Click. Amsterdam

Click. 2023: Key insights for vacation rental partners

 | Save
Click. 2023 offered vacation rental partners a look behind the scenes at some of the changes—from industry trends to new technology—that could impact their performance. Here, we look at some of the highlights

Booking.com leaders and external experts recently took to the stage in Amsterdam and Miami at our annual partner conference, Click. During the event, they shared some of the opportunities open to vacation rental partners, along with some of the work we’ve been doing to help turn these opportunities into bookings.

Here are some of the key insights from across the sessions. Prefer to watch the video? Click here

Three key areas of improvement since Click. 2022

Last year, partner feedback broadly fell into three areas: the traveler experience, the partner experience, and property risk. At this year’s event, we reflected on some of the work we’ve done to address it – and revealed what we’ve got planned for the year to come. 

1) A better traveler experience
 

What we’ve done since last year:

Feedback last year often said we have too much focus on hotels. As such, we’re placing a much greater emphasis on vacation rentals. This continued investment makes sure travelers are aware that vacation rentals are not only an option on our platform, but also that it could be the right option for them.

This involves analyzing customer behavior and offering the right suggestions at the right touch points, such as adding a checkbox allowing travelers to indicate they’re looking for “entire places.” By doing this, we’re able to help customers find and consider vacation rentals where they might not have before.

Our research also shows that most guests see different property types as fairly interchangeable, and are often flexible about the type of property they book. As a result, we’re moving from a fixed property type for each listing to a more flexible approach to make sure your property appears in a greater number of relevant search results so the right guests can find you.

Homes breakout session


We’re also continuing to adapt our creative campaigns to highlight the benefits of vacation rental properties. One recent insight, for example, is that a large outdoor space is a big reason travelers choose alternative accommodations, so we’re highlighting this feature to reflect the joy of outdoor space that such properties offer.

Of course, another part of capturing demand is getting more customers into the Booking.com ecosystem. We’ve been investing in large-scale brand campaigns aiming to generate interest—and bookings—with vacation rentals forming a key part of those campaigns.

What we’re planning this year:

We know reviews are a key deciding factor for our travelers. This year, we’ll do even more to help vacation rental partners gain customers’ trust by sourcing External Review Scores faster – ideally within the first week of a property joining the platform. 

We’re also making our Genius loyalty program more tailored to vacation rentals by piloting a new cleaning fee waiver. This will help you better attract valuable Genius level 2 and 3 guests and further boost your property’s visibility.

2) More peace of mind for our partners
 

What we’ve done since last year:

Feedback from partners last year also expressed concerns about the risk of property damage. We’ve taken steps to address this, including piloting Request-To-Book functionality. This will give you even more control over your property, with the freedom to choose whether it can be instantly booked, or if you need to accept or decline booking requests.

We’re currently piloting this new reservation model for a limited set of new properties in Australia, France, and the US. After the pilot, we plan to scale globally.

In addition, we’ve also piloted a Damage Program, where we handle damage payments on your behalf. You provide evidence of the damage – we take care of the rest. We’ve now scaled this program globally (excluding Brazil) to all properties on Payments by Booking.com.

What we’re planning this year:

This year, we’re enabling new ways to opt in to the Damage Program at a group level and via connectivity providers, which will help reduce some of the manual workload for partners with multiple properties.

Homes breakout session at Click. 2023


3) A better partner experience
 

What we’ve done since last year:

Being able to manage a business on the partner level instead of property level was another recurring theme.

To increase portfolio performance, we launched Market Insights on the group Extranet and scaled the Market Insights API to all connectivity providers. Put simply, we offer you a lot of data, but we also want to give you the context and ideas to put that data to use. That means, for example, instead of just saying family demand will grow in the coming months (data), we’ll also suggest you implement a family rate plan to capitalize on that demand (insight).

We’ve also helped new properties get their first booking faster by providing actionable advice on the most impactful settings to improve their pricing, availability, rate plans, and content. 

What we’re planning for this year:

This year, we’ll provide even more actionable market insights to help you improve your portfolio performance.

For larger partners, we’re also easing some of the operational overhead regarding payments. Some of the upcoming initiatives include:

  • Faster payouts – starting in European countries, we now pay out the day after check-in, making it easier for you to keep a healthy cash flow.
  • Bulk onboarding – larger partners in the US and Canada can now onboard multiple properties to Payments by Booking.com in a single click, and manage payout settings in bulk. We’re planning to expand this functionality globally later this year. 
  • Easy-to-track cash flow – we’ll further streamline your payments operations by rolling out new functionality such as a monthly financial overview, mapping out all financial outflows in a single place, and offering downloadable reports.
     
Click. 2023
Discover more Click. 2023 insights

Want to see more sessions from Click. 2023? You can watch them here on the Partner Hub. 

Watch now

What do you think of this page?

Takeaway
  • Partner feedback last year broadly fell into three areas. We’ve done a lot to address this feedback in the past year, and have even more planned for the year to come
  • We’re placing a greater emphasis on vacation rentals both within the platform and in our customer marketing efforts to better highlight your properties
  • From new filters to greater flexibility, we’re making it easier than ever for travelers to discover alternative accommodations on our platform 
  • From streamlining payments to protecting your properties, we’re continuing to focus on how our processes can work best for you