Blogs

For vacation rentals, reviews act as a testament to the quality of your property’s quality. They, shaping the perceptions and decisions of your potential guests. This article aims to highlight the tips that can help you earn more positive reviews about your vacation rental like Airbnb and Vrbo. Let’s find out.

What Defines A Guest Review?

A guest review refers to feedback provided by your guest who has experienced a vacation rental at your property. These reviews are crucial for both property managers and guests. They delve into the service quality and cleanliness of amenities. Guest reviews serve as direct feedback about your vacation rental property’s performance. These reviews highlight the areas of strength and areas that need some improvement. 

Why Are Guest Reviews Important?

Positive guest reviews can enhance your rental property’s reputation, grab more guests, and lead to more bookings. Even 92% of US travelers are enthusiastic about checking reviews before booking a place for their stay.

However, negative reviews typically pinpoint the shortcomings and highlight essential adjustments to maintain high standards. Guest reviews can be seen on some popular property management platforms like Airbnb, Booking.com, and Expedia. 

Moreover, these reviews or feedback also appear on booking websites, as well as on Facebook and Instagram. They provide an authentic portrayal of the guest experience at your rental property. Guest reviews offer potential guests some valuable insights into what they could expect during their stay.

These reviews offer a level of trust and reliability, guiding guests toward properties that best suit their needs. The more positive reviews you collect from the guests, the more trust your vacation rental offers.

How to Leverage Guest Reviews to Boost Your Listing

It’s time for your guests that they are checking out after a wonderful stay at your rental property. But how can you make sure they’ll leave positive feedback for your rentals? Well, through guest reviews. You can ask for reviews from your guests before their departure.

Following are the best tips on how to ask for reviews from guest:

1. Provide Right Services

If you are promoting your vacation rental as the perfect getaway for families. You upload all the post pictures that present a huge backyard and swimming pool. You also post pictures of a game room filled with arcade games. However, when families get booked at your property, they find that the backyard is small, there is no pool. Moreover, the game room only contains a small table with some board games.

Now, your guests or families get disappointed because the benefits are not what they expected from your ads. In this way, they write negative reviews online, mentioning they were misled and didn’t enjoy their stay with full zeal.

You can avoid this by posting the right pictures and writing clear descriptions of your vacation rental. By setting the right expectations, guests will be happier and are more likely to leave positive reviews.

2. Build Personal Rapport With Guests

When your guests arrive at your rental property for their vacation, you must greet them with a warm smile. Getting to know your guests on the basis of their first name and welcoming them feels special right away. Throughout your guest’s stay at your rental, you should take the time to chat with them at breakfast. Asking them about sharing local tips or further plans and answering their requests super fast. This helps in leaving a glowing review for praising your helpfulness It also makes your guests feel at home in unfamiliar surroundings. Before your guest’s check out, do ask them to leave their feedback on a review site.

3. Guide the Review Process

Sometimes, the guests are not familiar with review sites. To encourage that your customers or guests write reviews, guide through each step of the process. Do make sure to remove any obstacles from their path. You wish your guests to leave a review on a book-direct website like Vrbo. For this, remind them to check their emails on a regular basis. Google reviews and OTA ((Online Travel Agency) listings are displayed publicly to help the guests reading feedback about your rental. You should explain to your guests how these online review platforms work.

4. Include in-rental Reminders

People are busy while traveling and the right way to place friendly reminders about your rentals.

Make sure to include QR codes directing to your website in maps and local guides. Also, mention the QR code in a thank-you email that links your guests to a feedback form. Consider providing a QR code that provides details about a special discount for their next visit.

5. Follow-up After Guests’ Check-out

If you want to boost the process of reviews, the right time is once guests check out. Send them a polite, personalized message on their phones. In this personalized message, mention the importance of critical reviews to your business.

To save your time, you can send the messages that are sent out automatically once guests depart. Take it a step further by sending newsletters and mentioning a link to your book-direct website. It is the best way to review sites to collect their feedback. 

6. Offer Incentives

Ask for reviews by providing your guests with the kind words of your gratitude. You should offer them a discount for their next stay, a complimentary amenity. It does not mean, ransom their reviews. Your guests should know that you’re encouraging kind feedback.

Therefore, don’t resort to money for reviews or solicitation of their reviews. It’s convenient to offer guest loyalty discounts among repeat guests, because it is a win-win strategy. Not only does it lead to increased revenue, but it also fosters positive reviews and recommendations. 

Last Words

Nowadays, online reviews help the potential guests in determining if a property is good or what their experience was like. Reviews are the best tools for guests and hosts, helping guests to share their experience. But, many of the owners are unaware of the importance of having reviews on rental websites. Knowing the thoughts of your guests about your vacation rental has many other advantages. Positive reviews can generate more demand for your properties and more people are interested in your listing.