With the economy continuing to be an issue for all large and small businesses, vacation rental owners are feeling the economic crunch as well. The rising gas prices are also a factor in whether or not tourists will book your rental cottage this summer or just stay at home and clean out the garage.

Adjust Your Perspective

So how do you ensure that your vacation rental stays booked? For the answer to that question, you have to begin by recognizing that your vacation rental property is more like running a small business. Though it may have started out as an investment and does fit that criterion, your vacation rental property is much like owning your own small business.

When you think of it as a small business, all sorts of ideas for promoting it will come to mind; ideas that you might have otherwise overlooked. For instance, most small businesses have some sort of an advertising budget so that they can draw customers to their door.

Do You Have an Advertising Budget?

It doesn’t have to be large but you should still set aside a certain amount of funds each year for advertising your vacation rental property. Remember that this money will be tax deductible, so that takes away a little of the sting.

Next, do your research. Find out where your advertising dollars can best be spent. A good place to start is forums and chat rooms for vacation rental owners. These are also excellent places to get tips on other aspects of owning a vacation property. Depending upon how much you are able to charge for yours, it may behoove you to hire an internet marketing specialist to help out. These can often be hired for pretty economical rates from free-lancing sites.

Offer Vacationers Amenities They Can’t get Anywhere Else

This is also a concept often used by small businesses. Offer your customers (renters) something they can’t get at the business down the street. This could consist of anything from discounts during certain seasons to free coupons for popular nearby attractions. Let’s say your vacation property is in the Orlando area. You could offer tickets to Disney World.

Everyone loves to get something for free, so offering discounts and valuable coupons is an excellent method of ensuring that your vacation property is always full. In the end it could even be much cheaper than most forms of advertising.

Don’t Forget the Biggest Secret of All!

This is a simple tip and one that you may have heard but it bears repeating and reinforcing. Be sure to offer your tourists a luxurious place to enjoy their vacation. Make sure the cabin, cottage or condo is fresh and clean. Don’t cut corners on the bed linens and towels. Your vacationers deserve the best!

You might leave a nice bottle of wine or a fruit basket on the counter for them. Even a lovely greeting card on the door that welcomes your weary travelers has been shown to greatly impress tourists. You can be sure that your renters will remember these little extras and thoughtful details when they are considering where to spend future vacations.

An Old Fashioned Business Practice

As with all small businesses, if you offer an excellent product at a great price and add extra value by throwing in some freebies, then your vacation rental will stay in high demand. Because everyone enjoys getting a superb deal on products and services and they especially love when you exceed their expectations.

This is really not so much a secret as it is just good ol’ common sense and old fashioned business know-how.

As an owner of a vacation rental, you are probably accustomed to asking your renters to leave the place exactly as they found it. Over the years, this has been the accepted norm for many owners of vacation rental property. However, some owners are finding that tourists are not at all interested in cleaning at the end of their stay.

Embrace New Ideas!

That has spawned a new and unique way of handling the aspect of cleaning your cottage or cabin. Many of today’s vacationers have the money to pay extra for someone else to it. These are the kind of people who probably don’t even do the cleaning in their own homes.

Well-to-do travelers like these would prefer to simply pay more for the privilege of leaving the cabin or condo in a mess. After all, how much does it really cost to have a housekeeper come in and do dishes, make beds and vacuum?

The Luxury of Not Having to Clean

Offering your renters the option NOT to clean gives you just one more item that many renters would consider an amenity. It could even become a reason why they might prefer staying in your vacation rental over the one right down the road.

This is probably one of those “ideas whose time has come” and in the future, we will see a great many more vacation rental owners offering this amenity to their renters.

Making the Idea Work

This concept can actually work very well for both you and your tourists. The trick to making it work is in establishing an excellent relationship with a local house cleaning company or even a couple of reliable individuals in your community who do house cleaning.

Simply call them when someone checks in and let your housekeeping service know that you will probably need their services within a week or so. When vacationers clean their own cottage or cabin, you must always go behind them and tidy up anyway. Let’s face it! Most vacationers aren’t really interested in doing a superb job of cleaning your cabin or cottage.

Impress your Renters with a Few Niceties

With a professional cleaning service, you will have the peace of mind knowing that everything is done correctly and that your vacation property is nice and clean for the next tenants. You might even pay them a little extra to come down just before new tourists arrive to freshen the cottage up a bit and place fresh cut flowers on a table to welcome your new guests.

Tourists appreciate these kinds of “thoughtful little extras” that you can’t get in a large chain hotel. They remember these kind gestures and even tell their friends once they get back home. As all business people know, word-of-mouth is your best advertisement.

Give the Idea a Test Drive!

If you have been thinking about trying this but are still unsure, than you might try it out for one season and see what kind of response you get. It may add a lot more value to your vacation rental property than you think.

With so many vacation rentals available all over North America and Canada, how do you make your cottage, villa or cabin stand out from all the others? There are a few things you can do that will make your vacation rental stand out from the crowd. Today we’ll give you a few great tips on keeping your condo, cabin, or cottage constantly full of happy campers.

Tip #1: A picture is worth a thousand words. Consider spending a little bit extra to hire a professional photographer to take the photos of your vacation rental. Remember that you can continue using these photos for years to come so this will most likely be a one-time investment. You can count on getting 30 to 40% better response from your ads with professional photographs.

Tip #2: One word: amenities. Vacationers are looking for amenities. They want to get the most for their vacation dollar. Does your cabin or cottage have a hot tub? Does it have a beautiful high-end kitchen? What about Internet access? Everyone wants Internet access these days. You might even think about installing a home theater system or a gazebo. Anything you can do to make your vacation rental more attractive to tourists is well worth the expense.

Tip #3: Big SALE! Everyone loves a bargain. Think about running a sale from time to time or some sort of promotion. This works for all the Big Box Stores and it will work for you too. If a holiday such as Memorial Day is coming up, then advertise that your rates will be 15% cheaper during the holiday season. Run a promotion where you give tourists a 10% discount for booking with their credit card. There are many ways to make the BIG SALE idea work for you.

Tip #4: Use your social media accounts to advertise. This is a no-brainer and a proven method of increasing traffic to your website. You can also list your promotions and sales here as well. If you aren’t good at writing interesting blurbs for your Facebook and Twitter accounts, then hire a professional writer to do this.

Tip #5: Exceed the expectations of tourists and travelers. There’s no better advertisement than word-of-mouth. Be sure to have your vacation rental clean and well-equipped with fresh linens. If possible have someone place fresh cut flowers and a gift basket in the cabin, villa or condo before guests arrive. These thoughtful gestures will impress your guests and cause them to tell all their friends about this fabulous place where they stayed on vacation.

Anytime your vacation rental sits empty, it costs your money. So think of these ideas as investments in a future where your cottage, cabin or condo is always in high demand. Your vacation property can be a great source of income and enjoyment for vacationers as well as your own family.