Sites like Airbnb: the OTAs

In 2022 it has become a priority to publish all your properties on as many booking portals as possible to increase the visibility.
It is quite intuitive to understand why: the more sites in which the apartments are visible, the greater the chances of receiving bookings and increasing the occupancy rate of your apartments.

Thanks to a very fast rise in the last five years, one of the most popular travel booking portals is certainly Airbnb. When we talk about sites like Airbnb, therefore, we are talking about OTA, or Online Travel Agency: portals on which tourist facilities and accommodations can be rented (for hosts) and booked (for travelers), and on which rates, availability, characteristics and photos can be managed (for hosts).

However, there are several Airbnb alternatives and sites like Airbnb, and they are also very important. So if you need to improve the online presence of your vacation rental in order to get more bookings, then it will certainly help to understand the top 10 vacation rental Airbnb alternatives. Below, we look at them one by one.

Top 10 vacation rental websites for hosts like Airbnb

Booking.com

Booking.com is not just an alternative to Airbnb, it is the tourist booking portal with the most daily bookings in the world (almost one million according to unofficial sources) and also one of the longest-established OTA in the Hospitality industry (founded in 1996).
Booking, therefore, represents a unique opportunity to list vacation rentals, and your sales strategy must absolutely include it. In fact, if at the beginning of its activity the offer was limited to Hotels, with the disintermediation caused by short-term tourist rentals, on Booking.com it is now possible to manage, rent and book, also Bed & Breakfast, Hostels and, precisely, apartments.

VRBO (ex HomeAway)

VRBO is one of the sites such as Airbnb on which your apartment cannot avoid appearing. VRBO received this name in 2020 when it took the place of the old HomeAway. This OTA is one of the affiliates of the Expedia Group network, a colossus that, in addition to VRBO, also controls companies such as CarRentals.com, Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Travelocity and Trivago. Some of the features that make VRBO one of the best vacation rental websites sites is the fact that it has more than 2 million accommodations with over 44 million monthly visitors to its website.

Agoda.com

Agoda, founded in 2005, is an OTA born in Singapore and part of the Booking Holdings group (formerly Priceline Group), the same owner as Booking.com. Agoda has in the recent past been among the fastest growing OTAs on the planet for hotels and resorts.
However, thanks to the new Agoda Homes solution, you can also list your vacation rental here with excellent chances of receiving bookings, thanks to 49 million visitors per month on the portal and thanks to its strategic predominance in Asian markets such as Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy

Tripadivisor

Tripadvisor appeared for the first time in 2000 – was originally a review platform but now has evolved to offer travelers a range of services covering the whole holiday experience. You can also list your own accommodations and vacation rentals with excellent visibility and receive direct bookings. This functional step was taken in 2008 through the acquisition of Flipkey (which, however, continues to live under its own brand name), an OTA that used to be one of the best solutions for booking vacation rentals.

Traum-Ferienwohnungen

HomeToGo

Plum Guide

TravelStaytion

How to manage the best vacation rental sites with Octorate Channel Manager

Now that you know which are the sites like Airbnb and which, at the same time, are the best vacation rental sites in 2022, it is time to understand how to manage them.

You didn’t really expect so many, did you?!

As we wrote at the beginning, it is not really correct to talk about the OTAs mentioned as alternative to Airbnb. In order to maximize your visibility, you should appear on all of the portals mentioned, including of course Airbnb. It would be impossible to manage rates, availability, photos and descriptions on every single site at the same time if there would not be a Channel Manager that would carry out real-time updating of rates, automatic synchronization of all these functions on all portals in real time if you want to know more we refer you to the article on  what a Channel Manager is).

The great thing is that on Octorate – as you can see in the video – connecting an OTA to your apartments is really easy and, inside, you will find all 10 of the best vacation rental sites mentioned in this article. What’s even more, Octorate’s Channel Manager is awarded annually by all major OTAs (such as Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb, VRBO, TripConnect and HRS) for its reliability, efficiency and ability to quickly implement all new features released.

Frequently asked questions

Which are the sites like Airbnb?

When we talk about sites like Airbnb, we are talking about OTA, or Online Travel Agencies: portals where tourist facilities and accommodations can be rented (for hosts) and booked (for travelers), and where rates, availability, features and photos can be managed (for hosts). Some sites like Airbnb are:

• Booking.com
• VRBO
• Agoda.com
• Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy
• Tripadvisor
• Traum-Ferienwohnungen
• HomeToGo
• Plum Guide
• TravelStaytion

Which are the best vacation rental sites ?

