Your guests have nowhere to book you
A telephone, an inbox, perhaps a Facebook page. No listing, no website, nowhere for anyone to book a week on a Sunday night. This page is written for you — and it is not about commission, since you pay none.
“The enquiry came in on Sunday night. I replied on Tuesday.”
Someone looking for a place contacts three or four and books with whoever answers first. With a booking page there is nobody to wait for: the free dates are shown, the deposit is paid, it is booked. You find out the next morning, instead of finding out you missed it.
“They were going to send a cheque. It never came.”
The week was held for three weeks for someone who never came, and turned down for others in the meantime. An online deposit is taken when the booking is made, not promised: it goes straight into your own bank account, never through us. A date is only held once it is paid for.
“I had written the week down in the kitchen diary.”
A paper diary and a telephone in your pocket do not agree for long. The site's calendar is the same everywhere, updates itself the moment a payment goes through, and a date already taken cannot be booked again. If you are also on Airbnb or Booking, it syncs with them: you leave nothing behind.
“My guests recommend me, but they have nothing to send on.”
A telephone number is not an address: you cannot forward it in a message, print it on a card, or read it off a sign as you drive past. A website gives you an address to hand out — to past guests, the tourist office, the restaurant next door, your business cards.
“I answer the same questions ten times a week.”
Rates, free dates, how many it sleeps, pets, check-in time, how to get there: written once on the page and read by everyone. The enquiries that still reach you are the ones that genuinely deserved a conversation.
“And will it bring me guests?”
Not on its own, and nobody honest will tell you otherwise. A website does not create demand: it lets the people already looking for you — because someone mentioned you, because they came last year, because they saw your sign — get all the way through instead of stopping for want of somewhere to book. That is what it does, and it is already a great deal.
What the figures say
We have no study of our own, so here are other people's — from a company measuring millions of stays.
- 2,5×
Owners who answer an enquiry within three hours convert 2.5 times more enquiries into bookings than those who take 24 hours or more.
A booking page answers in zero minutes, including at 11 p.m. on a Sunday. That is the end of this curve, not an exception to it.
- +35 %
Instant booking converts around 35 % better than a request-to-book flow, and brings in around 25 % more net revenue.
The traveller who books is the one who had nobody to wait for.
- +60 %
Instant booking and synced calendars together: 60 % more bookings.
That is exactly what your site does: it books on its own, and stays in agreement with your platforms.
Source: Expedia Group / Vrbo internal data, bookings from January to December 2022. These figures are published by Expedia to persuade owners to switch instant booking on, and owners who do are probably better organised already. They show a strong association, not a proven cause. We quote them as they stand.
What it costs
€9.99 a month (instead of €39) for any sign-up before 31 December 2026, €0 to join, no commitment.
The name and the town are enough. No listing to provide, no card, no appointment.
Rather talk it through first? 10 minutes on the phone