More than half of all millennials prefer to book through an OTA rather than through other channels, according to a new survey by Travel Daily News International, which shows that the online travel agency (OTA) industry is flourishing in today’s market. Due to this popularity, there are numerous platforms for property owners to post their space for rent if they want to increase their income or turn a second house into a money-maker.
Booking.com, one of the industry leaders in vacation and short-term rentals, stands out in this crowded OTA area. Booking.com has expanded its business in recent years to provide its clients an expanding range of services. Booking.com gives platform users who own properties the chance to grow their businesses and keep a continuous stream of clients.
However, the complex operational procedures that have enabled Booking.com to develop into an industry leader might be difficult to traverse for individuals who are new to the platform. Fortunately, this tutorial contains all the information required to begin using the platform. You’ll find a thorough explanation of every aspect of the Booking.com experience in the ensuing chapters, from listing your property on their website to managing your listings and increasing your revenues. We’ll also go over some best practices for policies you should have in place to protect your investment and how to handle your property reviews.
Continue reading to get the most out of this thorough walkthrough of using Booking.com. Following the pointers and suggestions in the subsequent chapters will accelerate your Booking.com launch and ensure that you are taking full advantage of their fantastic service to maximize your success with short-term rentals.
Describe Booking.com.
Let’s start with the fundamentals and define Booking.com before we explore all of the platform’s features. Because it helps to highlight the high level of innovation that defines Booking.com, it is worthwhile to start by providing some background on the company and its ambition to transform short-term rentals and, in fact, the whole travel industry.
To simplify travelers’ searches for accommodations by collecting lodging options across several search criteria, some daring Dutch entrepreneurs founded Booking.com in 1996. The company is united with the objective of bringing everyone delight in exploring the world. Booking.com, which began as a small start-up, has evolved into a market leader for international travel, partly because of some astute mergers over the years.
Booking.com, for instance, was bought by Priceline Group in 2005 and adopted the moniker Booking Holdings as its legal business name. Priceline.com, which owns Kayak.com, saw significant growth in its OTA market presence due to this acquisition. The Booking.com website expanded its menu to include various services beyond hotels and short-term rentals, such as transportation and experiences, to make their customers feel like they are a part of the local culture. By 2011, the Priceline organization had made over $1 billion in earnings due to adding Booking.com to its portfolio, and Booking.com’s market share has only grown since then. It now offers close to 30 million real estate listings and has developed relationships with airlines and travel agencies worldwide.
Beyond this impressive reach and its aptitude for corporate collaboration, what truly sets Booking.com apart from the crowded hospitality industry is that it has a sizable customer base from all over the world and continues to attract new customers due to its emphasis on customer satisfaction. Booking.com appears to have a firm grasp on the needs and wants of the modern traveler, and they have developed a reputation for ensuring those needs are met. This is evident in everything from its user-friendly website interface and extensive extranet for registered users to its streamlined apps for all smartphone operating systems. At the same time, Booking.com’s creative marketing strategy means giving hotels and vacation rentals worldwide visibility that they might not otherwise receive on other internet search results pages. These components work together to make Booking.com a reliable listing platform for rental properties.
How to Use Booking.com
In the following chapters, we’ll break down many aspects of the Booking.com experience for hosts. Still, in general, Booking.com serves as a mediator between you, the host or property owner, and potential tenants or guests. Visitors who use Booking.com can enter search criteria, such as dates, locations, and types, to retrieve results that meet their criteria after visiting the pages you build for each rental property.
Sounds very simple. It certainly is in many ways. Those who choose to list their property on the site can benefit from Booking.com’s efforts to improve the efficiency of online reservations.
What Makes Booking a Good Place to List Your Property?
Booking.com stated that they were booking 1.5 million room nights per day on average in 2018, which has undoubtedly increased since then. When combined with the significant number of tourists that use Booking.com every day, this volume of bookings should be sufficient justification for anyone on the fence to list their property there.
Beyond the attention that a listing on Booking.com may bring, however, property owners who use the service may also benefit from its flexibility: as a host or property owner, you are in charge of setting your rates and rules. You are not required to pay any fees to list on their website; you are free to include promotions or specials as you see fit. Additionally, owners and hosts can easily update unit availability using Booking.com’s simple scheduling system.
Nevertheless, parts of Booking.com’s platform continue to serve the hotel industry. It may take some time to list numerous rooms in a single property, for example, if your property is booked through their network, the pricing structure is similar to that of conventional hotels. For instance, Booking.com charges a 15% fee for each rental contract, which is comparatively high compared to other OTAs and property rental websites, as we’ll explore later. In any case, more and more houses and flats are showing up in Booking.com searches, probably because their owners are aware of the sizable customer base that Booking.com can provide.
