5 Guaranteed Ways to Keep Your Guests Coming Back Year on Year
June 1, 2022
Winning new guests is every property manager’s mission but did you know that it’s much cheaper and way more effective to appeal to those who’ve already booked stays at your properties? Focus your rental occupancy strategy on gaining guest loyalty this summer season and see a boost in future bookings.
The likelihood of guests returning to a vacation rental hinges directly on their experience and guest satisfaction. And since memories are much more valuable to people than materialistic possession these days – creating the perfect setting and supporting guests to plan their desired trip is the ultimate way to increase return on experience (ROE) guests.
Below we’ve listed the five best ways to give your guests a five-star experience that keeps them coming back every season and the solutions that can help you achieve this:
5 easy ways to create return guests
1. Understand their needs
Knowing what your guests want from their stay is the first step to offering a great experience, especially since two-thirds of customers expect companies to understand their needs. Keeping up with industry trends allows you to personalize your properties to fulfill market demands and meet guest expectations.
Current trends in the industry include smart home technology, sustainability, and wellness.
2. Offer incentives
Loyalty cards, reward points, discounts – we’re all guilty of being attracted to incentives, and knowing we can get the best for our buck keeps us coming back for more.
You can offer these appealing opportunities to your guests and add value to your properties when you partner with attraction providers in the local community through the Xplorie program. Guests will receive a free day pass, or a discount, to activities of their choice for every day of their stay – at no extra cost to them!
Start a referral program. Did you know word of mouth contributes to trillions of global sales per year? It’s a strong revenue driver that is often underestimated. Studies show up to 78% of people talk about their favorite experiences at least once a week!
3. Create unforgettable experiences
Guests go on vacation to make amazing memories. But, how do you help your guests have unforgettable experiences?
Help them plan their trip. Provide recommendations to the best local restaurants or offer discounts to activities and attractions nearby, with in-room tech such as virtual concierge SmartHost. Make it as easy as possible for guests to achieve the vacation they want – and they’re almost guaranteed to come back!
Set your rental up for large groups by providing the perfect space for a get-together. For example, add a big dining table, lounge, or outside seating area. This will appeal to the extended families and groups of friends who plan to reconnect this year after time apart. Some vacation rentals have already seen this trend, with AirDNA reporting a 60% increase of 5+ bedroom rental bookings in Q3 of last year compared to two years ago.
4. Deliver quality customer service
Guests care more about quality customer service than they did eighteen months ago, especially those in the younger generations such as Millennials (53%) and Gen Z (47%). Over half of surveyed Millennials even admitted they’d move to a company’s competitor if they had just one bad experience, which is the opposite of what you want.
You can’t control everything during a guest’s stay – sometimes things simply go wrong. It’s all about how you respond to these incidents and provide support to your guests. Communication is key. Throughout a guest’s entire vacation journey ensure they have easy access to services and receive quick, informative responses that resolve their issues.
5. Focus on convenience
We live in a hyper-connected world where people are used to getting information instantly. We also live in a world where people are mixing work with vacation time, or simply value every minute of their time off, and want a smooth, efficient service from their accommodation with no interruptions.
This is where tech can help. Add contactless or in-app tech to automate inconvenient processes such as checking in. Use voice technology, such as SmartHost, within rentals to enable guests to receive instant answers to queries about the property or the local area.
Digital self-service has become increasingly popular within travel, which is no surprise as it offers an incomparable convenience. People want to be able to solve issues on their own, and almost two-thirds of the younger generations say that automatic chat technology is helpful for this.
Loyal customers can contribute to a huge part of your business, so it’s important to focus on giving the guests you already have the ultimate stay. Experience is everything in vacation rentals, people want to make memories – so help them achieve this by personalizing to their expectations, installing smart home tech for convenience, and giving top-quality customer service.
Xplorie
Xplorie is the leading platform in guest acquisition and retention solutions for leisure lodging providers. Since 1996, Xplorie has leveraged local and complementary activities to help lodging providers differentiate their properties, improve guest loyalty and increase top-line revenue. To learn more about how Xplorie enables lodging providers to deliver an unforgettable vacation experience to guests, visit xplorie.com/partner.
