How to Fill Your Calendar with Direct Bookings
Summary
This article discusses strategies for driving direct bookings to your STR business, emphasizing the importance of a healthy mix of direct and OTA bookings. It also covers revenue management routines and the CEO's role in scaling a business. Hosts should focus on building a strong brand presence and implementing effective revenue management practices.
Key Insights
- •It's dangerous to have all your STR hosting business on a site you don’t own.
- •STR revenue management routines involve daily and weekly pricing workflows, reviewing bookings as pricing signals, and analyzing booking windows and pacing.
- •CEOs of STR businesses waste 30 to 50 percent of their time on low-value activities, which becomes more dangerous as businesses grow.
Action Items
- ✓Find out your direct booking marketing score for FREE.Effort: lowImpact: medium
- ✓Rethink priorities and recognize patterns inside your business to identify the true bottlenecks that require CEO-level attention.Effort: mediumImpact: high
- ✓Review every booking to reveal pricing and demand signals.Effort: lowImpact: medium
Tools & Resources
- →Direct Booking Marketing Score: Resources Find Out Your Direct Booking Marketing Score
- →Boostly Podcast: Mark Simpson is the founder of Boostly and the host of The Boostly Podcast.
- →Freewyld Foundry: Learn more about Freewyld Foundry
Watch Out For
- ⚠Being busy does not mean your STR business is progressing.
- ⚠The biggest revenue mistake most STR operators make isn’t their pricing tool… but the lack of a daily and weekly pricing routine.
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