Improve Vacation Rental Reviews By Using These 10 Surefire Methods

What’s in it for me?

Having a vacation rental means you play a pivotal role in the world of hospitality and you must attract more guests and, in turn, more reviews to get your rental business going. While collecting reviews may seem like a challenging task, it should not be that difficult once you have the basics and certain refined strategies in place. To do this, let this post on vacation rental reviews be your guiding light!

Vacations are an ideal way to unwind oneself as it gives us a break from the monotonous two and fro of life. However, the most crucial decision among the series of decisions one must take to make their vacation a memorable one indeed lies with the place of stay. The recent phenomenon of people opening their homes and private spaces to strangers has surely tipped the scale in the favor of vacation rentals. 

Hospitality providers, on the other hand, must try to improve vacation rental reviews if they are willing to attract more guests. It is essential to know that the tactful tackling of vacation rental reviews and improving the rate of occupancy are directly correlated. Therefore, you must aim to get more reviews for your vacation rental property. 

‍

What Is A Vacation Rental?

Vacation rentals or short-term properties are a fairly new concept. It is regarded as an alternative to staying in hotels which usually have a plethora of issues such as lack of privacy, limited personal space, lack of cleanliness, crowded hotels, and so on. On the contrary, it helps you rent the dream property exclusively for you, your family, or your friends. These types of accommodations usually range from high-end or luxury properties to spare rooms in the apartments of other people. Vacation rentals also comprise flats, condos, homes, apartments, villas, and even tents.  

‍

How Is It Different From Hotels?

While planning a vacation, we are usually faced with a variety of choices that ranges from selecting the destination, the local tourist attractions, and the unique experience on offer, along with the choice of abode. Depending upon the number of members, guests can either book several hotel rooms or simply opt for a vacation rental. 

‍

Home rental reviews play a critical role in this decision and hence owners of rental properties must try to improve vacation rental reviews and, in turn, try to attract more guests. However, hotels have a variety of advantages and they usually have a consistent stream of services compared to vacation rentals such as room service, a concierge, and daily housekeeping, along with the front desk being merely a phone call away from assisting you. However, vacation rentals have their own benefits and when compared with hotels provide us with the following outcome:

• Complete Privacy: Vacations are usually meant for relaxation and stress-free time away from the regular high-intense hustling. However, the structure of hotels and its underlying issues such as limited staff or lack of proper management or maintenance are some of the most common problems faced by guests. 

Hence, privacy often goes for a toss which isn’t the case when it comes to vacation rentals. However, to capture the market, vacation rental owners must act proactively and work on marketing themselves. This can be done by taking care of the property rental reviews and improve vacation rental reviews to make their presence known. 

‍

• Value For Money: Cost is certainly the most important factor that helps in determining the place of stay. Vacation rentals provide value for money when it comes to choosing between a hotel and rentals. 

While attempting to accommodate an entire family in multiple hotel rooms, one can treat themself to a large multi-bedroom home with a fully furnished living room, spacious bathroom, full-size kitchen, and laundry facilities. Added extras can range from private patios, balconies, and gardens; to playgrounds, beach access, and pools.

‍

• Room For All: Hotels might be comfortable and beautiful, but space is something that is rarely offered by them. This is one benefit that most often tilts the scale in favor of vacation rentals. It usually offers larger living spaces and more than one bathroom and separate bedrooms to relax in.

‍

• Local Experience: Compared to hotels, staying at a vacation rental more often than not exudes a feeling of the local culture and can be a great way to explore the local culture and understand the various aspects of different cultures such as food, language, and so on. 

‍

Enhancing Online Reputation Management To Improve Vacation Rental Reviews 

Significance Of Rental Reviews

The cumulative opinion about your business forms your reputation and hence it is important to get more reviews for your vacation rentals and have proper strategies in place to tackle this particular issue. 

Acquiring online vacation rental reviews alone forms a considerable part of the online reputation management system and is often quite a task for some properties. After all, people need an opinion from their fellow travelers before investing in you by booking their stay. 

