By Dylan Peterson, Sales Operations
Wow! This is cool! Thanks to a blog entry by FlipKey, I learned that TripAdvisor has an online calculator that helps consumers compare whether or not they will save money by booking a vacation rental instead of a hotel. Well, all of us in the RB-Pro space know the answer: vacation rentals are an incredible value compared to hotels. This little online tool is a great way to illustrate the point to consumers. One more push for vacation rental awareness.
For example, I just typed in Seattle, selected 4 guests, and chose that we would eat some meals in and some out. TripAdvisor searched and suggested I could save as much as $360 by staying in a vacation rental. Now I know I’ll spend an hour shopping online just to save $20 on plane tickets so this is an incredibly compelling offer. I can hit the search button and I’m taken to a list of vacation rentals. Some of them allow me to book online while others require me email the manager. All of them have ratings & reviews giving me, the consumer, the added confidence to put my credit card down.
Hmmmm … what if I only have 2 guests? The calculator says it’s basically a tie but is quick to point out that for the same price I’ll “have all the comforts of home”. I love it.
We’re proud to call TripAdvisor and FlipKey EscapiaNET channel partners. That means that consumers can visit these websites, get pricing and availability, read ratings & reviews, and actually book the vacation homes offered by Escapia clients. I checked out the traffic estimate for TripAdvisor using an analytics service and they estimate that they get as much traffic as the well known Priceline.com does. And our clients have some of the only bookable units on that advertising channel? Not too shabby …
I discovered this and posted to our blog as well. Very cool!! I'd love to get the code from tripadvisor and include on our website....I think a lot of ppl initially think vacation rentals are so much more $$ than hotels, but really, after you break it down, they are cheaper!
Posted by: Jennifer | July 16, 2009 at 10:00 AM
sounds like an interesting alternative to a hotel.
Posted by: Exotic Vacation | August 13, 2009 at 04:43 PM