Before recently, the only choice that catered to the luxury travel industry was high-end lodging which was also expensive.
The game has changed in modern times. This new breed of visitors is increasingly selecting vacation rentals over the Ritz-Carlton and mansions over the Mandarin Oriental, thanks to celebrities like Beyoncé, Britney Spears, and Lady Gaga who prefer to spend their vacations in luxurious rented residences.
But what specifically can property owners of vacation rentals do to make their place more appealing to the more affluent traveler? We’ve provided definitions of luxury travel and advice on promoting your vacation rental to this market.
What defines a “luxury” vacation rental?
How do you make your vacation rental appear opulent? is a good place to start. Modern high-end travelers can immediately spot fake Van Gogh paintings and knock-off furniture. Although it is helpful, appearance is not everything. Three fundamental characteristics distinguish a luxury vacation rental from the competition.
Exclusivity
You can’t market to the other 99% if you’re trying to book the top 1%. Your rental property must radiate exclusivity. Luxury vacationers desire a sense of exclusivity from their rental experience. They chose a vacation home rather than a traditional hotel because of this, after all.
Consider the garment sector as an illustration. What distinguishes a hand-picked summer selection from a mass-produced graphic t-shirt? While the other is generic, the former feels unique. Rentals for vacations are no different. Luxury visitors desire the impression that your establishment greatly considers the guest selection procedure. Your visitors should reflect that if you’re going after a specific market.
Personalization
Once you’ve chosen the visitors for your establishment, it’s time to inform them that you’ve thoughtfully planned their stay. Make the most of this point of contact to personalize your stay as much as you can since many high-end visitors work with a travel agency or trip designer to plan their stay. Some crucial inquiries to make could be:
- Are there going to be any special events?
- Any dietary requirements, allergies, or food requests?
- What do these visitors normally do for fun while they travel?
- Are they planning on having company while traveling?
- How do these visitors want to unwind? Fun, right? Explore?
Knowing your guest means tailoring the experience to go above and beyond the usual expectations of guest satisfaction.
Experience-oriented
It seems obvious that luxury travel is no longer simply about the actual property, as bespoke has become the keyword in the travel industry. Traveling in style goes well beyond having money. The value of experience and “you’d need to be there personally to grasp it” emerging trends have recently stressed moments.
How is it possible to be both experience-oriented and hands-off at the same time? The transformation from ordinary to spectacular will occur when you provide your visitors with the means to take pleasure in and make memories at your establishment.
Look around your house to identify any existing stories and potential plot points for new ones. Are there any talking points in your house? Any facilities that might become a family remembrance? What other services do you provide for your visitors? Make sure your hotel can give your visitors memorable experiences that will improve their stay and encourage them to book again for future trips.
Marketing to premium passengers has advantages
High-end visitors indeed demand exceptional service from you during their stay. Even with the use of automated systems, tailoring every single guest’s vacation can be taxing. What justifies the extra effort, then? We’re here to list a few advantages of luring wealthy tourists.
Higher margins of profit
The best and most obvious choice is certainly this one. The good news for you as a vacation rental owner is that a higher price tag always accompanies higher quality. Luxury-range revenues are what you can anticipate while providing luxury services. Without necessarily accepting more bookings, you might anticipate an increase in passive income if you can fully target premium travelers.
Remember that people who vacation in luxury don’t expect you to do anything but relax and get the rewards. High-end clientele wants service that fits their needs, which may entail round-the-clock availability and a fully staffed team. Remember that you can oversee your complete team using our task management application and be prepared to account for this additional cost.
Awareness of your property
The term “The Hamptons” is essentially well-known. Why? The world is aware of the elites’ vacations there. Even wealthy guests are in the public glare in addition to renowned guests, and every jet-setter is profiled in a magazine or online column. Image is everything, and inviting the right visitors will give you visibility for your vacation rental. Just picture your brand plastered across the front of a high-profile spread, saying, “so-and-so blissfully holidays at the stunning vacation rental, La Casa Bonita, along the charming Monterey Bay shoreline.”