Top 10 vacation rental websites in 2022 are:

• Booking.com – is the world’s largest daily booking portal for tourism (almost one million bookings a day)
• VRBO – It is part of the Expedia Group network and there are more than 2 million accommodations with over 44 million visitors per month.
• Agoda.com – has a large presence in Asian markets such as Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines with 49 million visitors per month and is part of the Booking Holdings Group, the same as Booking.com.
• Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy – one of the world’s most popular platform for renting and booking premium and luxury vacation rentals. It is run by the hospitality giant Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy.
• Tripadvisor – has exceptional visibility, receiving direct bookings from 450 million visitors a month
• Traum-Ferienwohnungen – one of Germany’s leading portals for vacation rentals, advertising more than 100,000 accommodations worldwide and receiving 240,000 booking requests per month
• HomeToGo – Publishes not only rentals, but also beach houses, condominiums, castles, farmhouses listed by selected partners such as Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com. You can also publish your holiday homes directly on this portal.
• Plum Guide –Exclusive OTA where only 3% of listing requests received are published. Offers a clientele with considerable purchasing power
• TravelStaytion –fast-growing vacation rental platform with a portfolio of over 80,000 properties worldwide

How to manage the best vacation rental sites with Octorate Channel Manager?

With the Octorate Channel Manager you can manage prices, availability, photos and descriptions of each individual portal simultaneously in an automated way without entering each individual OTA.
With Octorate Channel Manager you can manage up to 150 booking portals simultaneously with a tool that has been awarded by Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb, VRBO, TripConnect and HRS for its exceptional quality standards and for its reliability, efficiency and ability to quickly implement all the new features released by each supplier.

What is Upsell: meaning and definition

An Upsell (or Upselling) is a sales (and marketing) technique used to increase the turnover, sales and revenue of a company or provider, by suggesting to the customer (before, during and after the purchase phase) services that are superior in quality or quantity to the customer’s initial purchase intentions.

The Upsell, if offered at the right time and to the right customer, can be a real win-win situation, where both customer and supplier benefit from a purchase that exceeds their first expectations.

This is a case of upselling: better services at the purchase stage correspond to higher revenue for the supplier and higher customer satisfaction.
An upsell occurs when the supplier gains from selling a higher service and the customer saves by enjoying higher value services at a lower than normal price.

To understand with a practical example what is upselling, it may be useful to refer to the world of airlines and flight bookings. In almost all of the more advanced booking portals, we are now offered the option of reserving a seat at the checkout stage, instead of random assignment. A place which, of course, is not free of charge but, depending on the location, proximity to the corridor or bathroom, will have a proportionally higher price.

This is a case of upsell: better services at the purchase stage correspond to higher revenue for the supplier and higher customer satisfaction.

What is Cross Sell: meaning and definition

The difference between Cross Sell and Upsell is subtle but essential. Cross Sell is also a sales (and marketing) technique that is used to generate more revenue from the transaction. However, a better service is not provided or offered, but an adjacent, parallel service of a complementary category to the product already purchased by the customer.

In order to understand what is cross sell and which is the difference between cross selling and upselling, it will be useful to refer again to the world of airlines and flight booking.

The process of buying an airline ticket has become incredibly long today precisely because of the number of cross-selling attempts by airlines to sell additional and parallel services to the journey. The offer of a car rental service to move both on landing and take-off from the airport to the hotel, an additional discounted travel ticket for your next holiday, discounted accommodation in your destination or discounted travel insurance are all, in fact, examples of cross sell.

Upselling and Cross Selling in Hotels and in the world of Hospitality

Of course, upsell and cross sell do not only involve the world of retail or flight bookings. In the Hospitality industry, in fact, they are widespread and most accommodation facilities have started to use them regularly. In hospitality, in fact, upsell and cross sell are part of the property management sector called Hotel Revenue Management.

There are two main reasons for this spread.

On the one hand, the advent of increasingly precise and efficient technology has favored the flourishing of moments that can be transformed into sales and business opportunities (e-commerce and online sales, above all, but also emailing, and the introduction of booking software such as Booking Engine).

On the other hand, the whole concept of hotels and hospitality needs to be defined to understand the slow and stubborn use of upsell and cross sell.

In fact, the latter has undergone a transformation in the last few decades.

