Owner Direct Vacation Rentals vs. Fee Managed Vacation Rentals
Passion is the difference between owner managed vs. fee managed vacation rentals. An owner managed rental is driven by passion whereas the fee managed online travel agency is driven by process. In this article we will identify the value of Owner Direct Vacation Rentals. From reservation to renewal, the goals are fundamentally different for owner direct homes than for the Online Travel Agencies.
First of all, owner direct rentals are self-descriptive so what is a fee managed vacation rental? HomeAway, VRBO, Booking.com, Airbnb and others are fee managed businesses whose mission is to grow market share by charging per transaction fees to guests and owners alike. These online travel agencies objective is to keep guests and owners from communicating directly.
The owner direct vacation rental property owner has only one primary mission which is to provide the best customer experience for the vacationer. Great communication between guests and owners ensures a premium vacation home experience. Let’s explore a side-by-side comparison of the two business models.
Owner Direct Vacation Rentals are HOME Focused
Homes are not Hotel Rooms!
Simply put, the fee managed companies, who have succeeded in marketing commodity hotel and motel rooms are trying to marginalize vacation rental homes by treating them the same as a hotel room. The discriminating family vacationer clearly understands the difference in value and vacation experience provided by renting an entire home for their family vacation. The two property types are remarkably different, but the fee managed companies desire to simplify their business model for the market analysts and investors who they rely on to promote their business valuations. In that effort, Online Travel Agencies seek to force vacationers to make a booking decision for the whole house in the same way that they would book a motel room.
Virginia Beach Owner Direct Vacation Rentals
AtOurBeachHouse.com located in Virginia Beach, Virginia is an owner managed vacation rental home company who knows the guests come first.
Virginia Beach Owner Direct Vacation Rentals
AtOurBeachHouse.com has been serving vacation customers for 15 years and the fact that half are repeat guest vacationers is a testament to a commitment to customer service.
Owner Direct Vacation Rentals are Guest vs. Investor Oriented
Vacation Guest Focused!
The primary customer for owner managed vacation rentals is the guest family. Owners feel an innate responsibility to please the visiting guest and provide a top notch clean home. Pride of ownership cannot be duplicated. Vacation rental property owners see guests as uniquely individual so the customer relationship is personal. Vacation rental home owners want to maximize vacation value for their guests!
On the other hand, fee managed vacation rentals are merely numbers on a spreadsheet where the guests are only one component of a mathematical formula to gain market share. HomeAway, VRBO, Booking.com, Airbnb and other online travel agencies have a primary customer which is travel industry analysts. These analysts determine the metrics for their valuation. Business valuation growth is the singular objective of these large virtual marketers. By this, the online travel agencies have commoditized and depersonalized the vacation guest experience and vacation rental home business into a numbers game. Vacationers are competing with the greed of Wall Street. Vacationers are now no more than data on a spreadsheet to the fee managed online travel agencies. Which is preferred, being treated as a number or being recognized and treated as a valued guest by an owner?
Vacationers are Misled by Online Travel Agency Ad Spending
Guests Don’t Want Hidden Fees!
HomeAway, VRBO and TripAdvisor are owned by Expedia, which is owned by Microsoft. Prior to the acquisition of HomeAway by Expedia, HomeAway acquired two dozen different online travel sites in a bid to consolidate the online travel reservation industry and game the system by becoming a gorilla sized provider in a move toward market dominance. Google has long been the primary search engine for the travel industry. Between the major travel sites Expedia, Booking.com and Airbnb, they spend upwards of $100 million dollars annually for Google adwords to appear at the top of the search results.
Vacationers are mainly presented the top adword buyers as the top search results, which in most cases, don’t have the best listings for vacation rental homes as they are rooted in the hotel room and flight reservation booking business. The migration of these fee managed online travel agency services into the vacation rental homes business has hurt the vacationer in the wallet and in the ability to find the right home by having to sift through the hotel reservation interface and confusion tactics.
Vacationers and homeowners alike have been turned off by these providers’ bullying tactics and imposing fee structures placed on vacationers and owners with registration and other fees. For one night at a hotel, or a single room in someone’s occupied house, that fee may not be ridiculous, but if you intend to rent the whole house for a vacation week the added travel cost is big. At around 6%, the HomeAway credit card processing fee can be more than double the market standard. Add that to the $500 “talk to the owner” fee and a vacationer may be paying an additional $1000 for their reservation. If that particular owner, in fact, doesn’t have the vacation home you desire, good luck getting your fee back! Those online agency fees go to pay for their operations infrastructure, call centers, and marketing, not on maintaining beautiful homes for guests to enjoy with the family.
Virginia Beach Owner Direct Vacation Rentals
AtOurBeachHouse.com is a small family owned business and welcomes guests with no hidden fees.
Virginia Beach Owner Direct Vacation Rentals
AtOurBeachHouse.com offers a variety of payment methods including progress payments with personal checks, business checks, wire transfer and credit cards.
Owner Direct Vacation Rentals Offer Broader Payment Options
Customer Choice Counts!
