In today’s competitive vacation rental market, nearly any lodging management business can benefit from going global. In a nutshell, by tapping into the global travel market, you can access a larger customer base and increase your revenue potential, which may help you gain a competitive advantage over your competitors.
While it’s true that attracting international travelers can be difficult—given that their motivations and preferences are typically a lot more different from those of domestic travelers—international guests tend to stay longer and, therefore, spend more money. These two aspects alone can make international bookings more valuable to a vacation rental management company.
When it comes to attracting tourists from different locations around the world, having a multilingual website is critically important. Why? Concisely, in this new digital age, a multilingual website could be the only point of contact between your company and international travelers looking for vacation rentals in your area. This basically means that a website, which presents content in more than one language, can provide numerous benefits to your vacation rental management business. Here are the most important ones.
Even though many people around the world speak English, recent research has shown that 72.4% of consumers prefer to make a purchase in their own language. As well, nearly 57% of internet users are willing to pay more for products or services when information is provided in their own languages, according to the same report. Therefore, by simply translating your website into other languages, you’ll be able not only to expand your business into new travel markets that were previously out of your reach but also to boost your vacation rental revenue and profit.
Pro Tip: If you’re planning to add different languages to your website, a great idea would be to start with a language that’s widely spoken in our country as well as in other countries. For instance, Spanish is the second most dominant language in the US, but it’s also the official or national language of 21 countries around the world. Thus, making your website content available in both English and Spanish is a smart choice that could help you improve your reach both on the domestic and international levels. While Spanish is the first language you may want to consider when translating your vacation rental website, Google Analytics is one of the tools you can use to see where your site’s visitors are coming from and which languages they use. Based on “geographical data”, you can select the best languages for your site.
In general, vacation rental websites that aren’t multi-language optimized have a high bounce rate. That’s because, even though foreign travelers are interested in the properties listed on a particular vacation rental website, many of them will abandon their search if they’re unable to view property descriptions, features, amenities, and services in their own language. Conversely, if your website’s content is translated into different languages, international travelers who speak those languages are more likely to book your properties.
Pro Tip: To encourage more travelers to book the vacation rentals you manage, it’s advisable to translate your entire website’s content, including all the sections, descriptions, digital guidebooks, and virtual tours, if applicable.
A multilingual website may rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs) for the simple reason that more people will find and access it as well as having additional pages to your site. Besides translating your website into different languages, localizing it will improve its ranking even more across various search engines, including Google. Why is website localization important? Simply put, when a foreign traveler types specific keywords in his or her native language into a search engine to look for vacation rentals in New York, for example, the websites that include those particular words or phrases will be the first to show up.
Pro Tip: Translating your website and optimizing your site’s content for different languages can significantly increase your website’s traffic in a relatively short time frame. However, the first step in translating your site and optimizing it for international travelers is to develop the right marketing strategy for your company before you get started.
All things considered, a multilingual website can help you boost your international bookings and grow your business. But to really make the most of your multilingual website and marketing strategy, you also need a modern vacation rental software solution that fully integrates with your website. This is the only way to significantly increase your company’s online exposure, capture more international as well as domestic bookings, and stay connected with all of your guests.
While a multilingual website is critical for a lodging management company that struggles to get more bookings, build long-term relationships with its guests, and develop a higher degree of brand loyalty, going global comes with its own set of challenges. Luckily, working with a company that specializes in vacation rental management can help you overcome many of those challenges, so you can reap all of the benefits of expanding your business globally. If you have any questions about our vacation rental software solution or the services we provide, feel free to get in touch with us today!
