Staging Tips for Marketing your Holiday Let
In this article: Discover effective staging tips to attract guests to your holiday let, including decor ideas, practical flooring choices, and creating appealing, clutter-free spaces for great guest reviews.
Renting out a spare room (or a whole house, if you’re lucky enough to own a second home) is a great way to generate a second income. Holiday lets have become very popular with budget-savvy travellers and tourists, who often favour them over traditional hotels and B&Bs.
What’s the best way to market your holiday let?
To answer this, you need to understand what your potential customers are looking for. Yes, first and foremost they’re looking for a cheaper way to experience your local area (or to stay close to their destination if travelling for business) than booking a hotel. Many hotels still charge ‘per person’ and that’s just not attractive to families and couples - and solo travellers are often hit with a ‘single supplement’. So, first of all make sure you look at similar properties available in your area and price competitively.
But how do you get those guests to choose your holiday let over another? What else are they looking for?
The location is important - guests wanting peace and quiet don’t want to be near busy roads, airports or entertainment venues, whilst guests booking a city break want easy access to the city or to stay within the city itself. They want access to public transport, or somewhere to park, and they want places they can get to easily for food and drink. They want access to local amenities and sites - landmarks, beaches, historic buildings, museums - and places to explore on their holiday. If they have dogs, they’ll want somewhere they can go for walks without worrying about traffic or herds of cows.
They also want the comforts of home - things like WiFi (try telling a teenager that mum and dad have booked somewhere with no WiFi and no signal…), an en suite, a well-equipped kitchen and comfy bed.
Guests want to feel safe and comfortable, and want to know that they can contact you in an emergency.
How do you stage your holiday let photos?
With all of that in mind, your photos need to speak a thousand words. They need to tell your guests that your holiday let is clean, well cared for, safe and comfortable. Guests are likely to search for properties in the area they want to visit, then look at the photos, then check the details of your listing - so it’s important to create the right first impression with your pictures!
Here are some things to consider when choosing how to stage your holiday let.
1. Decorate and refurnish.
Unless your home or spare room is already freshly decorated and newly furnished, it is worth every penny to redecorate it, spruce it up with appropriate accessories, get rid of any personal possessions (including bits and bobs, and ornaments) and make it look somewhere a stranger would be happy to stay. <
Investing in this from the start will not only make your photos look great: your guests will be happy and comfortable from the very first visit and your vitally important reviews will be positive from the start.
Seeing your own room or house with fresh eyes is really difficult, so if you have a friend who isn’t afraid of being honest, ask them to come round and inspect your room or house before you start, and get them to check progress and the finished result.
The bed and mattress are likely to be your greatest expense. You could save some money by buying a second-hand frame, but you will need a new mattress. Don’t just buy the cheapest you can find - guests hate a hard or uncomfortable mattress and won’t be shy about saying so in their reviews! To keep it fresh for longer, make sure you use non-crinkly (silent) waterproof mattress protectors. Always make sure your sheets are clean, stain-free and fresh-smelling.
2. Choose your accessories and colours carefully
When choosing how to decorate, think about the type of holiday your guests will want. If you’re in the countryside, your guests might be looking for a countryside aesthetic - comfy chairs, an open fire, and rustic accessories (e.g. old books, a basket with logs for the fireplace or a brass coal scuttle, things like that).
Think carefully about your lighting - place lamps in areas where they make sense around the room, so your guests can turn them on rather than use the main overhead light for a cosy evening in.
If you have stone walls, low ceilings and wooden ceiling beams, these can be really attractive features so make sure you include them in your photos. If you’re painting, choose soft pale colours to brighten everything up, and add strong colours like reds and greens by accessorising with throws and cushions.
If your property is at the coast, use light colours for your walls (ideally white) and accessorise with blues and yellows to echo the colours outdoors. Adding framed photos or artwork of local landscapes / seascapes to your walls can work really well. Fake flowers are much better quality than they used to be: use glass bottles with local seaglass or pebbles at the bottom to display them on windowsills.
For city break holiday lets, function and modernity is the key - have everything your guests could want to hand, with a fully stocked kitchen, modern units and modern bathroom. Keep knick-knacks to a minimum; you’re competing with hotels in cities, and personal touches are not something most city-travellers are interested in.
Whatever type of holiday you’re offering, opt for dark colours to create intimacy, pale to create light, and greenery in the form of potted (fake) plants to add interest and a sense of freshness. Use paints that are designed to be cleaned and are tough enough to withstand occasional scuffs.
If you have the budget, use a professional photographer for your photos. They can adjust lighting and will have the professional eye to see which features to highlight. Otherwise, make sure you open curtains and choose a sunny day to take your photos to show your holiday let in its best light!
3. Consider flooring choices
When choosing flooring for your holiday let, you’ll want something that looks great in your photos but that will also be hardwearing, easy to clean and comfy under foot. Ceramic tiles can be good, but might be cold in winter. Luxury vinyl and laminate flooring is expensive but a good option in the long-run. If you opt for carpets, choose a wool blend without loops, to avoid unsightly snags.
4. Avoid costly mistakes
Avoid pale carpets and soft furnishings at all costs - you will be forever cleaning them, your guests won’t feel comfortable using them in case they drop something or get dirt on them, and they will look grimy very quickly.
There is a great deal of trust placed in guests when you rent out your home as a holiday let, but these are strangers and there are things you might not want them to touch or use. So, don’t leave anything precious in your holiday let, in case it is damaged or stolen.
Similarly, if you use your holiday let for your own holidays, you should store any personal belongings in a locked cupboard - safe, and out of sight. These might be things like your own sheets and duvets, or games and equipment you use when you’re on holiday that you don’t want to share with your guests when they visit. Clutter and personal belongings are very off-putting to guests, so make sure they are well and truly hidden if you have to keep them in the house.
If you’re renting out a spare room in your home, make sure it is clutter free for the photos, and keep any personal belongings out of the room when it is being used by a guest. This might mean moving belongings every time a guest visits. If those belongings are things you don’t use often (and only store them in your spare room for lack of space), consider using a self storage unit to keep them safe and out of the way unless and until you need them, freeing up valuable time when preparing to host guests.
Likewise, if you don’t have room in your holiday let for keeping your personal possessions separate, you could keep these in your self storage unit. Your unit could be close to your home, or close to the holiday let - whichever is most convenient.
You could also use your self storage unit to store extra supplies, like a stock of teabags / coffee sachets / sugar packets, shampoo / conditioner, towels, fresh sheets etc - things you supply for your guests to use. If you have a cleaner to service your let between guests, you could give them access to your self storage unit (our units are accessible to key-holders, so you could give your key to your cleaner).
If you would like to know more about using a self storage unit to store your belongings or holiday let supplies, please get in touch and our friendly team will be happy to help, with no obligation to book a unit.
