The following is a guest post by Alba Colomer of ApartmentDistrict.com. Alba is a professional copywriter and subject matter expert in the world of vacation rental management. Follow Alba or drop her a line @Alba_Colomer.
The vacation rental industry has been around for as long as vacations themselves. However, recent technological advancements have opened up the industry to anyone that has a spare room and an Internet connection. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the runaway success of the vacation rental industry is becoming a major concern for the big hotels that have enjoyed more than a century of almost exclusive reign on tourism hospitality.
Yet, now that peer-to-peer listing portals has
leveled the playing field, no amount of marketing spend will be able to give hotels back their market share. The fact is, renting a holiday apartment has many more benefits than staying in a hotel and now that the pricing is the same (or even cheaper), hotels are at an even greater disadvantage. Here are 4 major reasons vacation rentals will continue to beat out hotels in the tourism accommodation wars:
- There‘s a kitchen! As the holiday apartment is a flat indeed, and not a square box of air, it has the same facilities as your own home, but in your foreign destination of choice. The kitchen is one of the most appreciated services, as it lets guests cook lunches and dinners instead of having to eat in a restaurant for every single meal. Besides saving money, this option is very useful when traveling with kids, as you can ensure they will eat what you prepare, and therefore, they won’t have big problems with an unknown gastronomy or ingredients that are not familiar for them.
- No need to split-up a larger group. When you travel within a group of friends, for example, it’s almost impossible to stay together in the same hotel room. Instead, most of the time you have to stay in separate rooms, sometimes even different floors, and it limits a lot your freedom, intimacy and fun. By renting a holiday apartment, the entire group can stay together under the same roof, eating together, relaxing together in the living room and enjoying much more privacy and comfort, just if they were staying in their own home.
- No schedules! A hotel has particular schedules that need to be followed. For example, you have to go for breakfast in a certain timeframe so you have less freedom organizing your day. As you can imagine, a holiday rental doesn’t have any schedules beyond the ones you design for your days in the city. You decide when to wake up, when to eat, when you come back home, etc.
- Personal customer service from an agency or property manager. If you’re worried about how the holiday apartment system works, you should know that the logistics are very simple and secure. Upon arrival, you’re welcomed by a member of the agency’s staff, who gives you the keys, shows you the neighborhood, and introduces you to the flat. If you have any problems during your stay, you can contact the agency and its support, so you’re never alone.
As the vacation rental industry continues to mature and gain more market share, it will only get worse for hotels. Agencies and property managers can now offer their own concierge and cleaning services that take away from the hotel’s list of advantages, like room service and housekeeping. What are your favorite aspects of a holiday rental that make it the better option than staying at a hotel? Let us know in the comments!
Learn more about ApartmentDistrict.com
ApartmentDistrict.com (http://www.apartmentdistrict.com/) is a start-up company set in Barcelona, which offers and compares more than 50,000 apartments in 32 European cities, from about 200 different agencies of vacation rentals. The company expects to increase the number of cities, agencies and apartments offered in the web shortly. They also count with a company’s blog where they publish travel-related content (http://www.apartmentdistrict.com/blog/)