While getting just the positives is ideal, even a mix of both the positive, negative and mixed reviews is something that reasonably aligns with the very concept and idea of online reputation management. However, the idea must be to improve vacation rental reviews as it helps businesses to at least step into the arena of ORM and get started, thereby motivating them to work on their reputation with time. 

Also, vacation review sites play a crucial role in the decision-making process of the consumers and contribute to the vacation rental’s reputation in the virtual domain. There has been a significant rise in the dependence on rental reviews by consumers with its prominence in the decision-making process as

81% of travelers frequently or always read reviews before booking. 

It has also been observed that while researching their traveling destination and the property for staying in, the majority of the travelers prefer going through vacation rental reviews. 

96% consider reviews important in the research phase.

‍

Are Reviews Useful?

Vacation rental reviews play a significant role in measuring the satisfaction level of the guests along with working as a tool for marketing to create demand and promote your property. Travelers go for vacation rentals review on online platforms and are dependent on making a decision. 

Consequently, owners must seek to improve vacation rental reviews and help guests make informed decisions. Based on these reviews, the guests usually form an opinion about your property and decide whether to book it or not. Hence online vacation centre reviews more often than not play a crucial role in deciding the fate or outcome of your property, as in whether it is occupied or remains vacant. 

‍

Significance Of Collecting Reviews

People associated with the hospitality industry have gradually realized the growing relevance of collecting the best vacation reviews and their significance. The current oligopoly market scenario has resulted in many options for consumers or travelers to choose from.

To search for the perfect place to stay that can meet their needs, people usually utilize the best vacation rental reviews and make decisions accordingly. Therefore, it becomes paramount to improve vacation rental reviews and address this issue by collecting reviews and also responding to both negative and positive reviews. As per the BrightLocal survey, 7 out of 10 consumers will leave a review for a business if they’re asked to. 

Thus, it can be deduced from the above-stated data that travelers are more inclined toward sharing their experience whether it is good or bad. Positive reviews help you gain more popularity along with improvements in advanced search rankings. On the other hand, negative reviews might seem like an issue for the moment but if dealt with correctly, can be regarded as the perfect opportunity to improve the opinion on your property.

‍

Correlation Of Occupancy By The Number Of Reviews 

Irrespective of the volume of amazing and positive reviews you receive, there’s always going to be one guest that won’t share a similar vacation rental experience or won’t agree with the rest of the guests. Negative reviews can leave a sour taste in your mouth and might feel like a personal attack against you or your institution. 

However, it’s important to remember that’s not the case and it’s certainly not the end of the world. The goal should be to improve vacation rental reviews and increase visibility. This provides you with the opportunity to show your mettle as a host and improve upon the areas highlighted by the aggrieved guest. 

‍

Similar to their hotelier counterparts, vacation rental owners might skip the process of responding to negative reviews or fail to assess the significance of such reviews. This way they miss the opportunity to improve their impression and deal with the underlying issues. In addition, by not responding to the negative reviews, they are indirectly hampering the occupancy rate and bookings. It is important to remember that every review counts. 

Hence owners should always look to improve vacation rental reviews and generate revenue. 

‍

Tactics To Get More Reviews For Your Vacation Rentals

Guests usually prefer properties with a higher volume of vacation comments or reviews. The presence of reviews in high quantity usually depicts the fact that it is frequented by travelers or guests and can be regarded as trustworthy. Therefore, your vacation rental’s marketing strategy should look to get more and better vacation rental reviews. 

‍

Such reviews can not only help you boost your revenue but also increase bookings. It is important to understand that great guest reviews have the power to make or break your property. You can certainly boost or improve vacation rental reviews by implementing the following steps:

1. Making A Great First Impression: It is important to have a great first impression and start on a positive note with your guests because the first thing that they see is usually the last thing that they are going to remember. A welcome gift or personalized note can make your guests feel welcomed and special along with feeling well-cared for. These small but important touches provide guests with a great sense of priority and are surely going to help you boost your vacation rental reviews.

