Many vacation rental business owners rely on major travel websites, like TripAdvisor, in addition to having their websites to diversify their bookings and reach full occupancy.
To establish the order of search results, TripAdvisor has its system for evaluating and ranking each property. Fortunately for owners, however, getting the hang of things and guaranteeing reliable site performance is simple.
In this post, you may find a step-by-step tutorial for marketing your vacation rental on TripAdvisor. To ensure fantastic success for your rental business, carefully follow these suggestions!
1. Create a TripAdvisor account
With more than 96 million users and 500 million reviews and comments, TripAdvisor has grown to become the world’s largest travel community. That’s a tonne of chances to attract visitors to your holiday home!
Therefore, before doing anything else, you must create a TripAdvisor account. Here is where you may create a free account.
2. Complete the details of your listing.
Travelers will be drawn to your home if your profile is complete and your listing is appealing. Once you’ve logged in to the Management Center, select the “Profile” option to enter your properties’ information.
This entails including your listing description in addition to general property details like name, location, and amenities. Make sure to include information that will draw attention to the TripAdvisor website. This might contain information on the past of your house, fun neighborhood activities, or even details on a recent refurbishment.
3. Add great pictures.
According to TripAdvisor, properties with at least one photo in their gallery receive 138% greater engagement than those without. Therefore, it is clear why having high-quality images is essential while using the TripAdvisor website. You can currently upload unlimited photos, so take advantage of this to show off your property from all necessary perspectives. Try to draw attention to your house’s best qualities and tell a story with your photos about what visitors can anticipate while staying at your rental.
In addition, you get to pick the main image for your property listing. The first photo that appears on your listing photo carousel and in search results across TripAdvisor will both be of this image. This image can be updated as frequently as you’d like. The only requirement is that the image is at least 1200 x 628 pixels in size.
4. Request testimonials from your visitors.
The TripAdvisor platform is built on the back of reviews. It is no surprise that their tools make gathering reviews for your property very simple.
You can ask previous visitors for reviews by sending them a personalized message in several languages using the ReviewExpress tool. To encourage visitors to leave reviews on both your website and TripAdvisor, you can incorporate a widget into the design of your vacation rental website.
More reviews equal more credibility for your property and brand, so you must remind each guest to leave a personal note about their experience – even if their stay wasn’t 100% perfect! Other travelers will use these past experiences to help make their own decision.
5. Reply to reviews (including the negative ones!)
We’ve already established how important reviews are for your business, but what’s equally as critical? The response you articulate to every single review you receive.
Acknowledging positive feedback and thanking your guest for taking the time to leave their review is one thing, but replying to a negative review uses a completely different skill set.
Responding to any less-than-complimentary remarks give you – as a business owner – a platform to explain the situation and its solution to the original reviewer (and any other potential guests!).
Remember to take your time when replying to negative reviews, remain calm and positive, and do not blame the guest.
6. Embed TripAdvisor traveler reviews on your website
The TripAdvisor widget not only allows you to encourage guests to leave reviews for your property but also allows you to display them on your site easily.
Additionally, you can show off any TripAdvisor awards you’ve received by displaying them on your website. Badges like this act as social proof, which is known to help boost your business’s reputation and trustworthiness.
7. Keep tabs on your performance
Within your TripAdvisor marketing tools, you’ll find the Analytics Suite, in which you can track some KPIs for your listing. These include metrics such as reputation insights and market position data. Through the Analytics Suite, those who purchase a Business Advantage membership have access to even more data, including clicks, photographs, amenities, data on trends, and competitor information.
Along with Instant Booking, this is the only paid TripAdvisor marketing option accessible to lodging providers. When millions see your listing of potential visitors, these techniques can help set you apart from your rivals.
The proper execution of TripAdvisor marketing tasks can make it a truly effective distribution channel that can increase bookings for your hotel.
However, you must have a channel manager in place if you advertise on external websites and your vacation rental website. You can centralize reservations, avoid double bookings, and sync calendars using software that has a channel manager. Why are you holding out?
