Tip To Get More Direct Bookings For Your Short Term Rental

[Bailey Kramer]

The easiest way to get a direct booking is by having repeat guests. 

When they stay at your property, gather their email and phone # and retarget them to come back and book with you directly. You can gather their info through your channel manager if they put in their information into the booking platform or through the guests accessing your guidebook. 

Let Airbnb and VRBO do the heavy lifting on the front end. Then take the guest off platform for their future visits. 

[Michael Baum]

So the terms of service don't really talk about return visitors that I am aware of. So I doubt that it violates the TOS @John Carbone. I think that a violation would be if you take the booking off the platform before they actually booked.

I get a few of those types of requests every year on both platforms. Someone wants to save some cashola on the fees by booking direct. Right now I don't book direct so I don't take them up on it. I have thought about doing more direct bookings, but so far AirBNB and VRBO have been good to us and it just works.

I will say that I do have some return guests that I book direct, but that has happened only twice. We do get some return guests, but most are brand new.