Booking your large vacation rental home during COVID-19
As the state of North Carolina begins to slowly open, we have seen an astounding influx of reservations so far this month with an increase in last-minute reservations. Over the last week, nearly 40% of our new reservations made are arriving within the next 2 weeks. Based on research and booking patterns, we expect for our reservations to follow this same last minute booking pattern. We believe this trend will continue as people are waiting a bit longer to commit to a vacation with the uncertain times we are currently facing.
One important part of our business that we are closely monitoring is the bookings for our larger vacation rental homes. We have been intensely following the booking patterns and researching the booking trends for large vacation rentals along the North Carolina coast.
Since almost all states are restricting gathering in groups of more than 10, we have seen that our vacation rentals that are 6 bedrooms or larger are struggling to book weeks that we would normally be booking now.
Our recommendation is that we negotiate rates for available weeks in June, July, and August so that we can book those weeks with guests who would traditionally book a smaller home who may be willing to pay a little more for a larger home while they don’t actually need that much space.
If you would be interested in discussing your rates for your open weeks please reach out to our property management team so we can work together to increase your overall income for 2020.