How to Promote Properties on OTAs

In 2024, North America had 4.5 million listings active online, while the summer of 2024 saw European listings surge over the 9 million mark for the first time.

The vacation rental industry has never been bigger.

Demand is also skyrocketing, with Latin America doubling its booking volumes compared to 2019.

But with rapid growth comes fierce competition; guests won’t find your property if you don’t make it easy for them. 

While visibility is everything, simply listing your property isn’t enough. Property owners must leverage competitive channel marketing to rank higher and get in front of more travelers to maximize bookings. 

This means adopting the right strategy and using the right digital tools to put it into practice.

Here’s how to do it.

What is vacation rental channel marketing?

Vacation rental channel marketing involves promoting vacation rental properties on online travel agencies (OTAs) and other third-party platforms. These channels act as intermediaries, connecting you, as a property owner or manager, with travelers searching for accommodation.

The process involves creating compelling property listings, enhancing them with high-quality photos, detailed descriptions and competitive pricing, and leveraging the reach of OTAs to attract a broader audience. By listing properties on multiple platforms, you increase visibility and the chances of securing bookings of your vacation rental.

The main goals of vacation rental channel marketing are to increase bookings and boost revenue. By leveraging the extensive user base of OTAs, you can fill vacancies, maximize occupancy rates, and maintain a steady income. Additionally, effective channel marketing enhances profitability by attracting travelers willing to pay premium rates, especially during peak seasons or for well-maintained, highly-rated short- and long-term rentals.

A traditional marketing strategy doesn’t guarantee bookings

While traditional marketing tactics like direct booking campaigns and brand awareness efforts are valuable, they’re no longer sufficient to ensure a steady stream of bookings for vacation rentals. 

In a competitive landscape, vacation rental owners and managers must adopt a broader channel marketing and guest communication strategy that prioritizes both visibility and distribution across multiple platforms. While traditional marketing efforts aim to attract travelers to your rental website, relying solely on this approach limits exposure compared to the expansive reach of OTAs.

OTAs, or online travel agencies, are reservation platforms that allow guests to find and book accommodations while charging a commission negotiated with hotels and rental properties. Dominating the vacation rental industry, platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and Expedia account for a significant share of bookings. Their vast audience, sophisticated algorithms and trusted reputations make them indispensable for reaching potential guests.

Neglecting OTAs or underutilizing their features means missing out on a significant share of travelers who rely on these platforms for accommodation searches and bookings. A well-rounded vacation rental marketing strategy should balance direct booking efforts with a strong OTA presence, ensuring properties are easily discoverable and accessible to the widest possible audience.

To create a diversified and effective marketing strategy, you could consider deploying some of these tactics on your own, or with the support of an external agency:

• Listing optimization on OTAs: high-quality photos, detailed descriptions and competitive pricing should ensure your property stands out.

• Social media marketing: platforms like Instagram and Facebook help build brand awareness and allow you to engage directly with your potential guests.

• Email campaigns: targeted emails can nurture your past guests and encourage repeat bookings with personalized offers.

• Search engine optimization (SEO): optimizing direct booking sites for search engines improves visibility and attracts organic traffic.

• Review management: Reviews on OTAs play a big role in travelers’ booking decisions. Encourage each guest to rate their stay and respond to each review promptly.

• Local partnerships: collaborating with local businesses or tourism boards can enhance exposure and attract travelers seeking authentic experiences.

By blending these tactics with a focus on distribution through OTAs, your short-term rental operation can maximize its reach and drive more consistent bookings.

Taking a multi-channel approach to distribution transforms vacation rental marketing

Given the challenges we raise, adopting a multi-channel approach to distribution is a property management game-changer. This strategy not only enhances visibility but also ensures that your property reaches a diverse audience across various platforms. By strategically exploiting these channels, you can connect with travelers wherever they are searching, drive bookings and maximize revenue.

Let’s explore how this approach can elevate your marketing efforts. By applying the strategies outlined below, you can develop a cohesive, performance-driven distribution plan that balances guest demand, seasonal fluctuations, and revenue goals – ensuring sustained success for your vacation rental business.

Drive more bookings with better visibility

As a vacation rental manager, a multi-channel approach to marketing and distribution is essential in your goal of maximizing bookings. By ensuring properties are listed across a variety of channels – such as OTAs, direct booking websites, metasearch engines, social media platforms and even niche travel marketplaces – you can significantly increase your chances of connecting with potential guests. 

Travelers search for accommodations in diverse places, from the major OTAs we list above to local tourism websites and social platforms. A presence across multiple channels ensures that your property is discoverable wherever guests are looking, driving more inquiries and bookings.

Viewing distribution channels holistically, rather than managing them in silos, will further enhance your performance, with a cohesive strategy ensuring that your efforts on one platform support and amplify results on others. 

For example, high-quality photos and engaging descriptions crafted for an OTA can be repurposed for social media campaigns or email marketing, creating consistent branding and messaging. Furthermore, analyzing your performance metrics across all channels allows you to identify trends, allocate resources efficiently and avoid over-reliance on any single platform.

