Christmas holidays are here! The most important time of the year for many people. The time to go on holiday, or to get together with the whole family to have a good time.
If you are a vacation rental manager, Christmas is also a very special time of the year that you have to take advantage of. In the middle of the low season, it’s the perfect time to get new bookings and activity in your accommodation.
However, if you want to make the most of the festive season and make the most of it, you need to do your bit. You’ll want to create a festive and Christmassy atmosphere for your guests, but what can you do to do it tastefully and without being tacky?
In this article we offer you our top 6 tips to help you get the most out of your holiday rental this Christmas.
6 tips to boost my holiday rental this Christmas
1-Change your decoration
The first tip is the most obvious and the most common. The first thing you should do to adapt your home to the Christmas season is to adjust the decoration of your accommodation to the Christmas spirit.
Ideally, you should start organising the decorations from the end of November or the beginning of December, so that you have time to organise all the decorations, and make changes before the first bookings.
Some ideas to adapt the decoration of the accommodation could be for example:
- Add a Christmas tree: A Christmas tree can bring a Christmassy atmosphere to the accommodation, and make guests feel more at home.
- Add Christmas decorations: Incorporating Christmas lights can add a cosy and festive touch to the accommodation.
- Christmas details: You could incorporate the Three Wise Men somewhere in the accommodation or a Christmas cot for some cultures. Create a Christmas composition on the dining table, decorative wreath in the entrance hall, etc…
Learn how to select the right colours to paint your holiday accommodation this Christmas.
2-Create a welcome kit to mark the occasion.
The welcome kit is one of the most popular techniques in the holiday rental industry today, and it has already proven to be very successful. If you don’t already offer it in your accommodation it is the ideal time to start, or if you already offer it, it is important to adapt it to the Christmas season.
A holiday kit for holiday accommodation should include a variety of elements related to the Christmas spirit. It will allow you to enhance your guests’ experience and make their stay more comfortable and enjoyable. Some ideas of items that could be included in a Christmas kit are:
- Christmas gifts: e.g. chocolates, wine, sweets, to welcome you during the Christmas season.
- Kitchen items: such as coffee, tea, and sugar for guests to make hot drinks during the Christmas season.
- Wrapping paper and tape: for guests to wrap their gifts during the Christmas season.
- Other alternatives: If you are lucky enough to be located next to businesses that offer Christmas products, don’t hesitate to create a special basket, offering some of their products.
If you want to learn how to improve your guests’ experience, you may be interested in this article: 12 simple tips to improve your guests’ experience.
3-Adapt your prices
If your accommodation is located in an attractive location for Christmas, for example in the mountains or in cities where Christmas is particularly well known (e.g. Stockholm), it is not unreasonable to increase the prices for the most popular dates (Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve) accordingly.
However, there are also intermediate periods that are naturally less attractive. If you want to receive guests at your property during these days, you will have to reduce your prices accordingly.
So don’t hesitate to analyse your competitors’ prices, and adapt to them. It is very important to analyse and change your prices in order to make the most of specific periods of the year, such as Christmas.
Some tips to be a competitively priced accommodation.
4-Create a special Christmas holiday pack
Offering a Christmas pack is a very good way of upselling during the Christmas season. Many accommodations manage to increase their profits between 10% and 30% on each booking. So don’t hesitate to create specific Upselling offers for this Christmas holidays.
If you have online check-in tools like Chekin, or your own website, it won’t be difficult for you to offer your guests a Christmas package. You can easily propose to your guests to turn their stay into a real experience with a “Christmas pack”, in which you can include:
- Reductions at local businesses, such as a chocolate shop.
- Christmas activities, such as ice skating.
- Guided tours of the area.
- Dinner at a local restaurant.
- Bottles of wine
- Breakfast delivery
- Etc…
If you are still not sure what Upselling is, don’t worry, find out what Upselling is for hotels and holiday rentals.
5-Harden the house rules, for the Christmas holidays
The Christmas holidays and the end of the year can be a bit dangerous for owners of holiday accommodation. Indeed, during this period, many guests take advantage of the lax rules of the accommodation to throw big parties, which can be a real nightmare for the owners.
To avoid these common situations, we advise you to check and update the rules of your holiday rental before accepting any Christmas bookings. To avoid any problems, make sure your guests sign the house rules before they start their stay at the property.
Not all guests are like this, and they represent a minority, but better safe than sorry. So don’t hesitate to update and tighten (without extremes) the house rules.
Some online travel agencies have tightened their policies during the holidays. Find out everything you need to know about Airbnb’s new permanent holiday ban.
6-Update your profile on OTAs for the Christmas holidays
If you are going to apply some of the tips we have presented in this article, it is very important that you do not forget to advertise them in all your sales channels.
You probably have your accommodation advertised on some kind of online travel agencies (Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, etc) or you have your own website. In any case, make sure you update your titles and descriptions on all platforms, highlighting the extent to which your accommodation is suitable for the Christmas holidays.
Don’t forget to update the photos of your accommodation, with all the changes made for Christmas – a picture is worth a thousand!
Still not sure what exactly OTAs are? No problem, read our article on what OTAs are and how they work.
Conclusions
Although Christmas holidays will be in the middle of the low season, if you work hard and make the most of it, you have the opportunity to achieve a significant increase in your revenue and accommodation bookings. The key is to innovate, and always try to provide the best experience for your guests – there’s no secret!
So start now to apply our tips to prepare your accommodation for the Christmas holidays.
If you want more tips for this Christmas season, don’t miss this article: Tips to quickly rent a holiday home for Christmas.
