Setting the right price is essential for attracting bookings while making sure you’re driving the most revenue for your business. Research shows that nearly 60% of travellers consider pricing the most important factor when choosing a holiday rental[6]. Some of the top Vrbo tips for owners include:

• Use market data for pricing: Tools like Escapia’s Market Rates help you set competitive prices based on real-time data from Vrbo. Market Rates analyses billions of data points like real-time supply and demand, seasonal awareness, historical listing performance, booking lead times, holidays, average rates of similar properties, and more. Escapia is the only holiday rental management software that currently offers Market Rates directly in the software system.
• Offer discounts and flexible payment options: Length-of-stay discounts and split payment schedules can make your listings more appealing to potential guests. You can easily set these offerings in Escapia to help you convert more lookers into bookers. 

Flexible cancellation policies are highly preferred by travellers, especially in the post-pandemic landscape. Here’s how to promote your Vrbo and Stayz listing for better performance:

• Update your policies to attract more bookings: Properties with more relaxed cancellation policies see a significant increase in bookings. It’s easy to update your policies in Escapia to provide more peace of mind to travellers.

CASE STUDY: Cancellation policies can drive real results. Evolve Vacation Rentals saw a 26% increase in booking and 53% increase in revenue per listing after a test of moving from 30% non-refundable deposit to offering a free cancellation period.^[7]

Becoming a Vrbo Premier Host offers numerous benefits, including an automatic rise in search rank positions and priority support from Vrbo, Stayz and Escapia teams. Focus on these key areas to gain status:

• Make sure you're up to date on the latest criteria: Vrbo recently updated the program requirements in January 2024 to ensure Premier Host standards are the most exclusive and desirable to travellers. What does premier host mean on Vrbo and what are the latest requirements? You can learn more here.

• Maintain high standards: Ensure you’re adhering to the recently updated requirements with a booking acceptance rate of 95% or higher, an average review rating of 4.4 stars or higher, and a partner-initiated cancellation rate of 1% or lower to reap the benefits. 

• Send multiple review requests: Get more guest reviews by supplementing Vrbo’s review requests with additional traveller communications. It’s easy to setup automated email and text messages from templates in Escapia’s Communications Hub.

• Select the right cancellation reason: When you have a cancellation, it’s extremely important to make sure you indicate whether the cancellation was initiated by the traveller or the owner. Escapia provides users with a drop-down menu of cancellation reasons and recently released a new feature with clearer options to make it even easier.

Ensuring all your properties are listed and active on Vrbo and Stayz is fundamental. You may not realise that all your properties aren’t live on Vrbo and could be missing out on valuable bookings with quality guests. Follow these guidelines:

• Regularly monitor listings: Escapia makes it easy with the new Vrbo listing status page right in the software that shows you the listing link and whether the listing is active or inactive on Vrbo and Stayz. You can quickly check the status of your properties and monitor if there are any unexpected changes to your Vrbo and Stayz listings. If the property is inactive, you can see the reasons why to quickly troubleshoot and minimise the down time of your listings, so you don’t miss any bookings. 

• Maximise inventory exposure: Make sure every property you manage is listed on Vrbo and Stayz to fully capitalise on the quality guests Vrbo and Stayz provides to help increase your bottom line. 

CASE STUDY: Live listings on Vrbo drive real results. Surfside Realty Company increased live Vrbo listings from 85 to 243 in the first quarter of 2024. With these added listings, their revenue hit 81% of 2023’s total revenue in the first 5 months of 2024.^[8]

Successfully implementing these strategies is easier with the right software. Escapia provides the market’s most robust solution for larger holiday rental property managers, and property managers that use Escapia perform better on Vrbo.