Vacation rental home owners are striving to maintain direct communication with their customers to ensure delivering the best vacation experience possible at their homes. Vacationers should be able to choose from a variety of payment methods, with no middleman fees, as best suits them. A direct to owner vacation rental relationship also limits spam communications and tactics utilized by automated online travel agency booking engines. Vacation rental owners are human like their vacationing guests and therefore more respectful and considerate.
Conversely, the newest push by the online travel agencies for their vacation home listings is to demand the payment and billing of vacationers to go exclusively through them via credit card, cutting out payment by checks or payment directly to the vacation rental home owner. In an effort to shut out the dialog and interaction of vacationers by and between the rental home owners, companies such as HomeAway and VRBO are making a bid to devalue vacation rental properties by gating access to vacationers with an eye toward becoming the future property owner. This mission of “vertical integration” will give them control of the entire vacation rental home “chain” and impose cost increase demands on future vacationers by limiting free market competition. The financial relationship between the three big online travel agencies and Google, who has also been buying out travel solution providers, will ultimately drive rising travel stay costs for family vacationers.
Owner Direct Vacation Rentals are in Local Search Listings!
Local Listings Deliver Perfect Home!
The online travel agency fees are getting crazy. This has led to vacationers becoming more savvy about how they search for and find the “best fit” vacation rental homes. Effective search techniques will help identify the perfect vacation home. To book the best homes, vacationers are now looking carefully through the Local Listings on Google and Bing. Use the vacation destination name to narrow your search. If you desire something specific such as oceanfront or pool, add that to your search query. If a vacation rental home is named such as “Atlantic Paradise” or “Atlantic Breeze” and posted on other online vacation sites, look it up by name on the web in the local search section to speak with the owner directly – without fees. A general address or area name such as Croatan, Virginia Beach or Virginia Beach boardwalk may lead you to a home result faster. Using Google Maps and Bing Maps, travelers may see where the homes are located, proximity to the beach or the closest airport. Remember to check the local listings in the search results to find, speak and book reservations directly with owners – and gain huge savings on your travel expense! Like the saying goes “you get what you pay for” likewise, “you get what you search for”. For vacationers to find their dream vacation rental home, investing the time to discover the options best suited for the family may be achieved by looking past the first three search results and searching a bit deeper. The better homes may very well be on page two or three of the main or local listings. Zoom in on the local listings map as it will reveal more rental home options. After all a vacation is not only a big investment, it’s family memories to cherish! The extra few minutes of search discovery time delivers the best vacation results!
Virginia Beach Owner Direct Vacation Rentals
AtOurBeachHouse.com can be found in Google Local and Bing Local, in the local listings and on the local maps. Guests may also find us by name on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
Virginia Beach Owner Direct Vacation Rentals
AtOurBeachHouse.com works directly with guests to discuss and determine a perfect fit of our homes for vacationing families…for free of course!
Owner Direct Vacation Rentals are Customer Fit vs. Fee
Guest Reservations Made Easy!
With an owner direct vacation rental, owners welcome the opportunity to speak directly with vacationers and understand how their home may serve as the “home of choice” – with no fee for the speaking engagement! A family vacation is a significant outlay of dollars. While the overall expense of a vacation rental home vs. a hotel room results in value and savings, not to mention privacy and space, it is important to feel confident in your vacation rental decision. Speaking directly with the vacation home owner gives vacation guests more confidence!
On the contrary, right out of the gate, a fee managed service like HomeAway and VRBO force the prospective guest to pay a fee upwards of $500 just to speak to a vacation rental homeowner about the property of interest. Now, what guest in their right mind wants to pay to investigate whether a particular property will meet their family vacation needs? In fact, for renting an entire home travelers may want to speak with several different property owners to determine which home offers the proper location, room configuration and amenities to meet their particular vacation requirements. Furthermore, the owner has to accept each reservation and pay a separate fee to HomeAway in order to obtain guest contact information to even explore the booking opportunity.
Owner Direct Vacation Rentals Provide Better Dialog than Call Center
Guest to Owner Dialog Matters!
When a vacationer speaks directly to the homeowner, there is a dramatic increase in comfort and confidence about the prospect of travelling hundreds of miles and getting an “as represented” rental home. Who better than the owner to discuss with the guest how a particular home can address their personalized needs? Even after paying the hefty fee to online booking sites, the guest often can’t get even the most basic questions answered by the call center. That’s understandable as they are in the business of bulk promotion not individualized guest service. An owner has both content and context to offer guests in answering specific questions in a timely fashion about the home and the vacation destination.
You make the choice, speak with a telemarketer in a remote call center who has never been to the chosen destination nor the actual home – or speak with a homeowner who has a rich context of localized knowledge. Take note that the fee managed marketer is reading a script on a computer screen with no emotional attachment to the rental opportunity other than fees. In navigating an online booking system, protocols pigeon hole you into entering data like travel dates before even looking at properties of interest. The one-for-all templates and scripts of most online reservation systems is frustrating. A direct conversation is fluid and often leads to many different inquiries about a property and its location. The homeowner, not unlike the guest, wants to determine if the fit is appropriate to accommodate needs and create a great vacation experience. After all, it’s their vacation rental home and Your Home Away From Home!