Pro tip: Make sure to keep the personalized note at the place where the guests are likely to notice it. 

‍

2. Keep The Property Up-To-Date: Keeping the property up-to-date is necessary to improve your impression in front of the guests and rake in better reviews. For example, old amenities can be instantly off-putting for guests as the lifespan of the amenities is usually shorter than the ones used at homes. Additionally, guests are unlikely to treat the amenities with similar care as you would. Hence, make sure to keep the property and amenities up-to-date. 

Pro tip: replace the old furniture, lines, bedsheets, pillow covers, etc. with the new ones.

‍

3. Quality Guest Service: Positive reviews might help you attract guests to your vacation rental property but the quality of guest service is often what determines the ultimate impression of your guests. Therefore, to improve vacation rental reviews, personal touches coupled with quality guest service can be regarded as a winning combination to secure more reviews. 

Pro tip: Even if you are not personally present throughout your guests’ stay, make sure you have systems in place that help render a stellar guest experience and take care of your guests at every touchpoint, right from their simple to more complex needs. 

‍

4. Ensuring Fast And Easy Communication: Communication is often regarded as key to providing a great experience to the guests. As a host, you can take proactive steps to ensure hassle-free and easy communication that can be easily achieved through utilizing technological advancements in the field of communication with the hospitality industry in mind. Contactless communication such as keyless entry can be a great help in this regard and will undoubtedly help you achieve your goal of securing a positive summer rental review. 

Pro tip: Having a real-time guest messaging service to communicate with the vacation rental guests at every vital touchpoint of the guest journey will surely work wonders and improve operational efficiency. This will also allow sharing the review link with the guests post-stay or mid-stay to know their needs better.

‍

5. Take Care Of The Basic Things: Guests often minutely observe things such as cleanliness and maintenance of your property as it is the most common problem that can be observed across the hospitality industry. This, in turn, has a direct impact on customer feedback.  

‍

It is important to ensure that your guests have a clean and quiet ambiance during their stay. Also, it is important to ensure that basic cleaning and bathroom supplies are provided to the guests in case of longer stays or with multiple members.  

Pro tip: Ensure that the spare garbage bags, a healthy supply of paper towels, toilet paper, anti-bacterial wipes, etc. are adequately provided to the guests.

‍

6. Be Ready To Improvise: Travel plans are always subject to change based on weather issues, health issues, moods, etc. Even if you’ve completed the routine maintenance and cleaning procedure, it is more likely that something unexpected is surely going to occur. Any electric appliances that stop working or issues with the electricity might happen. Irrespective of the scenario, you must be prepared to deal with any unwanted circumstances. 

Hence, it’s critical to designate an on-call contact who can arrive at your vacation rental as soon as possible for emergencies. It’s recommended to have a list of local service providers (like plumbers or electricians) to deal with any such situations. To improve vacation rental reviews, such prompt service on your behalf is necessary as it is surely going to have a positive impact on your guests and you’re most likely to end up with a positive review. 

Pro-tip: A Netflix subscription, wide-range game assortment, a well-stocked bookshelf, board games, etc. as upgraded amenities can help the guests make the most of their stay at your rental even when they choose not to step out. 

‍

7. Compile An Instruction Manual With Experiential Value: Guests choose vacation rentals to also experience what the area or surroundings have to offer. If your destination specializes in providing experiential value, help guests make the most of it by compiling a manual of instructions. Your guests will thank you for that and this will result in more positive reviews online.

Pro tip: Manuals could also be curated to help guests understand how to make use of certain amenities, seek the right directions, know what’s happening in the area, know about the famous local spots, eateries, local attractions, and so on.

