How travellers search and book

Travellers come to our platform to find their perfect holiday rental. Whether it’s that ideal beachfront location or a property big enough for their entire family, each traveller is searching for something a little different. When a traveller searches on our platform, your property will appear among many others in our marketplace. Having a property that performs well in search results is important to your performance. Your search position is influenced by many factors, including:

• The quality of your listing content
• The competitiveness of your rates
• Your history of accepting and honouring bookings
• The quality and quantity of your property reviews

Edit your listing

Why the booking journey is important

Knowing every option a traveller has to book your property helps you understand how you can adjust your listing or booking settings to improve the booking experience for you and the traveller.

Travellers can take several paths to booking your property. They can start with a question (an enquiry), make a booking request (if you’re using 24-hour review) or go directly to a confirmed booking (if you’re using Instant Booking).

Enquiry

The traveller finds your listing and wants to know more about it. Once their questions are answered, you can secure the booking by sending a payment request. The traveller has 72 hours to make a payment to confirm the booking and to be automatically added to your reservation calendar. 

Booking request

If you’re using 24-hour review, the traveller can send you a booking request for the listing they want to book. You have one full day to respond to the request. If everything looks good, you can accept the request and the booking will automatically be added to your reservation calendar. 

Instant Booking

If you have Instant Booking  turned on, the traveller can book your listing and automatically be added to your reservation calendar.

Your inbox is where you manage all traveller communication, from enquiries to booking requests. On your dashboard home page, you can see your most recent traveller communications right after you log in. It’s easy to identify which messages need your attention. 

Go to Inbox

Whether the traveller is asking a question or making a booking request, always try to respond quickly. This not only ensures that you can get the booking, but also gives travellers confidence that you’ll provide them with a great experience. If you’re not already doing so, you can also turn on Instant Booking. This feature lets travellers go straight to a confirmed booking — without the need for you to review a booking request. 

Switch to Instant Booking

From your dashboard, go to ‘property’ then ‘rules and policies’, then ‘booking type’.