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

Holiday Home Owners don’t use the internet. Yesterday’s blog piece ‘You’re not selling a washing machine’ eluded to that fact and then writing ‘The Ultimate Holiday Home Owners Marketing Guide’ just confirmed my suspicions. The World’s No.1 marketing tool, which I dare say brings in more bookings and enquiries than all the other marketing combined, is a Pandorra’s box of wizardry that only bespectacled nerds know how to use. Proof of this fact has been landing in my inbox all month. A recent owner, we’ll call them MrX, wrote and saved their establishment description in MS Word and was very disgruntled that our website wasn’t able to see this document, suck out the contents, re-format and insert it into their listing and post it live on the site using cosmic interwebby magic. “Surely your site can do that, I thought it was supposed to be clever” … hmmm!

So my advice to all holiday home owners who want to get ahead in the holiday rental game is LEARN TO USE THE INTERNET. Spend 15-30 minutes each day surfing, joining, uploading and viewing. Do this for a couple of weeks and then see if you get it. If you do, then great … you’re on the way to increasing your bookings … if not, then increase the time to 30-45 mins. Keep increasing the time until you have palpatations if you haven’t switched on your machine for a day or so. This is called Online Oxygen Starvation and is roughly the state we’d like you to achieve. This is also the point at which enlightenment occurs and the wonderful world of the web opens it’s doors and lets you in. Happy surfing!

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.

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.

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.

Yesterday we gave important safety tips and numbers for holidaymakers to Cape Town. A couple of friends have said they’ll forget all that before they arrive and is there a place they can get this information when they arrive at Cape Town International Airport. And the answer is yes. There is a Cape Town Tourism kiosk in the arrivals hall where you can get a handy credit-card sized safety information leaflet. As you walk out into the airport from the luggage carousels look straight ahead, it’s just to the right of the cafe. Failing that visit any Cape Town Tourism office and pick one up. The kiosk also has a great little ‘Cape Town official visitors guide’ which contains stacks of info on safety, things to do and see as well as places to eat and stay. If you’re staying in self-catering accommodation in Cape Town then ask your host for safety information. They should all carry details in their accommodation welcome packs. (Owners: If you don’t have this info then add it .. quickly!).

Tickets from the first phase ballot will be drawn from the FIFA hat today. All successful applicants will recieve notification within 3 working days by email. If you’re not one of the lucky people this time you can always apply in the second phase of ticketing starting on May 4th, 2009. However, unlike the first phase, the second phase will be on a first come first served basis so you’d better have quick fingers and your credit card at the ready on the stroke of midnight to stand a chance of getting the tickets you’re after. There’s also a 3rd, 4th and 5th phase of ticket sales with the latter being conducted at the point of sale. This will only happen with any remaining seat still unsold after the first 4 phases so more than likely it’ll be the expensive tickets for the ‘not so great’ games!. You can read more on the Fifa.com website. AND remember to add your property to onelocation if you haven’t already. There’s a few more free places left and in about 3 days thousands of lucky ticket winners will start scouring South Africa for World Cup Accommodation.