8. Ask Your Guests For Reviews:  To improve vacation rental reviews, all you need to do is simply ask your guests for reviews. Setting up yourself for stellar and positive reviews is very important but making sure great guest experiences go on record is a step that you simply can’t afford to miss. Even the happiest might not end up leaving a review! Hence it is critical to encourage your guests to do their part. 

It is important to remember that you must be proactive and take the initiative to reach out to your guests after a day or two of their departure and request them to leave feedback.

Pro-tip: Using email and technology like guest messaging you can ask guests to leave you a review online or during their stay to improve the pain points and fix service errors.

‍

9. Make The Process Of Reviewing Easier For The Guests: Modern-day travelers are usually tech-savvy and prefer having things at the tip of their fingers. To increase the chances of you receiving a review, you must simply make it easier for them to do so. You can do so by taking the help of technology and utilizing tools such as QR codes, digital guidebooks, or sending direct links to their mobile phones which makes it a hassle-free and easy process. 

Pro tip: You can follow up by sending them a reminder email in case they haven’t provided feedback. 

‍

10. Being Responsive To Reviews: Simply collecting reviews isn’t going to be enough, as it is important to have a strategy to deal with rental home reviews once you receive them. Positive or negative, all feedback must be acknowledged. It is advisable to take note of the issues being highlighted in the negative reviews and assess the authenticity of their claims. 

‍

To improve vacation rental reviews it is important to take appropriate steps to deal with them in case it turns out to be true. Once you’ve successfully dealt with the issue, you should follow up with the aggrieved guest, apologize and thank them for highlighting the issue. This way, you are not only addressing the issue but also portraying an image that denotes that you care about your guests and are willing to offer them better service the next time they are here with you. 

Pro-tip: Acknowledge each review and provide timely responses. You can also promote positive house rental reviews online by highlighting them as social proof or badges earned on various social media platforms, channels, and your very own vacation rental website.

‍

Some Vacation Rental Review Examples Are As Follows:

‍

• Ratings: 5 out of 5

By: Chandler M

“Loved the view. Basked in the abundant sunshine, very close to Gallsby Beach. Had a great time enjoying the hot tub facility. The owner is very kind and helpful and so is the rest of the team. Will stay here again!

‍

Dear Chandler,

Thank you for your kind review of the recent stay at The Arnold World Vacation Rental. We’re happy to learn that you adored the view and had a fun time at the beach which surely lies close to our rental home. Our hot tub facility tends to be the highlight for most of the guests during their stay and nothing makes us happier than knowing that our guests have enjoyed our facilities to the fullest. We will surely pass on your kind words of appreciation to the management who believes in working round the clock to ensure that the guest’s needs are met most appropriately. We would eagerly welcome you again with open arms on your next visit!

‍

• Ratings: 3 out of 5

By: Selena Edwards

“Had a decent stay. The breakfast was subpar. Loved the location and hot tub facility. The staff conducted themselves politely and professionally.”

‍

Dear Selena,

Thank you for writing to us about your recent stay. We’re glad that you had a good time and appreciated the location and hot tub facility. Thank you for your kind words about our team who believes in going above and beyond in providing excellent guest service. However, we’re sorry if the breakfast left something to be desired. We will surely work hard to improve things in this area. We hope that your next trip is just around the corner!

‍

Conclusion

Vacation rentals have become a major alternative to hotels due to the plethora of advantages they hold. As a result, the role of vacation rental reviews can’t be stressed enough as they help you create and maintain a certain online reputation. 

It is important to ensure that utmost care is taken to improve vacation rental reviews by dealing with them- irrespective of their nature i.e., positive or negative- regularly. In addition, having a proper and effective strategy to deal with reviews can turn out to be a game changer for your property, as guest reviews can make or break your vacation rental. 

All in all, play the part of a good host and be a catalyst for fetching many more positive reviews for your rental business. 

‍

With GuestTouch, Get More Vacation Rental Reviews Seamlessly On Sites Customers Love And Trust

• Personalize responses to every guest review
• Collect guest feedback proactively
• Manage all your reviews in a single dashboard