To maximize your chances of earning bookings, you’re going to need an efficient and user-friendly rental booking software that makes it easy for potential guests to reserve your rentals online. 

Sure, you’ll want to list on the popular OTAs (or online booking channels), like Airbnb and Booking.com, but a website of your own will serve as a unique booking portal that both showcases your brand and professionalism and doesn’t cost you in commission.

How do I make a booking website?

From hiring your own developers to coding the site yourself, there are several elaborate approaches you can take to creating your booking website. The most straightforward and affordable option, however, especially for those with limited time and/or coding skills, would be to utilize a website building tool. 

Tools like Wix, Squarespace and WordPress allow you to choose from ready-made templates and simply customize them to your needs. 

Better yet, if you are using a property management software that includes a website building feature, you can access a website template specifically tailored to the needs of property managers and one that is already integrated with your management dashboard. This way, your central calendar will automatically account for reservations made through your booking website and will block off dates on which reservations were booked through other channels. 

What is the best vacation rental booking software?

There are many elements that go into making a booking software successful:

• It must be easy to use
• The site should have a clean design and be aesthetically pleasing
• The content should be well-written and intriguing, but also concise so as not to overwhelm visitors 
• Guests should have access to all of the information they need, including anything they’d find about a listing on an OTA (prices, minimum nights, property description, house rules etc.)
• The site should feature reviews from previous guests to instill confidence in visitors
• For marketing purposes, the site should offer coupon codes for various occasions
• The site should be search engine optimized, which means optimized to appear high in search results on Google and similar engines
• The booking software should be integrated with your property management software to enable it to access and push information about reservations to your central calendar and dashboard