche of increased bookings.

I’ve been feeling a bit down of late. The seemingly constant negative reporting from overseas (particularly the UK) about increasing crime in South Africa and the impending recession (the first in South Africa for nearly 17 years). And this week we’ve had the debacle of the SA Elections with all it’s finger pointing and inevitable uncertainty for this beautiful country. However, this morning, I stumbled across an article by Graham Boynton of the Daily Telegraph in London who restored my faith in this beautiful country and the reasons why I chose it as my home. Read the article in full here and then print and stick this last paragraph next to your holiday rental calendar.

‘Over the next 12 to 18 months, British travellers are going to swarm through the Cape in the wake of rugby, cricket and football tours and, given the beauty of the place and the relative price advantages, it’s hard to see South Africa anything but full up for 2009 and 2010. So the time to book is now’.

Are you fully booked? If not, then you’re probably missing out already. Add your Cape Town and Western Cape Holiday Accommodation to onelocation.com now, there really is no time to lose.

Here’s the rather disturbing advice and Travel guidelines from the British Government for UK travelers to South Africa. You can read it in full by clicking this link. And if you’re planning on traveling to South Africa don’t be too disturbed by this advice, the government are quite rightly telling us all the bad stuff we should be aware of. (I’ve read the one for Spain and France and it’s equally disturbing!).

• There is a high level of crime, but most occurs in townships and isolated areas away from the normal tourist destinations.
• The standard of driving is variable and there are many fatal accidents.
• More than 460,000 Britons visit South Africa every year (Source: Statistics South Africa). Most visits are trouble- free. The main types of incident for which British nationals required consular assistance in South Africa in 2007 were for: replacing lost or stolen passports (over 750 cases); deaths, mainly from natural causes (over 50 cases); and dealing with arrests or detentions, for a variety of offences (17 cases). You should keep photocopies of your passport with you in a separate place to your passport.
• There is an underlying threat from terrorism. Attacks, although unlikely, could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers.
• We recommend that you obtain comprehensive travel and medical insurance before travelling. You should check any exclusions, and that your policy covers you for the activities you want to undertake.
• South Africa authorities state that officially only one blank passport page is required for entry. However, recently several visitors have been refused entry and sent back to the UK as some officials are insisting on two blank pages. We advise that you have two blank pages in your passport on arrival.

Twitter is cool. Twitter is addictive. But most of all Twitter is a simple way to tell people (those who might be interested) about your Holiday Rental Accommodation. Twitter is a free micro-blogging tool which, unlike conventional blogs, has a character count of 140 characters per entry. Each entry is called a ‘Tweet’. It’s a bit like sms’ing to the masses. And when we say masses we’re talking a lot of people. It’s estimated that Twitter has around 6 million users per month posting in excess of 55 million tweets. The way it works is you follow people your are interested in and then people follow you if they are interested in what you Tweet about. There’s loads of beginners guides but here’s one I found recently which seemed to sum up what it was all about and how to get started Twitter for beginners

By the way celebs also use Twitter. My fave is @stephenfry and the top Twitter is Ashton Kutcher who has, at the time of writing, 1,381,762 followers!

Please also join Steve Villiers, CEO of onelocation and Holiday Rental Accommodation expert blogger for live updates, news, special offers and general advice @onelocation

Did you know that over 80% of travel research is done online prior to a booking being made and that over 393 million (almost 50%) of Europeans are internet users. Compare that with just 5% in Africa and you see how crucial being web savvy and visible online really is to attracting some of the 1.7 million overseas visitors who visit the Western Cape each year.

As a holiday home owner you should consider the internet as your no.1 marketing tool. Rand for Rand it’s the cheapest form of marketing you can do. If your holiday rental accommodation doesn’t already have a website then get one, it’ll be the best few grand (quid) you’ll ever spend on your Cape Town holiday accommodation! If you need help or advice on building or upgrading your website or making it more search engine friendly then contact us and we’ll point you in the right direction.

