advice on advertising

rlhvillas · Post by **rlhvillas** » Sun Apr 04, 2004 6:33 pm

Could fellow property owners provide their opinions on advertising their accommodation on this site. Do you find you get much interest? We already have our own website and have advertised on Daltons but this site seems the logical place to promote our villas. Independant and unbiased advice would be much appreciated.

Guest too · Post by **Guest too** » Mon Apr 05, 2004 12:17 pm

With every respect to this site - which I think is generally excellent - I think you would do better using a site such as www.holiday-rentals.com which has an good reputation, has 20+ searchable criteria on line and will give you significantly more coverage, I would suggest, than this site and for a similar cost.

Good luck!

guestt · Post by **guestt** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 7:51 am

Hi

We advertise our villa on holiday rentals but are not entirely happy with their service. We have a villa outside carvoeiro but THEY decided that it was in Ferragudo and would not let us advertise under Carvoeiro. They aren't even out here. Then when we found that there were plenty of Ferragudo and lagoa villas advertised under Carvoeiro they were not interested.

Also Holiday Rentals has so many villas on their site that the competition is too great and some advertisers price their villas so low that you can't get a look in. Plus they seem to be able to charge you what they want when they want. You now have to pay to put a special offer on your site.
Bunch of prima donnas if you want my opinion.

Guest too · Post by **Guest too** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 12:55 pm

guestt wrote: Holiday Rentals has so many villas on their site that the competition is too great and some advertisers price their villas so low that you can't get a look in.

Isn’t this known as market forces?

With all due respect, the geographic section in which your advert is shown is down to the way in which you set it up.

tricky · Post by **tricky** » Sun Apr 11, 2004 10:22 pm

I have a bit of inside knowledge of this, being in Advertising & Marketing.
and whilst I use the CVO site, I've not to date received much response.
I get much more from a local ad in our local newspaper, and I frequently place the ad in other regions also. Don't dismiss cards in post offices etc, as they are always low cost and something may come of them. We've just come back from CVO and have been told by a friend who runs a letting website that rentals are down as much as 60% this year.
Always maintain your database and mail it a few times a year with
special offers or current availability. Please let me know if you have any other ideas.

Good luck

rlhvillas · Post by **rlhvillas** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 5:43 pm

thanks for the advice so far - we have had some good response from our website and through Daltons and are a little reluctant to part with any further major advertising funds just yet. we may try some local press advertising to see what response we get. a few friends have also put up some A4 flyers for us on notice boards at work and on a few company intranets and we have had a few enquiries so its looking promising. good luck to you all with your rentals and thanks again

alida1 · Post by **alida1** » Thu Apr 15, 2004 10:50 pm

Hi,

I came across this new website www.algarve4me.com where you can advertise your rentals for free - at least for the time being.

Hope this helps!
Alida

rlhvillas · Post by **rlhvillas** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 1:17 pm

thanks alida1 - I've had a quick look and it seems worth trying - especially for free

BobT · Post by **BobT** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 10:01 pm

Hello Tricky. Will that be a local ad for local people? Tubbs

BobT · Post by **BobT** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 10:30 pm

Hi all. Only our second season, but we can't believe how fortunate we have been. We have our fourth group of the year here right now, and haven't got any availability until October 9th. Only two weeks in May is family and friends, the rest is cleints paying the full price. Never discounted.

We advertise on CVO.com, but do not get much response. Can't understand why as its the logical place to look if you know the town. Most our summer bookings come from Holiday-Rentals.com, and others are from ads in a tennis magazine, and two bookings from the village shop in my mum's village in Sussex. I don't believe that price is a big issue with properties on HR.com, as our prices are higher than most for the size of villa, and location.(But still terrific value). Our ad with Algarve4me.com has not produced one enquiry to date, and their server is so slow that I gave up trying to update my availability tonight.

If you are new and don't have repeat clients, then I think you need to offer something different to differntiate from the mass of villas and apartments available, or otherwise you are just down to price and some good photos.

OK that's my "dois centos"

tricky · Post by **tricky** » Sun Apr 18, 2004 11:02 pm

Hi BobT
Well done on your letting!. Yes I've found the best reponse has been in our local paper in Cheshire, however, when the newspaper made a cock up and put in it another region, (yorkshire) I got lots of reponse also, so it pays to look at your target audience and work out where they live, i.e. where are the golfers and young familes. We've done well for our first year, but have some holes, in April and May for some reason.

Good Luck
Tricky

Alison · Post by **Alison** » Mon Apr 19, 2004 7:06 pm

We advertise on this website and our property is also on our managing agents (Algarvillas) website. We bought last July and have just put in our own pool so, until the pool was finished it was difficult to guarantee the situation to enquiries.

We had a few enquiries from this website in 2003 then loads of enquiries through January and the first week of February this year. Then everything dried up and we have only had the odd one or two enquiries since. With 4 bookings through this website, one through our agents and 7 weeks taken up with family and friends, we have filled the villa from May until early September. We would probably have had more bookings through our agents if they had been able to guarantee the pool would be finished. (Not something one undertakes lightly in Portugal !)

So, we have been pleased with the response from this site and advertising here is relatively cheap compared to some other sites.

alida_luck · Post by **alida_luck** » Fri Apr 23, 2004 10:55 am

I received an email from F2D Accommodation Directory
(www.freetodo.net). They have a special on until the end of the month - 2002 rates!

Here is the important bit from the email:
"
Advertise your vacation accommodation with F2D before the 30th April 2004 and get your next 12 months advertising at 2002 Rates.

Basic Listing at just £12 or US$ 31 or 25 Euros for 12 months
Enhanced Listing with photo at just £36 or US$ 75 or 59 Euros for 12 months
"

Alida