Sam Douthwaite-Robinson | 14 February 2025

When managing a holiday letting website getting the balance right between your guests and owners is crucial. Guests expect a seamless booking journey, clear property descriptions, fair pricing, and responsive customer support. Meanwhile, you need an inviting space to welcome new owners while offering existing owners the tools and information they need for effortless self-management.

The Guest’s
First Impressions

The holiday letting market is highly competitive, making it challenging to stand out. Guests expect a seamless, user-friendly browsing and booking experience. High-quality, vibrant property images that accurately represent what you’re offering along with transparent pricing are essential to capturing their interest. When potential customers visit your website, it should be immediately clear what to do.

Landing pages based around specific locations, local events or special features can be a great way to drive organic traffic to your website. A simple search form with 3 to 5 fields, such as location, holiday dates, and number of guests can streamline their journey.

Other elements of your holiday website homepage should reflect your brand with standout properties, last-minute deals and seasonal categories such as Christmas.

Two adults in a room with a brick wall, writing on large sticky notes attached to a glass surface. One person is focused on writing, while the other looks at the notes.

The Search
User Journey

The search process should be made as simple as possible. Consider paginating your properties to 10 per page to not overwhelm your guests, but also maintain a good page speed. Making use of lazy loading where a guest is automatically shown the next page of results is a great tactic for keeping users engaged for longer.

For a better user experience your property listings should feature a carousel of high-quality images showcasing the property’s best features. Pricing should be prominently displayed, with any discounts or deposit requirements clearly highlighted. A clear call to action should be used to guide guests seamlessly to view more details.

Displaying a prominent phone number or live chat option helps reassure guests by providing quick and easy access to support. Whether they have special requirements or questions, knowing they can speak to a real person builds trust.

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Refine Your
Guest Booking Process

The guest booking journey should be as streamlined as possible. Breaking the checkout into smaller steps and save progress along the way to prevent guests from feeling overwhelmed by a long form.

It’s a good idea to display a clear summary of their holiday details in a visible spot, like a sidebar, to provide clarity and reduce confusion.

The checkout process is a good opportunity to offer additional add-ons such as early check-in or additional services. Whilst this is an opportunity to offer additional services, try not to overwhelm your guests. Their main concern at this point will be securing the booking in the most efficient way possible.

The final page should clearly confirm the selected booking dates, property details, and a transparent price breakdown. If a deposit is required with future balance payments, display this in a clear, easy-to-read format.

After booking, send a confirmation email followed by payment reminders, travel tips, and things to do during their stay. Once their holiday is over, follow up with a questionnaire to gather feedback.

A hand holding a compass, with a view of green, rolling mountains in the background.

Guest Landing Pages

Landing pages based around specific locations, local events or special features can be a great way to drive organic traffic to your website.

To attract guests, focus on popular holiday searches such as ‘Holiday homes in Devon.’ Once they land on your page, a clear call to action should guide them to the next step. If the page features a list of properties, ensure the first listings are visible without requiring excessive scrolling.

Pre-filling search filters based on the landing page topic helps guests quickly refine their search, making their journey smoother and more intuitive.

Two men in an office look at computer screens. One is pointing and smiling, while the other sits next to him, wearing glasses and a green sweater. A plant is seen in the background.

Owner Priorities

Property owners are important to your holiday letting website. They need a simple, efficient way to manage their listings, bookings, and availability. The owner-specific features and content should be separate from the guest website in order avoid confusion.

To keep navigation clean, link to the owner’s area in the website footer or, if design permits, in the main menu – ensuring easy access without being overly prominent to guests. For a clearer distinction, consider setting up a dedicated sub-site.

Owners will want to achieve as much as possible through a self-serve system. Where your Property Management System allows you should consider what flexibility you can offer owners. This might be updating property details and imagery, viewing and managing bookings, updating availability or responding to reviews. The more an owner can achieve via your platform, the more compelling your offering will be.

Maintaining owners on a holiday accommodation website can be another challenge. They want to see tangible results and a regular flow of bookings. You can support them by analysing data and collaborating to enhance their property content, imagery, and placement in relevant categories and blog posts. This approach will not only boost bookings but also foster a strong, positive relationship with owners.

Owner Landing Pages

From an owner’s perspective, landing pages should be designed to attract new property listings. Highlight any promotional pricing or tiered packages you offer. Owners want to be reassured that they will see results before committing to your website. You can do this by showcasing success stories of previous or existing customers.

Owner landing pages are your shop window in advertising what you can offer to a prospective owner. Highlight the services or features you have to offer such as automated SMS messages, email alerts for guests, or an extensive mailing list that can promote their property. You could also emphasise any high traffic to your site to demonstrate its potential reach.

Two women are working at their desks in an office. They are focused on their computer screens, and the office environment appears professional and well-lit.

Mobile First
Guest & Owner Experience

Your website should be fully responsive and mobile-friendly. In 2024 over 61% of web traffic came from mobile devices. Think about the length of result pages on smaller screens and think about adding a sticky search bar at the top of the page. This feature will allow guests to easily refine or reorder their search as they browse.

Page speed is especially crucial on mobile devices, where slow loading times can quickly turn guests away. Since holiday accommodation websites often feature high-resolution images, it’s essential to optimize these for mobile viewing.

For property owners, managing availability, bookings, and editing their listings are key tasks that will likely be done on mobile as well. Ensuring these functions are mobile-friendly is vital for a smooth user experience.

Conclusion

While the majority of your holiday accommodation website will focus on attracting guests, it’s equally important not to overlook property owners. While capturing guests’ imaginations and converting them into bookings is key, ensuring owners can easily manage their listings and availability is just as crucial.

Do you currently run a holiday letting website and need help in identifying opportunities to improve the guest or owner experience? We offer free digital audits where our team will take the time to give you feedback during a playback session, talking you through our suggestions and the impact they can have.