In Lahaina, Hawaii, a family overlooks stunning views of the ocean on a warm afternoon. Guests relax comfortably, and with free Wi-Fi, checking in on family and friends winds down the day.
These views are far from anything off a hotel or apartment balcony. The locales are part of a plan that Booking.com has implemented to turn overnight stays into an experience unto itself.
In March, Booking.com launched “Book the U.S.", which populates listings of “crazy, cool properties across each U.S. state” from caves and train cars to houseboats, castles, treehouses and yurts. World-wide, Booking.com features more than 30 types of vacation and short-term rentals to meet growing demand for an extra special place to stay.
According to recent research by the company, more than 37 percent of global travelers seek non-traditional vacation accommodations.
Booking.com is also cultivating in-destination experiences for travelers through its Booking Experiences tool. This allows guests to view things to do in the area they are visiting and instantly book an experience. The product is currently live in New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas.
Booking.com, a Kigo preferred partner, relies on penetrating the vacation rental landscape with an intensely local flavor. They do so through over 200world-wide offices that work with partners to maintain 5.7 million listings of homes, apartments and other unique places to stay out of nearly 30 million listings. Personalized support provides unique experiences for travelers, the company says.
Kigo’s reach has allowed Booking.com to connect with more industry professionals and guests. This enables local Booking.com teams to not only help with listing properties, but also to better understand the types of consumers and needs within specific markets, says Christa Levesque, Booking.com’s North American home manager.
Levesque said leading Booking.com managers use channel management software to ensure rates and availability are updated as close to real-time as possible. The focus is not just on operational efficiency, but also on informing how partners can provide advice and support to property managers so their listings work the best on the Booking.com platform.
These specific recommendations per property can be found in the Opportunity Center of the Booking.com Extranet.
Levesque tells partners that going global in distribution means appealing to different markets, buying patterns and stay patterns.
“Your distribution channels can provide insight and tooling to help,” she said.
Booking.com is exploring advancements in technology to save partners time. The company is investing in artificial intelligence and machine learning, which handle basic communication between guests and hosts to speed the bookings process.
Relying on chatbots to either scan listing information or learn from previous communications can mean that every request doesn’t have to be answered by an owner or manager.
Booking.com’s roadmap includes new tools that enhance performance. The company recently launched Visibility Booster, which allows vacation rental managers to increase property visibility and occupancy from specific countries during specific time periods.
Booking.com also offers bulk options, which can establish mass promotions, cancellation exceptions, key handling and management of required guest information. Vacation rental managers can include check-in and check-out times and if guest address and phone number are required during booking.
“We want to make it easy for a partner to join our platform and then provide them with the right tools to support their needs as well as manage their performance,” Levesque said.
The formula will further position Booking.com as the go-to place for any kind of stay. Already, Booking.com is hanging its hat on that along with the more than 1.5 million room nights that are reserved every day on its platform, Levesque says.
Connecting your vacation rental properties to Booking.com through Kigo’s Channel Manager can be a game changer for your business.
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If you are already a Kigo customer and want to learn more about optimizing your listings on Booking.com, contact the Kigo Success team!