If you’re just beginning your attempts to target wealthy customers, think about collaborating with influencers in the travel industry who can help your brand take off. To increase your profile and bookings, offer a few days at your house in exchange for Instagram posts, Facebook likes, or even a positive review at the end.
Increasing your market
Luxury travel is becoming accessible to people outside of the top classes. Older millennials and even members of the upper middle class are prepared to splash out on a luxury rental home. What kind of high-end visitors do you anticipate your property will draw? There are many categories of travelers that fall under the heading of “luxury guests.” Here are some other passenger types to take into account:
- Travel for health and fitness
- Family- or child-friendly vacations
- Glampers
- adventurers who go internationally
The list goes on, as does the capability of pursuing other markets. To keep your home occupied and the earnings coming in, make sure you’re considering the right kind of luxury traveler.
How to promote upscale vacation rentals
Vacation rentals rely so heavily on marketing that they are different from hotels. It’s not like your front door is marked with a neon sign that reads “vacancy.” If you want visitors to make a reservation, you must introduce yourself to them. A diverse strategy is needed in vacation rental marketing, particularly with clients that are more difficult to reach. Ten recommendations are provided here to help you launch your luxury vacation rental marketing campaign.
1. Concentrate more than ever on the visitor experience
The primary guideline of the hospitality industry is to give the customer a wonderful experience. You need to step it up a notch when it comes to luxury vacationers. When customers are expecting five-star-plus level service, mediocrity will not do.
For your vacation rental to reach this level, you will need to invest more effort than ever before to set the bar high for each new visitor. As customers would expect in the most expensive hotel, every detail must be attended to carefully, such as fixing a barely noticeable chip in a painted wall or cleaning cutlery.
2. Spend money on high-end photography and filming.
Spending money on professional, high-quality photography is always advised so you may showcase your home in the best light possible, regardless of who your target traveler market is. For opulent vacation rentals? It cannot be discussed at all.
You must also lay the groundwork if you want to draw vacation rental customers with larger expenditures. Investing in marketing materials like expert movies and images will undoubtedly aid in attracting your desired tourists – at first glance.
Luxury property owners may also consider cutting-edge technologies for their vacation rental, such as drone recordings. Drone films will give you sweeping, dynamic views of your rental and its environs and will help your property’s perceived worth to rise. Luxury visitors will have a better impression that you won’t have cut corners elsewhere inside the rental if they know you have the money to spend on drone videography.
3. Invest heavily in interior design
Spending a fortune on expensive photographs makes no sense if your house isn’t luxurious enough. Your rental needs to appear even better in person if you want it to seem amazing in images.
High thread count bedding, minimal to no clutter, opulent furnishings like big lamps and elaborate mirrors, muted color schemes with accent walls, and chic (but cozy) furniture are what we’re talking about. These last touches will stand out in photos and draw the attention of your visitors. The little things that go into house staging, like a neatly tucked bed, pretty flowers, and fluffily folded towels, just add to the “wow” effect.
4. Partner with upscale companies
In keeping with the subject of interior design, who you decorate it with is just as important as how you do it. In the world of luxury travel, brand names and designers are important. You must carefully choose what to splurge on and what you can do without. Two of the most obvious characteristics that provide room for name-brand products are comfort and beauty. It will be worthwhile to spend more on premium soaps and toiletries.
Additionally, this is a fantastic chance to collaborate with regional premium businesses. Your guests will be impressed by the charcuterie board you serve them, which is loaded with fresh deli cuts, local jams, and cheeses. You might even receive some unpaid PR from the small businesses you patronize as a result of the mutual benefits you and the regional brands enjoy.
5. Offer a superior welcome guide
Any hotel needs a welcome book for guests, but how can you go above and beyond for those extra-special luxury visitors? Consider purchasing an iPad or tablet to leave at your rental in place of a paper copy. This gives visitors a welcome handbook that feels more expensive and special and also makes it easy for them to find what they need.
