Over the years, I have been doing homestay design and construction, contact with a large number of homestay owners, the above three sentences, basically every homestay owner has asked me during the design and construction.
How to sell the homestay is the biggest challenge faced by many novice homestay owners.
In fact, to use a more professional term to answer, is to do a good job in the online and offline operations of the homestay at the same time.
However, the homestay is a non-standard accommodation product, the routine, the means are numerous but can not be universal, there is basically no standard answer, but I can give you a system to sort out the mistakes that novices often make, avoid some detours and fire pits. 、
A. OTA platform operation
OTA is online travel, is the travel e-commerce industry professional terms, such as the common Airbnb (Airbnb), Tujia, Piglet, Hazel, etc. belong to the OTA platform, they all have a ready-made operating model, traffic access and distribution system and so on.
OTA operations generally include listing maintenance, online consultation, event promotions and other work.
Listing maintenance: After the listing is launched to the OTA platform, it improves the exposure ranking of the listing through a series of active operations such as display, keywords, price adjustment, etc., thereby improving the customer reach rate, and then generating consultation and order booking.
Online consultation: Online consultation seems simple, but there are many small indicators such as response rate, response timeliness, single rate, etc., which affect your order volume, and will also touch the details of the rules of the platform (ranking weights, etc.).
Event operation: Each platform has a variety of activities to stimulate user consumption. Participating in these activities will have an exposure bonus and increase traffic, but there will be price adjustments, response timeliness and other requirements. It should be noted that not all activities are optimal solutions, so you are likely to be unable to make ends meet, but you still need to choose according to the actual situation.
B. Self-owned distribution channels
Simply put, it is the sales channels and customer sources that the homestay owner brings. I also mentioned in the previous article that many homestay owners have other industries, have a certain circle of communication, circle of life, these are distribution channels.
C. Self-media marketing channels
The very common Microblog, WeChat, Public Account, Douyin, Kuaishou, etc. all belong to self-media channels. In this regard, there are many great homestay owners, such as "Xishuangbanna Huayang Courtyard", which only has 188w fans on Douyin, and the business can be imagined.
However, self-media is both simple and complex, and the copywriting, materials, editing, promotion, account operation and maintenance, etc. are time-consuming, and the requirements for ability and skills are also very high.
A. Photos are important
In the OTA platform, for customers, the importance of housing introduction, brand copywriting is far less than the photo, if the homestay owner himself is not a photography god, it is recommended to find a professional photographer to set the shooting, this time do not be afraid to spend money.
Professional photographers are generally experienced, and many details are handled well, such as the placement of items, angles, light, etc., which can maximize the beauty and characteristics of the homestay.
But also pay attention to, do not pose for the effect of the "too strong force", otherwise it is difficult for cleaning to restore to a perfect degree in daily life, increase the cleaning workload, and form a negative impression of "buyer show", leaving bad reviews.
B. Pricing should change at any time
Many novices think that the homestay is my investment to start, I want to return the cost within XX years, so the house price adjustment is basically with the mood, according to the feeling, this is very undesirable.
Off-peak seasons, specific events, listing policies, competitive reactions, etc. will all have a huge impact on price adjustments, and you need to constantly try and make mistakes and adjustments.
C. Online communication
Online communication (which can be understood as customer service + sales) is a professional job, not a typing can do, need to be online 24/7, and maintain efficient, affinity communication.
As mentioned above, the response rate, the timeliness of response will affect your ranking and rating at the same time, as well as the success rate (number of orders/inquiries), the praise rate, the rejection rate, the default rate, etc., which need to be considered in many ways.
Provide a tip, the owner of the homestay can prepare a hundred questions and answers in advance, including housing introduction, water and electricity facilities, location orientation, traffic, surrounding attractions, dining and entertainment, etc., it is best to be detailed to the extent that you can copy and paste, which can greatly improve your communication efficiency.
D, maintain the mentality, do not blindly follow
At this point, 99% of newbies will be confused, the homestay has just started, looking at the ranking of others first, the amount of order brush brush, it is easy to explode the mentality, crazy online multiple platforms, synchronous operation.
However, it should be noted that online operation looks simple, and it actually requires long-term accumulation and summary, and the rules, crowds, and attributes of each platform are different, and your energy and ability are limited.
Unless you have a strong team to fight separately, don't fire all over the platform, it's easy to futile.
A. Tenant reception
Many homestay owners neglect to provide guided reception services for customers due to lack of energy/personality preferences, and guests visit by themselves, and there is no attentive service in the face-to-face reception.
Generally speaking, the pricing of the homestay is higher than that of the hotel of the same grade, but the service system is not as complete as the hotel, if the enthusiasm of the homestay owner is low and the service is poor, bad reviews are very common.
To provide you with another idea, most of the guests of the homestay are out-of-town tourists, if you are recommended by a large number of locals on the way to visit (after the room has been booked), the customer's experience will be doubled.
Therefore, it is a very effective means to have a good relationship with nearby businesses, or to form commercial cooperation.
B. Cleaning is the top priority
It sounds very abnormal, but cleaning is the most important part of the offline operation of the homestay, even more important than the soft decoration, not just cleaning, changing bedding so simple.
Many homestay owners like to lay a good-looking carpet in the room (usually more than a dozen square meters), but just removing the hair in the blanket needs to be repeatedly glued with a roller 5 times, if it is a light-colored carpet, basically it will not take long to dismantle and replace it.
Customers staying in the homestay have a certain pursuit of quality of life, a lot of fine to the decorative ornaments of the dust, towels, gargle cup water stains, bathroom mirror face, shower glass hem will affect the overall experience of the room, if not done well, it is easy to lead to bad reviews, refunds.
At present, there are many ways to clean the homestay, there are their own hands, there are property management, there are self-employed cleaning, there are looking for professional cleaning companies...
There is only one goal, to pursue more detailed details.