Importance of Vacation Rental Descriptions

You can deck your vacation rental out with the finest decor your favorite interior designers recommend, but if you do not sell it properly, you will get nowhere.

Quality photographs showcasing your vacation rental’s desirables are of course essential, but if you dismiss the role of a well-written description, you will be staring at a wide open calendar.

Although vacation rental descriptions may seem like a treacherous task, writing an effective one is key towards securing more bookings.

Modern Innkeeper wants you to be able to refer to these six tips before writing a description that does your vacation rental justice.

 

Know Your Audience

If you know your guests primarily consist of families with children under 18 years-old (so close to 60 percent of travelers, according to our survey) you are not going to revolve your description around how your property serves as a romantic getaway for couples.

Or if travelers visit your rental’s location because of all the outdoor activities (over 81 percent of travelers consider themselves active, according to our survey), you are not going to tailor your description around a weekend indoors.

Here is what we are trying to say: know who you are selling your vacation rental to. Identifying and understanding what makes the audience tick is an integral aspect of every style of writing, including your rental description!

Use words that will resonate with your target audience, and highlight appealing aspects of your rental.

 

Keep it Simple

Colossal locution is not incumbent.

Big words are not necessary.

Both of those sentences have the same meaning, but the second one is much more pleasant to read.

Your description does not have to impress a scholar, or include uncommon words most people are unfamiliar with. Make it short and sweet so travelers know what they would be getting themselves into without having to ask Google what they just read.

With that being said, this does not mean shy away from adjectives. Refrain from going too over the top with words like “The view from the master bedroom is beguiling,” but rather, “The only way to describe the master bedroom’s view is breathtaking.”

See, we got the message across without being too inordinate, or over the top.

Yeah, “over the top” sounds better.

 

Emphasize Your Unique Selling Point

Every vacation rental out there has a unique selling point (USP) that makes it distinct from others. As it pertains to your rental, it is up to you to identify it in the description. If you fail to, your guests will never experience the trip of a lifetime!

Being humble is an admirable quality, but this is your time to suppress your modesty and let the world know why your property is awesome!

Your competition will be certain to ramp their USPs up in their descriptions, and the only way to remain in the game is by highlighting yours.

 

Write a Call to Action

A call to action, otherwise known as a CTA, is a button or sentence that leads readers to the next step. If you receive an email offering you a 25 percent discount on tickets to see your favorite baseball team, the bottom of the email probably has a button that says something along the lines of “Get Your Tickets Now.”

You click it, and boom, you can snag a ticket.

Your CTA does not have to be as fancy, but your words do have to carry some weight in order for travelers to listen. Here is an example:

“You and your family will love spending part of your summer at this 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom vacation rental just steps away from the beach! This property’s proximity to the water and Main Street is undeniably the best in the area, which is why travelers book it year round! Message me today to book your stay!”

The last sentence has a clear action step, which gets future guests thinking they should secure their trip as soon as possible. Implement a solid CTA in your description to fill up your calendar!

 

Read it Aloud

If you do not enjoy writing, then you probably are not going to be too fond of this step, but it is vital to writing and publishing a solid description: read it aloud until it sounds just right.

We know, you spent so much time just writing it and now you have to go back and reread the entire thing. It might be a pain in the you-know-what, but we promise you you will produce a better description if you do.

Reading it aloud allows you to spot any errors you made, and if you do not catch your mistakes, travelers will and will be immediately turned off by the idea of vacationing at your rental.

 

Utilize Your Resources

Writing is not for everyone, but fortunately for those people, we have the Internet. Check out these 29 free tools to assist you in editing and perfecting your description.

The reward is a jam-packed calendar and page full of adoring reviews!