We’ve still got a few free subscriptions to give away. Advertise your holiday rental accommodation on onelocation.com now and get a full years subscription completely FREE. We’ll also throw in a featured property listing which puts you on ALL key pages on the site AND at the  moment ALL Late Deal listings are completely free too. Adding a Late Deal listing to the site gives you the following:

1. Site homepage Your Late deal will be listed in prime position on the site homepage
2. Search results Your Late Deal appears as a special banner above your listing in the search results making it stand out from the crowd.
3. Twitter We tweet your Late Deal instantly to all our followers
4. Holidaycrunch.com Late deal instantly added to holidaycrunch.com which has a permanent link to the Times Online Travel section in the UK (this is a big deal!)
5. Facebook. We’ll automatically add your Late Deal to our Facebook page.

You will also get al this when the site goes live to the public in a few days time:

1. RSS feed. Your late deals will be instantly pinged to holidaymakers who have opted to receive our RSS Late Deal feeds.
2. Newsletter mention. We will be adding some of the HOTTEST late deals to our regular newsletters. Depending on your Late Deal offer we’ll include you on this too.
3. Gumtree. To give you extra exposure we’ll add your late deal to Gumtree.

It only takes a couple of minutes to add your late deal and already we’re seeing some pretty good results. Give it a bash, register your property and take advantage now.

Often the last thing you want to do when you get a booking is update your availability calendar on the plethora of sites your accommodation is listed on. However a few minutes spent doing this could be the difference between a booking and not being seen. Here’s why it’s so important:

1. It increases your search result ranking. Most Holiday Accommodation sites list their most recently updated properties near the top of the search results. The reason for this is obvious. If you regularly look after and maintain your availability calendar and listing then the more chance is that the holidaymaker will get an accurate insight into what you’re offering. Sites like onelocation.com also tell holidaymakers when your calendar was last updated so they know that the information is accurate.
2. You will appear in date specific searches. Some date searches ONLY display accommodation where the calendar is marked as available. If you leave your calendar blank or only partially filled it means you could be missing out on all the date specific searches by holidaymakers. And believe it or not this is possibly the most popular filter used by holidaymakers because it saves them time looking at suitable holiday accommodation only to find they are fully booked.

Keeping your availability up-to-date shouldn’t be a chore and is a vital part of any successful holiday accommodation marketing strategy. If you find it difficult to keep track of all your sites then get a white board, or a spread sheet. List them all (with login details if necessary) and whether they have an online availability calendar or not. Whenever you take a booking go through the list and amend your listings. 10 minutes spent doing this will keep you ahead of the game and more importantly the competition.

Tags: increase bookings, Marketing tips, Online availability
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How do you fill those annoying gaps in your calendar or those last minute cancellations? Here’s 3 simple ways that literally take minutes and won’t cost you a penny.

1. Add a late deal listing to onelocation.com
   As an owner you get these for FREE. Just enter the dates, the price reduction and click submit and your late deal will be live on the homepage within minutes. You’ll also appear higher in the search results and on the Late Deals page. We also mention your late deal on Twitter and Facebook.
2. Place an ad on Gumtree
   This is a super-quick way to get your availability out there. It’s free and only takes a couple of minutes.
3. Send an email to old customers
   You should have details (email addresses) of old clients. Why not drop them a quick email informing them of late availability. Not only does it keep your accommodation in their minds but it also spreads the word to other people who may be looking.

Tags: increase bookings, Late deals
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You need to have broad shoulders to run any kind of business. No matter how fantastic you or the vast majority of people think your product or service is there will always be the ‘complainers’. The people who are looking for things to go wrong, not work or things to have a good old gripe about . The good news is that these people are great and we love them. Why? Because they will complain about anything. A comma in the wrong place, a pillow not puffed up satisfactorily or a shrub obscuring their otherwise perfect view of the ocean. The non-complainers let things go. Don’t point out where things aren’t working for them, they just accept and get on with it. That’s no good. What you really want to hear is what isn’t working so you can fix it, make it better and improve your holiday accommodation and service to the rest of your clients. So rather than seeing complaints as something to avoid, rejoice in them and use it as positive feedback about your holiday rental accommodation.