Something Just Opened Up: Filling Last-Minute Vacancies

We’ve talked a fair bit in this blog about how to drive more traffic to your vacation rental listings and maximize the chances of a booking. That, in itself, is quite an undertaking. But let’s say you’ve done everything right and checked all the boxes, and you’ve got a booking. Good for you! But now, for whatever reason, your guest has to cancel. What to do? 

Time can be short. To maximize your revenues, don’t just assume you need to fill a two-week vacancy with a two-week booking. The data suggests that quite a few travelers are looking for short-term rentals, and it’s safe to say that spontaneous bookings are suited to short getaways. Even if you fill part of it, it’s very likely still worth your while. 

So, let’s take it a step further and see what we might do to actually fill a last-minute vacancy, especially during low or shoulder seasons when the chances of an 11th-hour booking are lower. ​

Tip 1: Run a Special With the OTAs 
OTAs make it pretty easy to adjust pricing on the fly. As soon as you find out a property is suddenly available, consider running a special.
 
The internet is full of bargain hunters looking for last-minute deals. You need to be where they are, dangling a carrot. Make no mistake: They go to the OTAs. 

But you need to know what a booking is worth to you, and how much margin you can afford to give away with a discount. If you know that it costs you at least $100 just to open the doors (e.g. cleaning or resupply costs), then you’ll know what you can afford to discount and how long a stay makes it worth your while. If you usually charge, say, $229 a night, then maybe a drop to $179 a night gets you a decent margin and a quick booking.  

But it all depends on the market, the length of the stay, and the time of year. If it’s low season, then you may have to go lower still. Only you can know if it’s worth the trouble. 

If you don’t have a dynamic pricing strategy, running a special might make you consider it. Rate is the easiest lever to pull, and with dynamic pricing you can optimize both occupancy and revenue. Lexicon makes it dead simple to do this, along with expert advice and recommendations on which levers to pull and when. 

Tip 2: Pick Up the Phone or Send an Email 
If you’ve been in the business for a while, then you probably have some established relationships with recurring guests. Maybe the Maitlands come for two weeks every July, or Acme, Inc. has their annual retreat there. If you have regular guests and are good about capturing their data (see previous blog, “Filling in the Blanks of Guest Data”), then a booking may be just a phone call away. 

Say you’re the regular guest, Mrs. Maitland, and your phone rings. 

“Hi, Mrs. Maitland. This is Ken from Wonderland Vacation Rentals. How are you?” 

“Oh, Ken, of course! What can I do for you?” 

“Well, we had a last-minute cancellation this weekend and I was wondering if you might be interested  in a couple nights at half price this Friday and Saturday.  I wanted to try you first because I know how much you guys like to fish and I hear the walleye are biting.” 

Now, will a regular guest who only comes once or twice per year want to change plans late in the game just to save a few bucks? Probably not. But just making the call is a win-win. Most guests will be delighted that you thought of them in that situation, helping ensure their continued patronage and positive impression of you. It’s not like a hotel would do it, right? 

A second audience to try are just friends or family, at least if they’re not so close that they’d expect to stay for free. Your mileage may vary. 

Tip 3: Dig Into the Data 
If you have the time and interest, you may be able to improve the chances of a phone call or email (see Tip 2) working. 

Bargain hunters are often looking for last-minute deals, like deciding on a Thursday afternoon that they want to get out of town for the weekend. These people have probably stayed with you before, and may again if you reached out. 

Assuming you have both booking-date and stay-date data, either through your own database or through the OTAs, you should be able to see what guests made their last booking just a few days prior to the stay. Just by that data point alone, you may be able to identify a short list of potential guests who are comfortable turning on a dime. 

If you call them but don’t have a relationship established, briefly explain why you’re calling them: “I saw you’d booked with us late in the game last time, so I wanted to let you know about a vacancy that just opened up. If you can make it, I can offer you a great deal.” 

As with frequent guests or friends, that extra touch scores valuable bonus points for you and your brand, whether they book or not. 

Tip 4: Use Multiple Channels 
Lexicon’s dynamic pricing tools can help you know what your competitors are doing and how low you should have to go to fill a last-minute vacancy without giving the room away. Plus, with a knowledgeable and responsive channel manager, you can push out specials to all the OTAs at once. You can make do without it, but it will take you some time. Again, depending on your strategy, it may or may not be worth the effort. 

Florida Rental By Owners has a thorough post on this very topic, which gets pretty in depth on everything you can do to fill a sudden vacancy. 

You probably know how to set up your rates, define high and low seasons, and manage most other aspects of your property listings through the OTAs. Each one is different and some are easier than others. We like Booking.com’s Pulse app, which makes it pretty easy to tweak pricing on the go when you have a last-minute vacancy. In many ways, it’s easier than doing it through the web. Therefore, one tactic may simply be to lower the price and see what happens. There’s a whole subset of the travel audience that’s waiting to pounce on a bargain. With luck, that could be all it takes. 

Another option is to reach out to regional VR/hotel aggregators that offer a last-minute section on their website, like this one for the Oregon and Washington coast or this one for Florida. Not only might it turn out to be an easy and relatively cheap way to advertise a vacancy, but it may turn out to be another productive channel for your regular listings. 

Finally, don’t forget the power of social media. If you have a decent number of Facebook or Twitter followers, an enticing little post might be all it takes to make the phone ring. Anything that feels exclusive and temporary, like a last-minute rate, is just the kind of thing that triggers FOMO (fear of missing out) among social media users.  

A nice graphic (e.g. something slapped together in Canva) to accompany your post along the lines of “Special Deal: This Weekend Only” or the classic “Flash Sale” will turn a few heads, especially if you’re throwing something in like a boat rental or a free round of golf somewhere, which leads us to...

Tip 5: Ply Your Network 
You have relationships, suppliers, and partners who might be able to help you out. Use them! Let’s say, for example, you have a one-week booking that falls through just a few days before they’re supposed to arrive. It happens all the time. Well, one of those partners of yours will also miss out on the revenue that guest could’ve brought in.  

Imagine your guests planned to play golf all week and now the course has some tough weekday tee times to fill. Maybe you can help each other out by arranging an ad-hoc package, which you can then advertise on social media or your website. A $10/day Facebook boost or ad that drives people to call or book direct will probably still save you money and spare you the trouble of changing your prices everywhere if you don’t have a channel manager. 

Summary 
Last-minute cancellations are a fact of life for vacation rentals. However, if you have a strategy for last-minute bookings and are willing to invest a bit of time in executing that strategy, it can really pay off. 

There are a few caveats here. If you’re a premium property and charge accordingly, offering last-minute deals too often might erode the perception of that premium experience. Make it a habit, and your guests may get wise to the fact that they can save a bundle by waiting it out.  

On the flip side, a last-minute campaign can bring new, and often younger, guests into your sphere who might be blown away by the additional value a vacation rental offers over a hotel. That can mean more raving fans from a broader demographic. Remember, a last-minute booking might turn into a longtime guest, and that’s worth more to you than you might lose by having the occasional flash sale.