General	Free ad sites	Press Ads
Listing sites	Ad conversion rate	Returning guests

Converting enquiries to bookings

We all receive a lot of enquiries that do not subsequently become actual bookings. Not surprising, since someone searching for a holiday will probably send enquiries to several properties. So if the average holiday hunter sends five enquiries to book one holiday, we would expect 20% of enquiries to become actual bookings.

However, it is clear that some people have more success than others with this. Some aspects you might like to consider if you have quite a low 'conversion' rate include:

- was the original advert misleading in some way, or unclear about some key information e.g. price, number of people it holds, whether there is a pool or not?

- do you respond to email enquiries promptly, and have a schedule of prices and availability to hand ready for any phone enquiries? email should be checked at least once a day

- is your response too abrupt? A friendly, chatty type response is likely to be more successful than a 'the period you requested is available, price £500' response

- does your website have plenty of 'sunny day' photographs?

- are your prices competitive?

- are your adverts clear about whether you accept smokers and pets?

Since we never really know what percentage of enquiries should become firm bookings, it is hard to know whether we are doing well or not. Overall I believe a reasonable target is about one in three. This ratio changes a lot if you don't include availability information in your adverts or website, since you should receive lots of enquiries for periods that are already booked, especially for the summer months  - hence these queries can be excluded when you calculate your 'conversion ratio'.

 

General	Free ad sites	Press Ads
Listing sites	Ad conversion rate	Returning guests