Advertising on Home Away Holiday Rentals and other advertising

[474wendyb]

Anyone else advertise with this lot? I was an advertiser with Holiday Lets who got me a reasonable amount of business, but they sold out to Home Away. I have found them really terrible to deal with - I couldn't access my account for two months, couldn't get through on the phone for ages and have only received two enquiries and no bookings. Despite writing a letter of complaint no-one has bothered to get back to me. I am seriously thinking of ditching them when my subscription ends. What does anyone else think about them?

I can't say that I find any advertising particularly great. I get a lot of enquiries from Let's Stay (UK and Peaks) but less bookings so far this year from both - a sign of the times I guess? Most of my enquiries seem to come direct from search engine searches, which of course is good news and I do spend a lot of time on my website and link building and other SE stuff. Wondered if anyone else has any thoughts on advertising in general? I have one self catering holiday house in the Peaks.

PS don't get caught out by Force Travel Club - I did and it is rubbish.

PPS if anyone wants to link with me contact me at wendyboast@blueyonder.co.uk
o:)

[greenbarncottages]

Hi Wendy
Same situation as you - we were with Holidaylets.net and ended up with H-R. Possibly not the best time of year to judge, but I feel H-R aren't providing as many convertible enquiries as Holidaylets.net. Come renewal time in March, the amount of money they'll want will be eye-watering so their performance is going to have to improve a lot; however, given the size of the organisation, I'm not sure if they're bothered about losing owners, on the basis that they'll gain others.

Regarding Force Travel, who have recently changed their name to Force Group Network, this outfit is bordering on being a scam; try googling them and you'll find a lot of interesting information about them and their claimed direct links with the police and services.
Watch out also for NHS Travel Club, who just happen to be based in the same Lancashire town as Force Group, and have a very similar model.
And don't forget to add Crewise to your list. No obvious connection with Force Group, but they claim to have thousands of airline crew all lined up and gagging to rent your property.

At least H-R are genuine - they're just too big!

[elide]

Hi Wendy

I got caught by Force travel a few years ago - and you're right it is a scam! NHS lot tried to sign me up as well - but luckily I got wise.

I'm with Holiday Rentals, for a property abroad and they work quite well, although I haven't tried them for my B&B.

The other bitch I have is that I think the search criteria for the Visit Brittain website is far to narrow. I live 3.2 miles outside Stratford Upon Avon is a little village, and so get excluded when people type in Stratford, I even couldn't find myslef typing in the village name, even though I am the only one in the village, I had to narrow the search criteria down to exact location and High quality ect before I cam up .... in this day this is unacceptable.

[Moderator]

Our websites allow users to enter their own search radius when searching for accommodation in or near a destination. If they are looking for accommodation in the centre of town they can enter 1 mile or if they want to be in the broader area they can enter 5,10, 20 or whatever distance they choose.



If a user doesn’t set a preference, the search uses a default value. This is set to return a reasonable number of properties across all accommodation, attraction and event searches. The Stratford upon Avon default is currently 3 miles. This returns 27 self catering properties and 60 hotels and B&Bs, a reasonable number for a consumer to choose from and all located a reasonable distance from the centre of town in a popular destination where at least some of the visitors will be arriving by public transport.



If we were to extent this default radius the sites return:

4 miles – 34 self catering, 65 hotels and B&Bs

5 miles - 37 self catering, 69 hotels and B&Bs

10 miles – 93 self catering, 150 hotels and B&Bs



We a continually being asked by providers (never by consumers) to either extend the default radius from 1 to 3 miles, 5 to 6 miles, 10 to 11 miles etc to include their own property, or to decrease the search radius so as to exclude outlying properties which town-centre property owners do not wish to be displayed. Hence we have to strike a balance for the trade and for the consumer.

Elide, we will be in contact with you regarding why your property is not being returned.