Vacation

It is without a doubt that accommodation is going to take a huge chunk of your budget when going on a vacation. No wonder most people would prefer getting a space in vacation rentals as they are much cheaper. To make it even better, you are set to have a whole new experience thus making your vacation even more interesting.

Quite a number of property owners seem to have noticed the growing popularity of vacation rentals. For this reason, more and more continue to venture into the business with the aim of making profit. However, the problem sets in when hosts have to find the best vacation rental websites to list their property.

Actually, many hosts will rush into relying on Airbnb not knowing there are other websites that can help you in getting a good return on your investment. If you have been facing this problem then you have definitely come to the right place.  Here are four of the best websites you can consider working with in order to get the expected returns.

Find out more about Vacation rental websites for property owners abroad here.

#1. Lodgify

This is a website builder with built-in booking system and channel manager. You can also use WordPress Plug-Ins if you do not want to use the website builder. The idea of Lodgify is to give vacation rental owners an effortless platform to list all their vacation rental properties or a single vacation rental property on the website builder, which comes with a booking and payment system included.

There is no need to have any website coding experience at all. You can simply add, upload, drag and drop, and enter text on the website using the pre-formatted templates. All templates are fully responsive and work on all mobile, tablet, and desktop devices. Plus, there is a 24/7 customer support team always on hand in case of any issues.

All in all, Lodgify offers its customers one of the easiest vacation rental website platforms on the market today. The only downside is that the website owner will need to do all their own marketing because this will be an independent website owned by the property owner him or herself.

To gain traffic to a vacation rental, there are more options listed below in which the Lodgify channel manager can connect to the calendars on each of the website platforms below. Find out more about Vacation rental websites for property owners abroad here.

#2. Flipkey

With over 300,000 property listings in more than 11,000 cities around the world, FlipKey happens to be one of the leaders in the vacation rental market. As part of TripAdvisor Media Group, FlipKey not only focuses on local rentals but also a community of guest reviewers.

Just as is the case with many vacation rental websites, you do not have to part with any money before signing up on FlipKey as a host.  However, you must be ready to make do with a processing fee of 3% per booking as an owner. On the other hand, guests will have to pay a booking fee that ranges from 5%-15% of the total cost of renting.

Thanks to the pay-per-booking plan put in place by FlipKey, owners will only have to update their site listing and availability on a regular basis. Furthermore, you must be ready to accept any reservation request from prospective guests if you are to get a good return on your investment.

#3. VRBO

Vacation Rental By Owner commonly referred to as VRBO is another notable name in the industry of vacation rentals. This platform is part of HomeAway network of vacation rentals and boasts of more than 2 million listings in different parts of the world. Their main area of focus is on apartments and entire homes. Unfortunately, VRBO only lists larger spaces that guests will have to themselves rather than sharing.

When it comes to fees, both the guests and hosts will have to part with a small amount. Unlike FlipKey, hosts must pay a subscription fee before they can get to list their property. However, you need to choose between their two-subscription plans i.e. pay-per-booking and annual subscription payment. With pay-per-booking, hosts have to part with 8% of every booking that is made via the site. On the other hand, annual subscription payment requires homeowners to pay $499 for the entire year. Guests are charged a service fee that is between 6%-12%.

#4. iStopOver

iStopOver is an independent vacation rental site whose main role is to serve hosts and international guests. With more than 6 million listings in over 140 countries around the world, iStopOver is proving to be a vacation rental website you can consider signing upon. Luckily, you can create a free online profile by visiting the website. Here you need to include the listing description, photos and price before you can finally publish your listing. Unfortunately, most of the properties listed on this platform happen to be in Europe.

Homeowners do not have to worry about parting with any money before listing their property as it is free of charge. However, the platform charges hosts a booking fee of 15% for listings that do not accept an instant booking and 12% for instant booking listings.

The Bottom Line

There are plenty of options out there to gain online traffic for your holiday home so you can rent it out to vacationers looking for private accommodation. Here we talked about 4 popular vacation rental websites for owners. Lodgify is for owners that want to have their own website to list their property, while Flipkey, VRBO, and iStopOver are websites we suggest you use in order to get online internet traffic. These 3 websites will all use their marketing teams to advertise across the World Wide Web and so people will see your vacation rental property listed on these websites.

In order to connect your property to these websites, you will need a channel manager. You can also encourage guests that book via these 3 websites to make future booking directly with you should they decide to revisit the area again in the future.