The hotel, for example, has become central to the guest’s holiday experience from a mere place of rest. In fact, the accommodation has become a place to enjoy an all-inclusive holiday experience and the customers themselves now expect to enjoy an increasingly varied and customized holiday experience that meets their needs.

And it is precisely for these reasons that upsell and cross-sell in hospitality is so important today.

When do upsell and cross sell work best in a hotel or vacation rental?

In terms of seasonality, there is no real golden moment to encourage upselling or cross selling.

For example, suggesting an upselling or a cross selling can be useful in terms of seasonal adjustment, offering advantageous solutions during the low season to encourage an increase in the number of guests staying in a hotel or accommodation. At the same time, however, even in high season, upsell is a good strategy to increase revenues. For example, when the occupancy of the cheapest rooms has reached 100%, offering affordable prices to occupy suites or more luxurious lodgings is a very smart way to increase the turnover.

But during the buying phase, is there a better moment to propose upselling or cross-selling? Again, there is no such thing as a good time. In fact, cross selling and up selling can be proposed:

• At the moment of booking, as it happens with e-commerce and airlines
• A few days before the arrival of the guests through an email, for example (in this case the use of a web concierge can be very useful to optimize the whole communication process with the guests)
• During the check-in
• During the stay
• On the way back, once the journey is over (especially if the experience was positive), asking for a review and offering further discounts and benefits in order to retain the customer and increase his lifetime value

Upselling and Cross Selling: Examples for Hotels and Vacation Rental

As you could imagine, the opportunities and the tools for upsell and cross-sell are potentially endless in the Hospitality world. The only factor limiting their application – obviously – will be the variety of services that your accommodation can offer its guests.

Some of the most popular services among hotels and vacation rentals to upsell and increase revenue from bookings – apart from room upgrades, which is the main case in the hospitality industry – may be:

1. Access to the spa and solarium (where spa treatments and massages may constitute additional upselling)
2. Special ingredients, customized menus or gourmet dinner
3. Access to and use of meeting rooms for conferences and corporate meetings
4. City tours and excursions
5. Early Check-in
6. Late Check-out
7. Breakfast and room service
8. Airport shuttle service
9. Car, bike and motorbike hire
10. Parking space for rent

How Octorate can help you with Upselling and Cross Selling

The Octorate Booking Engine (we suggest you to read the article on what is a Booking Engine if you want to know more about the advantages and features of this booking software) offers you all the functionalities to maximize your upsell and cross sell strategy. How? Through:

• The setting of the extras of the stay that customers can include when booking on your Booking Engine;
• Useful All-in-One packages at attractive prices with extras already included in addition to just buying the room (see video)
• The possibility of sending automatic e-mails through the Virtual Concierge, with upselling designed specifically for your customer just before his arrival at the accommodation

From these three points, you can see that the setting of extras and upselling potentials on Octorate is practically unlimited. Your only limit is the extra services you can provide to your customers!

Frequently asked questions

What is Upsell?

An Upsell is a sales technique used to increase the turnover, sales and revenue of a company or supplier by offering the customer (before, during and/or after the purchase phase) services that are superior in quality or quantity to the customer’s initial purchase intentions.

What is Cross Sell?

Cross Sell is a sales technique used to increase the turnover, sales and revenue of a company or supplier by offering the customer (before, during and/or after the purchase phase) services that are contiguous, relevant and parallel to the product already purchased by the customer.

When to use upselling and cross selling in a hotel or a vacation rental?

In terms of seasonality, there is no real golden moment to encourage the upselling or cross selling for hotels or vacation rental.

For example, suggesting an up-sell or a cross-sell can be useful in terms of seasonal adjustment, offering advantageous solutions during the low season to encourage an increase in the number of guests staying at the hotel.

At the same time, however, even in the high season upselling is a good strategy to increase revenues.

For example, when occupancy of the cheapest rooms has reached 100%, offering affordable rates to occupy suites or more luxurious accommodation is a very smart way to improve turnover.

In addition, upselling and cross-selling can be offered in hotels or holiday rentals, with equal chances of success, at all stages of purchase and guest stay. That is:

• At the moment of booking, as it happens with e-commerce and airlines
• A few days before the arrival of the guests through an email, for example (in this case the use of a web concierge can be very useful to optimize the whole communication process with the guests)
• During the check-in
• During the stay
• On the way back, once the journey is over (especially if the experience was positive), asking for a review and offering further discounts and benefits in order to retain the customer and increase his lifetime value

What are the most successful examples of upselling and cross selling in hotels?

