Introduction

Who are we?

We do not believe in “the old fashioned way” of renting out your property via local offline agents. In order to generate the most income for a property, we have developed a marketing strategy for most up to date online possibilities. Nowadays tourists ask for an online and direct way to book their accomodation. We focus on these channels as online booking is the main way of travelling, and will become even more important in the future.

Our young marketing specialists work 7 days a week and have a very good understanding of the dynamic online market. We believe that maintaining a personal connection with an online travel agent is very important. We therefore put a lot of effort in visiting main offices, meeting (offline & online) representatives and collaborating with the other party to create the best possible and profitable strategy.

Reservations

How we get our bookings

At Mondosol we focus on renting out holiday accommodation with an innovative approach with the aim to maximize income in an efficient way. We will take care of the bookings procedure and accountancy involved. We work with an international team based in Europe.

We offer a unique reservations service, combining multiple tools that lead to the following results:

• High occupancy rates
• Streamlined bookings procedure
• Guaranteed payments
• Automated workflow of emails
• Up-to-date accountancy
• High positions in search results on online travel agents
• Maximized income
• Clear overview of all results
• Innovative approach and non-stop improvements

The online travel agents that bring us the most bookings at the moment are Airbnb, Booking.com and our own site Mondosol. Listing your property on Mondosol website means that you will automatically be published on many other websites, such as airbnb.com, booking.com, villas.com and many more.

In the past decade we gained a lot of experience and created an extensive network with market managers based in Europe and US. Also we partner with engineers, travel agents and account managers.

This brings us the following advantages:

• Staying up-to-date on the newest trends and developments.
• Anticipating future changes.
• Having knowledge of the technical side of online travel agents that allows us to make little tweaks to make our listings more successful.
• Partnering with companies in the same field as colleagues rather than competitors.
• Having direct connection at online travel agents in case we need assistance.
• Gathering price information for a certain period. We do not want to sell the property too cheap and do not want the property to be empty.

Marketing

How we get the guests attention

Offline agents are decreasing in popularity. There is still a market for them, but in most markets people book their holidays online.

Experience showed us that it is most efficient to be in the top search results on the online travel agents rather than investing a lot of time and money in other marketing tools and social media. When it is low season, the top listings are still the ones booked. We also know that most bookings are made through familiar websites, rather than booking directly through your own website.

In order to stay in the top of the search results, we focus on the following points:

Dynamic Rates

We try to keep the balance between conversion, rates and reviews. These three factors have to be in balance to stay on a good position in the search results. We have software that assists us to adjust prices automatically at any time.

Where many holiday rentals set a base price and seasonal rates, our pricing strategy is much more complex. A combination of data analysis, human interaction and complex algorithm to sell every night for the best possible price with the goal to get the highest monthly targets. This is called flexible pricing system which is already very popular and well know with airlines all over the world.

High Occupancy Rates

Rather than having the property empty, we prefer to sell the property for a last minute rate. The direct effect is that it will add profit to the monthly rate, but will decrease the average price. The indirect effect is that it will gain an outstanding review. Higher review rate will boost your position in the search results and increase the general rental price.

High Review Scores

The reviews are probably even more important than the description. Guests tend to look at pictures, price and reviews. This is for them the most reliable source to get information about the property. When we receive a negative review, this will be forwarded to you (if the property is not under management of Mondosol ) and it will be your task to make sure we will not get any negative review anymore regarding that topic.

High Conversion Rates

We have to make sure that guests are not only looking at the property, but booking as well. We monitor data such as listing views and conversion rates. If we see that a listing is so called “dead”, we will take action to make it a “healthy” listing again. In some cases this means making some tweaks as updating pictures or description, but is some cases it means re-listing the property

Short Response Time

The shorter the response time is, the better it is for the villas position in the search results. Someone with a response time of 2 days (for example) will never show up in the search result for someone who wants to make a last minute booking. We strive to be able to answer inquiries 24/7 and therefore, we have people working in different timezones.

Up-to-date Calendar

There is nothing more annoying as a double booking. It will have a negative impact on the guest experience. The online travel agent can punish the property by:

• lowering the position in the search results
• having the property to pay for relocation
• in some cases even a fine.

For this reason we make sure that our calendars are up to date by connecting all online travel agents we use an advanced channel manager to control all the income bookings. This allows us to take instant bookings. The guest can be sure that the property they book is available.

Pictures

We make sure that the pictures are up to date and are a reflection of reality. We do not want guests to have a wrong impression and that we fail to meet their expectations.

Multiple profiles

Some platforms such as Airbnb allows us to cross-list the same property on several profiles and will give more exposure for this property. Airbnb filters the top search results and only allows the same host to show up limited times in the top search results. By operating under different profiles, we have some listings listed on different profiles so there will be more exposure than hosts with one profile. Airbnb is personalized and tries to find the perfect match between guest and host. We have profiles with different characteristics (gender, nationality, age, etc.). Certain guests with specific characteristics can do the same search on Airbnb, but find different listings.