As the end of the year comes to a close, we’d like to reflect on the fan favorites. We’ve covered everything from spooky Airbnb ghost stories to braving the future of vacation rentals post-pandemic. Out of the spectacular 109 blog posts written this year, we’re highlighting the top twenty for you to return to.
This year was one for the books! Travel came back with gusto, then waned, then surged once more. Vacation rental owners and property managers alike sat on the edge of their seats waiting for each season to turn the corner, but, in the end, it was another year of adaptability and perseverance for the industry at large.
2022 lies just around the corner with new challenges and triumphs for the vacation rental industry. Will automation really take over the world of hospitality? Is the wave of digital nomads only yet to come?
Don’t see the form to download the Vacation Rental Industry Report? Click here.
Before jumping too far ahead, let’s take a look at the year that made and molded the new era of vacation rentals: 2021.
Most popular blog posts of 2021
Without further ado: we’re bringing you the list of most popular blog posts from 2021. From likes, shares, comments, and everything in between we’ve compiled your list of favorites. Let’s count it down!
20. Long-Term vs. Short-Term Rentals: What You Need to Know
Travel took a beating this year, but it didn’t stop entirely. What it did do was shift, change, transform. More and more, travelers asked to stay longer and explore deeper. This desire for longer stays led to a couple of changes such as Airbnb extending its extended-stays policy and owners implementing different amenities, like ergonomic workstations and kitchen supplies, to attract more permanent guests.
To take a closer look at the change, we compared the essential differences between long-term and short-term rentals plus all the pros and cons of each. This trend coupled with a timely comparison of the two types of rentals helped to earn this post’s place as number twenty on the rank of best blog posts this year.
19. Managing Vacation Rental Cleaning: Best Apps & Services
While 2021 was much more settled than 2020, some guests were still hesitant to return to vacationing. To help counter these fears, many accommodations bolstered their cleaning and sanitation efforts.
The list of apps, services, and companies for cleaning was a “sweeping” success which made this post our number nineteen on the list.
18. Starting a Cabin Rental Business: Everything You Need to Know
Vacations also looked a bit more rural this year. There was a mass exodus from the congested cities in the wake of Covid and we saw this trend mirrored in vacations too. As more people were looking for some spacious escapes, vacation rental investors turned towards the cabin business.
Cabin fame grew and so did the popularity of this posting, making it number eighteen on our list this year.
17. USA’s 10 Best Places to Buy Vacation Rental Property in 2021
Investments weren’t just limited to the cabin business. This year, there were plenty of people looking to enter the vacation rental market, near and wide. Looking at a number of factors such as occupancy rate, average property value, and competition, we put together, in ranking order, the hottest places to buy property for vacation rentals in the USA this year.
The buzz around vacation rental investment earned this post the seventeenth slot on our top blog posts of 2021.
16. How ‘Revenge Travel’ Will Redefine the Vacation Rental Industry
Somewhere around the months of April and May, as temperatures rose, so did the desire to get out and go travel. The pace of travel went from a slow crawl to a thumping sprint as the restrictions loosened and vaccination rates rose in the late Spring.
Noting this trend, we gave our insights and advice on how to maximize revenge travel and consequently, this post moved up the ranks to number sixteen.
15. Google Vacation Rentals: Prepare Your Website for Google Travel
It seems like everyone was jumping on the vacation rental trend this year: even Google! While Google has long hovered around the industry with flights and accommodations tabs, they took it a step further and unveiled Google Travel.
Vacation rental owners were eager to check out the new feature and we were ready to talk about it. This post climbed to our top fifteenth post of the year.
14. 15 Airbnb Horror Stories You Won’t Believe Are True
Sometimes it’s good to have a little fun in the vacation rental industry especially during Halloween! Vacation rentals are full of both good and ghastly tales and we love to revel in our favorites. We compiled a list of the fifteen juiciest stories and tales that happened to Airbnb owners.
Everyone loves a good horror story and our readers are no exception making this post number fourteen.
13. Short Term Vacation Rental Agreement: Free Template For Hosts
Amongst old and new, some of our classics always join the ranks. Our vacation rental agreement aids to help owners create an agreement between host and guest to maintain expectations and protect the property.
Don’t see the form to download the Rental Agreement Template? Click here.
Sticking with tradition, our vacation rental agreement hits the list of top blog posts for yet another year, emphasizing its popularity and usefulness.
12. The Beginner’s Guide to Furnishing a Vacation Rental
On a note of style, our guide to furnishing a vacation rental was a big hit. With more downtime in between bookings this year, owners had time to amp up their vacation rental interior design and add value to their properties.
Brushing over the top design tips and how to style each room for maximum vacation rental success led to this post earning twelfth place.