1. Access to the spa and solarium (where spa treatments and massages may constitute additional upselling)
2. Special ingredients, customized menus or gourmet dinner
3. Access to and use of meeting rooms for conferences and corporate meetingscorporate
4. City tours and excursions
5. Early Check-in
6. Late Check-out
7. Breakfast and room service
8. Airport shuttle service
9. Car, bike and motorbike hire

How can Octorate help you with upselling and cross selling for your accommodation?

Through:

• The setting of the extras of the stay that customers can include when booking on your Booking Engine;
• very useful All-in-One packages at attractive prices with extras already included in addition to just buying the room (see video)
• the possibility of sending automatic e-mails through the Virtual Concierge, with upselling designed specifically for your customer just before his arrival at the accommodation

What is a Booking Engine?

If you don’t know what is a Booking Engine, all you need to know is that it is an online booking software, which allows accommodations to receive reservations directly on their website, turning it into a real sales channel.

In fact, in addition to using external web portals such as OTA, GDS or Metasearch, property managers can sell their rooms or flats online using a personal website and allowing users, using a schedule, to also consult room availability and rates in real time.

The type of booking that takes place through a Booking Engine is therefore defined as ‘direct booking‘, when the customers manage to book without the help of those intermediary solutions such as OTA, GDS and Metasearch (find out more about which are the top 10 vacation rental websites to list your property).

What is a Booking Engine for?

The main advantage of using a Booking Engine is the possibility of receiving direct bookings directly on your own website. In this way, as we have already said, you avoid the unpleasant commissions that online portals apply to reservations (even if the presence on OTA remains fundamental to maintain a high level of visibility and online distribution).

In the same way, however, the introduction of a Booking Engine in your website also allows you to build customer loyalty and improve their travel experience, thanks to additional services that can be implemented in the software.

Services such as the Payment Manager – which allows easy and safe payments to be received worldwide thanks to payment gateways implemented in the service – and the Digital Concierge – which, on the other hand, allows to manage all the aspects of the booking to ensure a 360° buying experience for the customer through an optimized communication before, during and after the stay – or Automatic Check-in.

To sum up, therefore, we can say that the Booking Engine advantages can be summarized as:

1. Higher profit for accommodations
2. A higher conversion rate on the website
3. Higher security during online transactions
4. Possibility of selling additional products and services combined with the reservation
5. Time savings for both customers and accommodations, especially if we add the use of a Channel Manager

How to integrate a Booking Engine into your website

Now that you understand what is a Booking Engine, it’s time to see the possibilities and the areas of application of these booking systems. Accommodations that make the far-sighted choice to equip themselves with a Booking Engine can receive direct reservations using :

• A registration form through which visitors will ask for availability
• A “book now” button placed in a visible and highly clickable place on the website
• Through social networks such as Facebook (Meta)
• Create a dedicated booking page on your website

How to choose the best Booking Engine: the 5 essential characteristics

It has to ensure a simple and intuitive booking experience

A Booking Engine should offer an easy, fast and intuitive booking experience. In particular, the check-out phase should offer an excellent experience to prevent abandonment rates (just like in e-commerce). The most important aspects to check are responsiveness, or optimization for mobile devices, and the loading and running speed of the check-out page, which, if too long, can wear customers out and lead them to turn to the competition.

Possibility of customization

The possibility of customizing and personalizing your booking engine is another crucial aspect of choosing the best booking engine on the market. Flexibility and adaptation allow you to meet all the requirements of potential customers, moving from a one-to-many to a one-to-one model. In fact, a booking engine is a real business card that must reflect the brand identity of your accommodation.

The most important possibilities when choosing a Booking Engine are:

• • Possibility to edit the CSS code to conform to the look & feel of your website
  • Multilingual options to expand your audience and open up your market to as many customers as possible
  • Possibility of accepting foreign currencies and integration with Payment Gateway to automate the entire payment process, receiving payments and sending invoices directly from your site.

Promo and Upselling

A strategy to increase sales and profits in the hotel and hospitality industry includes the ability to offer tailor-made promotions for specific customers and the availability of upselling solutions and additional services to improve the customer experience and at the same time increase profits of your accommodation.