By embracing a multi-channel strategy, you not only broaden your audience but ensure a steady flow of bookings, ultimately strengthening your marketing efforts and boosting overall revenue.

Diversify your guest portfolio with targeted reach

Different OTAs and marketing channels attract distinct types of travelers, and understanding these variations allows you to diversify your guest portfolio, particularly in a hospitality industry in which the lines between hotels and rentals are blurring. Airbnb, for instance, often appeals to families and leisure travelers seeking unique, home-like accommodation. In contrast, Booking.com is popular among business travelers and international tourists who prioritize convenience and streamlined booking processes. Niche platforms may attract specific demographics, such as eco-conscious travelers or luxury seekers, further broadening the potential audience.

By understanding these differences, you can strategically list and market your rental property on platforms that best match its features and target guest demographics. This diversification helps maintain a balanced guest portfolio, making it easier to navigate seasonal fluctuations. 

For example, if family bookings slow during school months, targeting business travelers on Booking.com could help fill those gaps. Similarly, by focusing on niche OTAs during the shoulder season, you might be able to capture guests seeking off-peak travel experiences. Making sure your cancellation policies respond to varying preferences of different audiences also helps to increase bookings and limit revenue loss.

A well-rounded guest portfolio not only helps sustain consistent bookings all year-round but strengthens your property’s resilience to market shifts or changes in demand patterns. This targeted approach to channel management ensures that, as a short-term rental manager, you can maximize opportunities across a broad spectrum of travelers.

Maximize revenue with optimized pricing

Channel marketing and distribution play a crucial role in boosting revenue by enabling you, as a rental manager, to tailor your pricing strategies for each platform.

Different OTAs and booking channels attract unique guest demographics and have varying fee structures, commission rates, and pricing models. Understanding these nuances allows you to optimize pricing for each platform, maximizing revenue while remaining competitive in the market.

Take Airbnb, for example – guests on this platform may be willing to pay a premium for unique amenities and experiences. In contrast, Booking.com users often prioritize value and convenience, requiring a more budget-friendly pricing strategy.

Adapting pricing to each OTA or booking channel is key to maintaining profitability. Platforms like Vrbo often cater to longer stays, making extended booking discounts worthwhile, while others attract short-term travelers who may pay higher nightly rates. Additionally, understanding commission structures enables managers to factor in these costs, ensuring a strong net revenue.

Dynamic pricing adjustments also consider platform-specific demand trends. For instance, during peak seasons, rates can be raised on channels popular with leisure travelers, while offering competitive prices on business-focused platforms helps maintain steady bookings during slower periods. This targeted pricing strategy maximizes overall revenue while optimizing property performance across diverse booking sources.

Why a channel manager is essential to optimize listings across OTAs

Managing listings across multiple OTAs is a nuanced and complex process.

Each platform has unique requirements for property descriptions, pricing structures, policies and availability settings. Without proper tools, your job of ensuring consistency in listing sites while adapting to the specific demands of each channel will quickly overwhelm you.

Additionally, manually updating calendars to avoid double bookings and adjusting prices dynamically across platforms requires constant attention, leaving room for errors and inefficiencies.

This is where a channel manager becomes indispensable. 

A channel manager is a centralized tool that syncs property data, pricing and availability across all connected OTAs in real time. It simplifies the process by automating updates, reducing the risk of inconsistencies or overbookings, and allowing you to focus on optimizing your listings.

By streamlining operations and providing insights into performance across channels, a channel manager ensures successful navigation of OTAs, ultimately driving bookings and maximizing revenue.

Learn how a vacation rental channel manager improves marketing

We’ve covered the theory and methodology, but applying it effectively requires the right tools. As mentioned above, a channel manager – complemented by data insights and industry-specific integrations – is essential.

Lighthouse’s Channel Manager, for example, is a strong solution for streamlining your distribution strategy. Thanks to our long-standing preferred partnerships with Booking.com and Expedia, users enjoy a better ranking on these major platforms.

As a key component of revenue management, channel managers simplify operations by centralizing the management of listings across multiple OTAs and booking platforms. Without one, keeping everything updated can quickly become a logistical challenge.

By synchronizing your property’s availability, pricing, reservations and restrictions in real time, a channel manager ensures that when a guest books through one platform, availability is instantly updated across all connected channels. 

This minimizes the risk of overbookings while optimizing distribution.

While channel managers offer a range of features and benefits, three key functions lie at the heart of any effective solution:

• Driving more bookings with better reach

• Saving you time with one centralized platform

• Avoiding double bookings with automation

Essentially, a channel manager allows vacation rental managers to focus on delivering exceptional guest experiences while the software efficiently manages the complexities of distribution.

About Lighthouse

Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight) is the leading commercial platform for the travel & hospitality industry. We transform complexity into confidence by providing actionable market insights, business intelligence, and pricing tools that maximize revenue growth. We continually innovate to deliver the best platform for hospitality professionals to price more effectively, measure performance more efficiently, and understand the market in new ways.

Trusted by over 65,000 hotels in 185 countries, Lighthouse is the only solution that provides real-time hotel and short-term rental data in a single platform. We strive to deliver the best possible experience with unmatched customer service. We consider our clients as true partners – their success is our success.