You may add an added touch of luxury by using services like Touch Stay to produce a lovely, visual welcome book (that resembles a chic glossy magazine more than anything).
6. Make the proper hires
Once the stay is booked, the services provided are one of the primary distinctions between a luxury vacation rental and its conventional equivalent. Vacation rental businesses are typically self-serve. Visitors locate it, reserve it, and are mostly left to their own devices once they arrive.
However, premium guests will probably expect a higher standard of service—one that must go above and beyond—. You’ll need to consider providing 24-hour call-outs, daily housekeeping and laundry, round-the-clock maintenance, and concierge service, and that’s only the beginning. Personal chefs, mixologists, yoga instructors, and surf instructors are additional pleasures to consider. You’ll also need to decide whether these services are included or offered as an additional add-on.
The most important thing you do as the property manager or owner is to ensure that the service providers you hire are of the highest standard since you don’t want anything or anyone to detract from your luxurious five-star experience.
7. Make sure your amenities are appropriate and functional.
Customer demands are evolving more and more. When it comes to amenities, what was once considered standard might no longer be acceptable, particularly in the context of luxury travelers. The amenities your rental offers must be of the highest caliber, and more importantly, are they safe and secure? Still going strong!
Have your team inspect any crucial items, such as air conditioning, ceiling fans, dishwashers, washing machines, televisions, ovens, and so forth, each time a guest leaves. White things that are broken scream “not luxurious” more than anything. Even the smallest, most minute things matter enormously when it comes to luring high-end travelers to your vacation property.
8. Make a website that is optimized.
For your vacation rentals to draw in high-end visitors, you will need a properly designed website. Despite how difficult it may seem, building your tailored company website is much simpler.
You can launch it and begin taking reservations the same day by dragging and dropping all of your content into position using a vacation rental website builder like Lodgify. The integrated booking engine and calendar are the best part because they allow visitors to view your property’s availability quickly. Additionally, owners can control every reservation from one location in the backend.
Your website is a personal online space where you may describe in detail what it would be like to stay at your opulent home. Make good use of the available space by providing thorough descriptions of any other services you provide, a complete gallery, and precise price and rate information.
9. Place your home on upscale vacation rental websites.
While everyone immediately thinks of Airbnb when considering vacation rentals in general, most people won’t consider it when considering luxury houses. The correct kind of visitors can see your property if you link with a few specialized, exclusive websites.
Luxury vacationers frequently look for the best vacation homes on websites like onefinestay, Luxury Retreats (recently acquired by Airbnb), or Villas of Distinction. Check out our comprehensive list of vacation rental booking websites to find out whether there are any additional categories to cover and websites to get listed on. When you first start, having a presence on these various websites can help you develop a solid reputation within the luxury tourism sector, attract favorable reviews, and establish your vacation rental brand.
10. Reviews and endorsements are a great way to display your “social evidence.”
Luxury vacationers don’t book their trips on a whim. The visitors or their agency is verifying the validity of your stay even if they have a travel designer on staff. Because of this, your property must receive only positive feedback from the upscale visitors who book reservations there. If you do get any bad reviews, you’ll need to deal with them as soon as possible to avoid scaring away upscale visitors.
Adding gratifying evaluations and testimonials to your website could make all the difference for your potential high-end guests. Remember that you can accomplish this in any format you deem interesting, whether it’s a video recording or a direct quote from your visitors.
Takeaways
Luxury travelers are unlike ordinary guests. They seek a stronger sense of personalization, authenticity, and quality. Once you have the asset that satisfies their needs, you need to figure out how to convey that.
Bookings will only be made if your vacation rental is properly promoted to high-end travelers. Use the advice we’ve provided and let your property do the talking. A magnificent property and top-notch vacation rental software will enable you to reap abundant financial rewards. Experience luxury firsthand by trying out our goods for up to 7 days for free.
