Creating a successful booking experience is key to attracting and converting guests on your holiday rental website. From intuitive search functionality to high-quality imagery and transparent pricing, every detail plays a role in making your listings stand out.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the top 12 must-have features that enhance user experience and boost bookings.
The search is your guest’s tool for finding the holiday they want. The search should be intuitive and simple to use. You can avoid overwhelming users by displaying the main fields such as location, check-in/out dates and number of guests in a prominent location on the form. Any advanced filters for amenities and features such as “Is this property pet friendly” can be hidden behind an “advanced search” button.
Showcase your property with vibrant, high-resolution images that accurately represent the space. Potential guests will want the best understanding of a property before they commit to booking. Include photos of key areas and bedrooms in the property. If a property has any unique features such as a hot tub, secret den or cinema room make sure these are well photographed too.
Potential guests will often form their first impression of a property based on its thumbnail image, so it’s essential to choose a high-quality photo that accurately represents the space.
Almost always, guests won’t have any prior knowledge of the property they are looking at. As well as detailed images, a thorough description of a property can help sell a property to a guest. Ensure you include any unique features or important features of the property. If applicable, include details such as if the property is up a steep hill or on a busy road.
Finally, important aspects of a property such as the number of bedrooms or how many guests it can accommodate can be made clear by displaying them in a prominent space on the property listing.
Making the property details clear and accurate will help your guests make informed decisions and avoid any unnecessary surprises on arrival.
When guests search for a property, pricing should be clear and transparent. Consider adding a label next to the price to add context as to whether the price is per person or for the entire group. If there is a deposit or accident deposit to pay, make these values known when browsing the availability.
Having clear pricing can help reduce abandoned bookings as a guest won’t be surprised by unexpected charges on the payment page.
On property listings, maps can be a great tool for conveying more about the location. They can be a great addition to convey what amenities are nearby such as restaurants, beaches or public transport.
Using a map to display the results can bring a different perspective to your search. Unlike a paginated list of results, a map can show all the available properties at once, allowing your guests to quickly zoom and focus on areas of interest.
Inspiration and landing pages are a great way of categorising similar properties. For example, if a guest is looking for holiday accommodation with a sauna in Pembrokeshire, a dedicated landing page showcasing relevant properties ensures your offering reaches the right audience. These pages also improve SEO by targeting specific locations, events, or attractions, making them more relevant to potential guests and increasing engagement.
Clear call to actions (CTAs) are essential on a holiday rental website. They guide guests seamlessly through their journey, from searching to booking, enhancing the user experience and boosting conversion rates.
Whether it’s “Book Now”, “Check Availability” or “Search”, these CTAs highlight the most important actions you want a user to take. This keeps the website focused on achieving specific goals, like driving bookings or gathering leads.
Including badges and banners such as “Limited Availability” can help create a sense of urgency if a guest is browsing. Alternatively, if a property has a discounted price or low deposit, making this obvious may be the visual cue a guest needs to make the booking.
Your availability for a property should be readily available and easy to understand. A common way to achieve this is through a calendar, blocking out any dates that aren’t available.
Once a user selects a date, ideally the price should be returned immediately. If displaying the price isn’t possible, a clear call to action such as an “Enquire Now” button linking to a contact form, should guide the guest on what to do next.
Reviews are becoming more and more important to buyers. Transparent and trustworthy reviews provide guests with valuable insights, highlighting both the strengths and weaknesses of a property. Make the reviews you display are relatively recent, typically less than 12 months old.
Linking to your TrustPilot or Feefo profile can further boost credibility.
Integrating live chat on your website can be incredibly helpful for visitors. An AI chatbot can quickly answer common questions, providing instant support. For more complex inquiries, having a friendly human available to assist can build trust and enhance your business’s reputation. Some holiday letting websites like to include a phone number in the header or footer for quick and easy support.
Harnessing the power of AI can give you a competitive edge over other holiday accommodation websites. Two ways you could use AI to your advantage are to integrate it into the website’s search and related content algorithm.
A smarter, AI-powered search experience can transform how guests find their ideal holiday. By allowing users to input more specific details—such as whether they’re travelling with young children or the type of holiday they’re seeking—AI can refine search results to match their exact needs. You could either integrate this into your main search form, or via an AI chatbot allowing users to describe exactly what they’re looking for.
When suggesting related content, AI-driven algorithms can also boost conversions by analysing previous guest interactions and browsing behaviour. By intelligently suggesting related properties or alternative holiday options, AI helps users discover relevant accommodation options they may not have considered, increasing engagement and bookings.
Integrating your website with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system or a Property Management System (PMS) can significantly enhance how you manage your listings, bookings, and customer relationships. By consolidating all property and guest data in one place, you can streamline operations, improve guest communication, and optimise pricing all from a central place.
Property Relationship System integration enables your website to dynamically sync property details, pricing, availability, and guest information from the CRM, ensuring your listings are always up to date. Additionally, your website can automatically feed new bookings and customer updates into the CRM, reducing manual data entry and ensuring a seamless booking experience.
Some property management systems allow multi-channel integration out of the box allowing you to advertise on third-party websites such as Booking.com, AirBnB & Vrbo to name a few.
By offloading the central logic to a property management system you can reduce development time rather than replicating similar functionality in-house.
A well-optimised holiday rental website can significantly improve user experience and increase bookings. By implementing intuitive search functionality, high-quality imagery, clear pricing, and engaging landing pages, you create an enjoyable journey for potential guests.
Do you have 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.
Getting the balance right between Guests and Owners on your holiday letting website
Sam Douthwaite-Robinson |
