How to increase your direct bookings with your ratings & reviews?

Ratings and reviews are essential in order to give future guests confidence and to persuade them to rent your houses or apartments. In addition, ratings and reviews improve your SEO: they make you more visible on Google and mean that you appear higher up on search results. On top of that, a collection of positive reviews can contribute to the generation of a virtuous cycle which further increases the value and the demand of your vacation rentals.

However, without doubt, what we are telling you is something that you already know. Think about how you, yourself, act. As a property manager, I’m sure that when you have been a consumer yourself, you would never risk renting an apartment without reading the ratings and reviews of previous guests. In reality, you act and behave like the majority of careful consumers with their money. To be precise, according to a study carried out by Bright Local, 98% of consumers do the same as you and read what other people have written before making up their mind to complete a purchase.

Another study by Power Reviews highlights the importance of ratings and reviews. It shows us that for 94% of consumers, when it comes to actually making the final decision to buy, the reviews are the most important factor they have in mind. The reviews, for the majority of consumers, are more important than the brands.

Why trust the experiences and opinions of others?

But, should you trust reviews? Without doubt, yes. Trusting the experiences of other customers has been shown to be the best way to help us spend our money wisely and avoid nasty surprises. Especially when it is so important to make the correct decision when spending our hard earned money or something potentially even more valuable: our time.

When it comes to vacation rentals, everyone is aware that not only is there a great expense to be incurred, but also that a bad decision could jeopardize or spoil the enjoyment of our rare and precious free time.

Therefore, when we want to rent a vacation home, it has become even more important to go to the reviews section and read them thoroughly before making an informed decision, taking into account the reviews of others.

The majority of people act prudently when it comes to choosing vacation lodgings and according to the findings of a TripAdvisor survey, 72% of guests would never reserve a place to stay that didn’t have any reviews submitted. Put simply, a lack of reviews creates a lack of confidence.

Moreover, people take the reviews of other guests very seriously when booking an apartment or house to rent. They take them so seriously that, according to data provided by Bright Local, many people require an average of 40 submissions in order for them to have faith that the average score shown on a given website is accurate. What’s more, not every single opinion counts either; they have to be recent. Statuslabs determined that 77% of users don’t trust reviews more than 3 months old.

The distrust of the potential customer goes even further than that. As Bright Local remind us, 70% of consumers don’t settle for just reading the reviews on one website; they consult various opinion pages before taking the decision to buy.

Embracing ratings and reviews increases the profitability of a vacation rental

Obviously, if you are a property manager, it is useful to include the ratings and reviews of your guests on your website. If you don’t, you are losing out on money. Incorporating the experiences of your clients, assuming the average ratings are high, leads to immediate benefits in terms of an increase in confidence and demand for your vacation homes. Advantages also arise in the medium term, with the possibility of benefiting from charging higher prices. You already know the law of supply and demand, people are always wiling to pay more for in-demand products.

A host of ratings and reviews that stand out and result in your future guests believing that that your vacation rentals tie-in perfectly with what they desire from their stay, can increase your conversion rate by up to 250%.

This, as mentioned earlier, is in the short term. In the medium term, you will earn more money. According to a study about the ratings and reviews of thousands of guests carried out by Travel Pulse, these customers were willing to pay 35% more for a dwelling with an average score of 4.4 compared to another with only 3.9. Take note.

References:

1. «Local Consumer Review Survey 2022». BrightLocal, 2022.
2. «Survey: The Ever-Growing Power of Reviews». PowerReviews, 2021.
3. «2016 Vacation Rental Survey: 10 Insights For Property Managers». TripAdvidor, 2015.
4. «The Impact of Review Volume on Conversion: Is More Really Better?». PowerReviews, 2021
5. «Study Shows Hotel Price and Ratings More Important Than Brand Name». TravelPulse, 2019