Virginia Beach Owner Direct Vacation Rentals
AtOurBeachHouse.com consults guests on how to maximize their vacation experience and best utilize the clean and pristine home making our home your “home away from home”.
Virginia Beach Owner Direct Vacation Rentals
AtOurBeachHouse.com has decades of localized living experience. We know the local events and attractions. Why not be pointed in the right direction for vacation day planning with a local expert!
Owner Direct Vacation Rentals Share Local Knowledge
Plan Your Vacation with a Local Expert!
Taking the next step, making family memories is a lasting reward from a vacation. Children imprint memories from their special summer vacation days for a lifetime! The perfect travel itinerary is of real value particularly if you have not been to the vacation destination before. An owner direct vacation rental has a distinct benefit over the fee managed service. Local knowledge that homeowners offer may very well be the difference in having a vacation or having the best vacation ever! There is an intangible benefit in speaking with a local homeowner vs. an online agency when planning a vacation. A local owner has familiarity in the variety of activities, local attractions, food stores, restaurants and entertainment to fill your vacation week with fun and excitement.
Moreover, families have broad interests for broad age groups and backgrounds. A local vacation rental property owner can readily help fine tune guest vacation plans into a fantastic day-to-day travel agenda. Of course, knowing the local proprietors and venues makes it easier to make contact or reservations in advance if necessary. Owner direct vacation rentals such as AtOurBeachHouse.com offer online resources for localized vacation planning in addition to personal assistance.
Owner Direct Vacation Rentals Put Guests First
Owner Flexibility for Guests!
Sure, picking up keys from a drop box sounds sexy, but a drop box is neither informative or personal. After a long day of driving or flying, perhaps both, it’s nice to put a face to the vacation rental. Understanding nuances of a home can sure make the vacation more meaningful. A homeowner has something the fee managed provider has none of – pride of ownership. Homeowners who manage their vacation rentals personally take greater care in ensuring that the home is clean and pristine upon arrival. Little things like spices or toilet paper and soap can make your arrival easier. Local grocery delivery service may take the edge off of running errands upon your arrival.
Flexibility is key for departure as some family members may depart at different times. Perhaps hitting the road early to avoid traffic is important. When an owner meets you at a chosen time of departure guests need not worry about making the extra drive to return keys to a drop box. Owners strive hard to make the departure as pleasant as arrival bringing the vacation full circle. Salt water taffy for the road trip home – that’s personal attention the fee managed service cannot provide. Pride of ownership cannot be duplicated and every vacationer deserves the best personalized service!
Virginia Beach Owner Direct Vacation Rentals
AtOurBeachHouse.com meets guests at all times of day and night to accommodate varying travel schedules whether you are travelling from near or far, by plane or car!
Virginia Beach Owner Direct Vacation Rentals
AtOurBeachHouse.com is an owner direct managed luxury vacation rental home business. Owner direct means just that – no delays and no middlemen. The guest family comes first, period!
Owner Direct Vacation Rentals Put Customers FIrst!
Vacation Guests are the Priority!
Customer service is the hallmark of a great customer experience. There is an intangible feeling which comes to life through interaction between guest and owner…it’s a beautiful thing. Who wants to contact a remote call center, perhaps not even in the same country, and speak to a telemarketer or an after-hours phone service who in turn will need a directory service to find an unqualified resource for a not so quick response or resolution? We all know things can happen when renting a home just like they can happen at home. Homeowners have local, experienced maintenance people in their pocket. Resources who are familiar with the community and home alike. If a situation arises it is sure is nice to have a remedy at speed with minimal effort.
Vacationing is a fluid experience. When a family member has an idea or question about something specific to explore, for a local homeowner it’s easy to quickly point guests in the right direction and offer real time assistance. After all, many owner managed vacation rentals have guest families that return year after year to spend a week getting reacquainted with the extended family. Owner direct means just that. Believe it, owners get excited about helping guests create and achieve wonderful family memories! With AtOurBeachHouse.com, Virginia Beach vacation rental guests are provided the personal touch – in person! From personally greeting guests upon arrival and departure, to service assistance on demand, the perfect vacation experience is the priority.
Vacation Rental Home Owners Share Their Guests Passion!
Bottom line, Owner Direct Vacation Rentals offer a superior experience because owners care about the family vacation experience as much as their guests. You cannot replace passion with process. An owner direct vacation rental home is bound to be cleaner and better prepared for guests to enjoy! Owners take great pride in delivering the family vacation experience of a lifetime! These 10 simple travel tips will set you on the path to the vacation rental home that dreams are made of!
Good information! Booking with owners direct is the way to go. I have dug deeper to find owners because the online big guys are not as friendly or knowledgeable as owners. I have already booked my family vacation home for summer 2019!