Standing Out from the Competition with Your Own Website

Background

Built in an old oil mill, Casa Mamma Rosetta vacation rental is located in Civezza, a small village between Imperia and Sanremo, in the Liguria region of Italy.

Its owner, Alessandro, used to recommend it to solo travelers or families, as well as those looking to relax near the sea, those traveling for work and even those people who like to bring their pets on holiday!

Alessandro saw a great opportunity which helped him make the decision to start an activity like this. In fact, when asked why he decided to dedicate his time to running a vacation rental business, he replied that:

“In this area of Liguria, there are not many hotels or bed and breakfasts. This is completely in contrast to the demand that, instead, is quite high – especially during the summer.”

Challenge

Alessandro started to promote his activity with some of the most famous online listing platforms, but the results were not satisfactory.

“My impression is that those listing sites try to push everyone in the same direction. Instead, with your own website, you can stand out from the competition much more easily.”

Thanks to this awareness, Mamma Rosetta’s owner felt more confident in undertaking the research in order to find a really helpful tool. He was looking for something that would allow for highlighting the characteristics and strengths of both his property and the surrounding territory.

Solution

With Lodgify, Alessandro had the chance to learn how to create his own professional website from scratch. The building process was quite easy for him: thanks to some technical knowledge and the efficiency of Lodgify’s customer support team, the project began to take shape.

He has really appreciated the possibility of making his business known and promoting it online, which has been especially successful thanks to a good ranking in Google search results.

For Alessandro and Casa Mamma Rosetta, creating their own website has also meant building their own brand and providing unique offers, as well as the importance for travelers to be able to book online!

Results

How Lodgify helped them grow their vacation rental business

“The first bookings came after doing a marketing campaign with Facebook and Google AdWords and, in general, we have been observing an increase in reservations of around 30%.”

Secondly, to maximize the results in terms of website traffic and gain more direct bookings, Alessandro listed his property on vacation rental sites, such as Airbnb, HomeAway and Booking.com.

Recommendations

Alessandro recommends that vacation rental owners – especially newbies to the industry – pay close attention to building their own direct booking channel. Not only for taking reservations, but also for overall business operations.

“Thanks to Lodgify, I understand that having your own vacation rental website is very important to show off your product. But at the same time, the site must be manageable and the interface has to be user-friendly – like Lodgify’s is. Remember that your main job is hosting, that is why you need a software that can really help you and simplify your tasks. Not something that wastes your time and complicates things even further!”