11. Summer bookings boom in the U.S. and Europe
Spring brought revenge travel and with summer came even hotter bookings. U.S. and European travelers were ready to travel once more this summer as tourism started to open back up.
Bookings boomed and so did this blog post as hosts curiously clicked to learn more about the trend making this the top eleventh post of 2021.
10. How to Prevent Airbnb Guests from Bringing Extra Visitors
Unwanted guests and house parties have always been a headache for owners, but even more so this year as localities cracked down on large gatherings during Covid times. Airbnb implemented its own rules with a global ban on parties, but some guests still try to press on.
This post covers the top ways to protect your property from Airbnb parties, which helped it to gain popularity and the tenth place on our list.
9. Top 4 Tips for Staging your Vacation Rental to Perfection
Vacation rental owners were focused on investment and appearance this year. As competition continues to get more fierce, more owners are curious to know how they can better position their properties.
For time and time again, the importance of first impressions through photos and videos are vital. Having your guests envision their stay at your property is what gets you booked; hence the fanfare around vacation rental staging. This post guides you through how to stage your vacation rental to get more bookings which helped this post to climb the ranks all the way to the single digits at the ninth place.
8. 55 Must-Have Amenities for Every Vacation Rental Home
Amenities, amenities, oh how we love our amenities! Another classic makes the list this year: vacation rental amenities. Owners are always trying to add value to their properties and the best way to do this is through amenities.
We’ve gathered the best 55 amenities, making this our number eight post of the year.
7. Mastering the Art of Airbnb Copywriting to Boost your Bookings
In 2021, vacation rental owners found their way with words through captivating social media captions and copywriting skills. Having an eye-catching listing description on Airbnb became that much more important in 2021 which caused this post to rise in fame.
With the top tips and tricks for writing a great Airbnb description, readers clicked and clicked this post all the way to seventh place on the list of top blog posts this year.
6. Short-term Rental Expense Spreadsheet (Free Template)
Vacation rental owners everywhere were ready to gain better control over their finances and expenses this year. We were happy to unveil our free rental expense spreadsheet to allow owners to crunch their vacation rental numbers.
We found that our readers were quite happy too! This free template and post find its way to sixth place in only a few short months.
5. Airbnb Essentials: 110 Ideas for a Great Guest Experience
Airbnb owners are always looking for clever ways to create a great guest experience, which is why we came up with 110 ways to craft a quality vacation for your Airbnb guests. From hot tubs to high chairs, we’ve covered all the treasured choices found in Airbnbs.
Readers always love to learn more about how to improve guest experiences, so it’s really no wonder that this post climbs to number five on the list!
4. How to Address Vacation Rental Neighbor Complaints in 4 Steps
It’s not just the guests you have to worry about: sometimes neighbor experience is equally important. Becoming enemies with your Airbnb neighbors can result in complaints, legal battles, and a fairly negative time for you and your guests.
It’s a fear that many owners have or live through which is why our readers tuned in to learn more about how to resolve and address neighbor complaints. This informative post comes at fourth place on the list of beach blog posts of 2021.
3. Are Beach Rentals a Good Investment?
We’re bringing it back to the theme of investments with our third most popular post: Are Beach Rentals a Good Investment?
If you’d like to spare some reading time, the short answer is yes, but this post grabbed the attention of many of our readers with a riveting pros and cons list plus expert advice on how to proceed. With much suspense, here we have our third most popular post of the year!
2. Airbnb Service Fees: How Much Does Airbnb Charge Hosts?
In a close second place, we have the Airbnb Service Fees post. A huge chunk of running a vacation rental business is knowing how much you’re spending and how much you’re earning. Moreover, how much of the pie is going to fees?
Our Airbnb fees post dives into a full breakdown of the cost to list on Airbnb vs. Lodgify and our audience listened intently causing this post to take on the fierce competition and win second place.
1. U.S. Vacation Rental Industry Trends and Outlook for the Winter Season
And finally, here’s our winner! This year’s best blog post was one for the history books: our comprehensive 2021 vacation rental industry report analyzed more than 340,000 bookings to bring property owners a wealth of useful knowledge.
We won’t spoil you the details, but rest assured that the data pointed to a bright future for the vacation rental industry! Click on the link below to see what we learned from our research.
Takeaways
So there you have it! These are our top blog posts for 2021. This year was a bit of a rollercoaster, but we’d like to think that our blog has helped vacation rental owners to somewhat smoothen out the bumps. We hope that you’ll find these articles as interesting as we do and we look forward to sharing our best content with you in 2022.
Did we miss anything? Was there any topic you hoped we would have covered? Let us know in the comments!
Don’t see the form to download the Vacation Rental Industry Report? Click here.
