Vacation Rental Trends To Take Note Of

Good Information for Perdido Key Property Owners

Owning a vacation rental property in Perdido Key in Perdido Key is fantastic and exciting and stressful sometimes. It's sometimes stressful, because the trends amongst vacationers changes from year to year, season to season and sometimes even from week to week. Learning how to navigate these trends will ensure that your time owning a vacation rental in Perdido Key is filled with more relaxing and less stressing.

Here's some information to help you adjust your approach to managing your vacation rental property better, especially in terms of your marketing or communicating with your property manager about their marketing efforts.

1. The lead time is shrinking.

This means that the time between when the guest is calling and the day they're hoping to arrive for their vacation in getting shorter. They days when families planned their vacations many months in advance is largely over. Now, folks are often calling weeks or even days just before about renting a Perdido Key condo. This is most prevalent in smaller condos, but we're seeing it in larger properties as well. The only exception to this is when large groups i.e. kids' sports teams or other youth organizations are travelling for competitions - this mentioned more in depth below...

2. Larger condos are more popular.

Yup, size matters when it comes to condos. Consider that Perdido Key is mostly a family-vacation destination. The fact that we're not a spring break destination for drunk college kids even further solidifies our largest target audience as families. What's more is that many of these families are beginning to get back into the tradition of years past where they intend to return to the same destination more and more often; think shoulder season repeat guests.

This is great for 2+ bedroom condos. It doesn't mean that one bedroom properties aren't getting rented, it's just a good trend worth noting if you've been considering upsizing to a larger property. Otherwise, if your property only sleeps up to four people you should expect to refer back to number one above - rentals are coming in, but on shorter notice for smaller properties.

Groups are also finding vacation rentals as a great option now. Travelling youth sports teams is one example that many Perdido Key property owners are already familiar with from the past 3 years of travel baseball groups who are attending large competitions hosted throughout our region. These groups like to share large condos, because it's much cheaper than renting a bunch of smaller condos or hotel rooms and they're able to cook their own meals rather than having to eat out every night which would be the case if they had all stayed in hotel rooms. There may be a conversation to be had here about Perdido Key considering a convention space and hotel in the future. I expect that it would be worthwhile to get the feedback from the local residents and business owners at some point...

3. The People want pet-friendly and they want Smoke-Free resorts

Strange combination, but the desire to be traveling with their four-legged companion should come as no surprise. Don't want to let them bring Fido? OK, you're not really hurting yourself since most condos in the area are not pet-friendly however it's not out of the question to think that you could charge more money to those who are bringing their pet(s). They'll pay for it as otherwise they'll have to cough up the cost of boarding their pet(s) back home and that's not cheap or really preferred.

The smoke-free property is a newer trend. IMO less and less people are smoking and while I haven't researched the data to support that statement, I will say that my office is getting that request more than ever before. So, next time this comes up at an HOA meeting, don't be afraid to support the idea of being a smoke-free complex "except in designated areas." See what I did there? I'm not saying to do away with smokers entirely. There's no way that whole owners association would go for that, so setup perhaps setup designated areas away from the pools and other popular amenities to keep everyone happy.

4. More people are open to vacationing in the Fall

Wonderful. Simply, wonderful. Perdido Key has needed a larger Fall vacationing audience since, well, forever. Finally, we're seeing more people interested in mid-September through October dates. This is everything that a Vacation Rental Manager, like me, could want for a rental program. We need rentals not in the summer, but the rest of the year. What two times of year will be the best to focus efforts on growing the audience? Our hidden summer(fall) and our mild winters. The spring will happen eventually, but for now focus on the fall and then the winter as I expect those to yield the best returns on effort. We have vacationers interested in the fall - get them here and make certain they have a wonderful vacation experience so they'll come back. The winter season is long, so all marketing efforts have a long time to potentially payoff. 

Increase your marketing efforts a couple weeks after Labor Day. Tout the weekend things-to-do, events, festivals, climate, low rates and lack of summer crowds.

5. More people know about vacation rentals.

This should be no secret. This industry is getting larger and more people know that they can rent a vacation home or condo along the Gulf Coast. Our region of Northwest Florida and Coastal Alabama is a huge piece of the on-beach and near-beach vacation rental inventory for the country. The biggest player in the vacation rental marketplace space i.e. Expedia, TripAdvisor and Booking.com will drive people to our beach if we ensure that those who have stayed here had a great time. These huge websites drive traffic to the places that the travelers are searching, because they make their money only when people use their website to book a vacation. They give the travelers what they want and they do a good job of it.

Why didn't I list VRBO, HomeAway and VacationRental.com? In case you didn't already know, Expedia owns all of those now. Big guys getting bigger. That happened over the past couple years, so get ready for travelers who previously only stayed in hotels to begin seeing vacation rentals in their search results. And possibly see hotel rooms incorporated into vacation rental search results... This will add to the ever-changing trends of our industry; the most significant right now being the decreasing lead times. As a hotel traveler, you call today for a room this weekend. That's what we're beginning to see with vacation rentals, especially the smaller properties. Remember number 1 above?

What can you do about it? Get in front of the travelers during that online search. Vacation rental industry data will tell you that a traveler looks at more than 30 websites before picking a specific destination and 12 before deciding on a specific property. That means that they aren't just looking at the number one website for the search phrase they typed into their search; they're looking a many websites which include marketplace websites, reviews websites and leading property management websites where vacation rentals are available to decide where to stay. PKRM properties have placement in all three of these arenas online to ensure we stay at the forefront of the vacationer's options of which property to ultimately book for their vacation. 

Kindest Regards, 

JD Hallam in Perdido Key

JD Hallam is the Gernal Manager for Perdido Key Resort Management vacation rentals, Broker/Owner of Perdido Key Resort Realty and the current representative for Perdido Key lodging on the VisitPensacola Board of Directors. 

PKRM is a full-service vacation rental management company who provides their signature PKRM Pledge to property owners on their program that "Your property is our property." For information on the various levels of management offered, call 850-492-9999 or check out the Perdido Key property management section of perdidokeyflorida.com.