In a recent study written by Expedia Group, we even read that 50% of travelers are more likely to book an extra night if a discount on their room is offered.

Possibility of integration with third-party software

The efficiency of a Booking Engine also depends on its ability to communicate with the other tools and instruments that make up your technical property management set-up.

The most important connections for a booking engine are with tools such as:

• Channel Manager and PMS – In order for your prices and availabilities displayed on the booking engine to be seen in all your distribution channels accurately and equally, your Booking Engine must be fully compatible with the Channel Manager you use. That’s why – although the opposite is possible – it is preferable to choose a Channel Manager and a Booking Engine that are supplied by the same provider. And the use of a Channel Manager is a must for accommodation providers: five or more channels get up to 50% more bookings than those that are simply connected to one or two channels. (also read our in-depth analysis if you don’t know what a Channel Manager is).
• Analytics and Social Media
• Metasearch – A Metasearch is a platform that collects information on prices and availability of accommodations. Metasearch (such as Trivago, Google Hotel Ads or Tripadvisor) allow potential customers to compare all the offers present on different online sales channels, and represent a very important connection for a booking engine. In fact, the way travelers search for hotels today is changing rapidly. Almost three quarters of travelers use meta search engines in their hotel search process!

Security

The last aspect to evaluate the efficiency and quality of a Booking Engine is its security. For this reason, the booking engine should always serve HTTPS protected urls with an up-to-date SSL certificate. In addition, the provider of the Booking Engine should make it compliant with the PCI DSS and SCA guidelines.

Why to choose Octorate Booking Engine

If you are now convinced of the advantages of using a Booking Engine, and now that you have identified the best characteristics for choosing one, you are probably thinking about who to contact to include one on your website. Let’s explain one point. For the features we have seen in the previous paragraph, the best Booking Engines are not for free, given the complexity of the services offered.

The Octorate Booking Engine is one of the most demanded booking engines because it incorporates all the features indicated in the paragraph on how to choose the best Booking Engine, at the most attractive prices on the market.

Have a look at some of its main features and see yourself how you can fully customise the management of the reservations of your accommodations:

• PCI-DSS level 1 compliant
• Credit card bookings
• Automatic booking form with guest language recognition
• Customization of Online Booking colors and booking forms
• Options Management (automatic reopening of availability)
• Tableau of reservations which can be exported to Excel©.
• Joomla, WordPress, Drupal and all the main CMS compatibility
• Virtual Rooms and Non-Refundable Prices
• Restrictions (Minimum stay and closure on arrival)
• Ticket Assistance
• Childcare services
• Tourist tax
• Receipts Generation and Management
• Interactive Map of Events, Weather Forecast and Facebook Plugin
• Booking Engine for Restaurants integrated with Reserve with Google
  

Curious? Good. To start receiving your direct bookings now, fill in the form below to start using the Booking Engine and the whole Octorate suite for free, for 14 days!

Frequently asked questions

What is a Booking Engine?

A Booking Engine is an online booking software, which allows accommodations to receive reservations directly on their website (we therefore talk about “direct reservations”), turning them into a real sales channel.

What is a Booking Engine used for?

The main advantage of having a Booking Engine on one’s own website is that it allows the accommodations to receive direct bookings, without the commissions applied by the intermediary service. More generally, here are other advantages of the Booking Engine:

• Higher margin of profit for accommodations
• Higher conversion rate
• More security in online transactions
• Possibility of selling products and services linked to the reservation
• Time saving for both customers and accommodations, especially when combined with the use of a Channel Manager

How to include a Booking Engine in your website?

Accommodations which have a Booking Engine can include it on their website:

• In a registration form through which guests will ask for availability
• Using the “book now” button
• Through social networks such as Facebook (Meta)
• In a specific booking page on your website.

What are the features to choose the best Booking Engine?

There are five main characteristics for choosing a professional booking engine:

• It has to ensure an intuitive and easy booking experience
• Customization possibilities, including:
• Possibility to edit the CSS code to conform it to the look & feel of your website.
• Multilingual options to widen your audience and open your market to as many customers as possible
• Possibility of accepting foreign currencies and integration with Payment Gateway to automate the entire payment process and receive payments and send invoices directly from your site.
• Ability to reserve tailor-made promotions for specific customers and availability to offer additional solutions and services (upselling)
• Compatibility with third-party software, such as Channel Manager, PMS, Analytics, Social Media and Metasearch
• It has to be reliable