Hello fellow owners:
As both an owner of a vacation rental website and as an owner of several vacation rental properties, we are often asked what owners can do to help keep their vacation rentals fully booked when inquiries and bookings slow down in an off season. We’ve tried lots of different things, just like most owners probably have. We’ve thrown in cleaning fees. We’ve offered one night free with booking of one week. We’ve discounted rates. All of those things cost us revenue and eat up any profits we expect to make annually from our vacation rental properties. What else can you do?
One of the things that we have tried, and seems to work really well, is to allow renters to bring their pet along. As a matter of fact, “pet friendly vacation rentals” is in the top five overall in terms of traffic for search terms in the vacation rental industry. As a vacation rental website owner, we target that keyphrase, and we are in the process of releasing a whole new section of our website exclusively focused on renters that want to see vacation rental inventory of only those rentals that choose to accept pets. If you look at a standard city index page on our website, you will see big icons for each listing representing a little doggie. The little doggie either has a line through him, meaning that vacation rental owner does not accept pets, or it does not, meaning the vacation rental owner does accept pets. Clearly, whether or not your vacation rental allows pets is very important to renters, and you are going to get passed over if you don’t accept them. Keep in mind, many renters are families traveling together for a vacation, so leaving their beloved pet behind is simply not an option.
Due to the popularity of pet friendly vacation rentals, have a special section of our site just dedicated to displaying our owner listings that allow pets. This pet friendly vacation rentals page draws substantial traffic from search engines, which in turn transfers more leads to our vacation rental owners. There are many examples of small regional websites or blogs that are dedicated to pet friendly vacation rentals, such as this one: http://sanibeladvisor.com/pet-friendly-homes-in-sanibel-island/. Clearly, there is a lot to this market, and not something that owners should be ignoring.
Accepting pets does not cost you anything. Yes, a pet may do some damage to your vacation rental property, but in our experience, we have not seen anything significant. In fact, the only animal that has ever damaged any of our vacation rentals are college kids on spring break 
. There are some good rules of thumb that we have seen if you decided to accept pets.
- Consider a higher cleaning fee than normal. Most renters are fine with paying it.
- Consider making a portion of your security deposit non-refundable. We have found that renters are OK with up to $100 in non-refundable security deposit. With that money, you can have the average vacation rental steam cleaned from top to bottom.
- If your vacation rental is attached to other dwellings, make sure that you have a provision for noise in your standard vacation rental contract that states that if there are complaints of excessive noise from the pet and it is not cured within a reasonable amount of time and you have to remove the renter, you have the right to do so without losing revenue.
- You may want to consider a weight restriction; pets less than 20 pounds are typically not capable of as much destruction as larger pets.
- You may also want to consider an age restriction. Older dogs are usually calmer than puppies.
We have allowed pets in our vacation rental properties, especially during slower off peak season, and have found that it greatly increases the amount of leads and bookings that you get. As vacation rental website owners, we know for a fact that the search traffic related to “pet friendly” is there. We have not found that we have excessive damages to our vacation rentals or any huge hassles to deal with. So why not give it a shot?
Customers of FindVacationRentals.com can log in to Vacation Rental Owner’s Corner at any time to change their “pet friendly” preferences.
Cheers,
Jon Ludwig
I’m not sure I’m willing to start accepting Pets or Smokers but I have been providing linens for years and feel that it really helps in attracting booking among comparable units. While it may not matter as much in peak season I find it makes a huge difference in off season and weekend rentals (who wants to pack sheets for a long weekend anyway).
You have two main options if you decide you want to provide linens. What ever avenue you choose, I recommend you shop around as I found quite a range of prices.
1. Your Cleaning Service – Ask if your cleaning service or shop around for one that will provide you with this service at a reasonable cost. It took me some digging and networking with other owners to find a cleaner who would also provide linens – but I did! I had better luck with small privately owned cleaning companies. In the end I was able to get get the service for $30/cleaning.
2. Rental companies many rental companies in resort areas provide linen service in addition to delivering cribs, beach chairs and other amenities you may not provide. I did find these options to be quite a bit pricier.
There are other things you can provide that may help you attract guest: Port-a-crib; baby gate(if you have stairs); beach chairs, bicycles, set of golf clubs, etc…
Andy
http://www.findvacationrentals.com/7552