Property Management in Winter Park Colorado
Introduction
As a property owner, or potential property owner, in the Winter Park &
Fraser Valley, it is possible you may fit into one of the following
categories:
-
You are buying, or have just bought a condominium,
townhouse or private home, and are interested in putting it on a
rental management program
-
You have owned a property in the valley for a while,
it is not on a rental program, but you are investigating ways of
maximizing your investment
-
You are currently with another management company in
the valley, and are interested in learning about alternative options
for the representation of your property.
Whatever position you are in, I would like to introduce
you to our management company - Vacations Incorporated. We currently
serve over 200 homeowners on our short-term rental program, and with
over 35 years experience in rental management, we believe that we are
well placed to provide both effective and rewarding representation for
rental Owners in the Winter Park and Fraser Valley.
Homeowners opting to place their property with a rental
management company typically are looking for income while still being
able to enjoy their mountain real estate investment. Other benefits may
include peace of mind in knowing that you property is being expertly
cared for, having a nice clean mountain home to use at your discretion,
24-hour on call maintenance & front office, and the tax benefits of
having a rental property.
We understand the special needs of a homeowner opting to
rent their home out to Grand County vacationers. We have a dedicated
reservation, front office, housekeeping, and maintenance department, to
make sure that the needs of our homeowners and guests are exceeded.
Vacations Inc, backed by its website
www.vacationsinc.com,
has a very powerful presence in the lodging community, both domestically
and internationally, and the marketing of your unit will directly
benefit in that regard. Further, we have an extremely experienced
reservation team in place to convert calls into sales, allied with one
of the most aggressive sales and marketing strategies in the valley.
Sales & Marketing
Overview
Vacations Inc has developed a comprehensive in-house marketing program
for both summer and winter seasons that cover all the essential markets
and use of contemporary mediums to reach potential guests.
Internet Marketing has evolved dramatically in recent
years. We place such a high level of importance on our internet
marketing it warrants a separate section all to itself. Please see the
next section for more details.
Our other main areas of focus cover the following:
Direct Mail & Brochure Distribution
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Use of direct mail to repeat guests and qualified
leads for key target markets, garnered and refined over 35 years.
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Daily mailings to leads secured through our website,
linked websites, Chamber of Commerce, etc
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Brochure mailing to 25,000 qualified leads per year
through our Distribution Sponsorship with the Chamber of Commerce
-
Brochure/rack card distribution through affiliations and
sponsorship programs to qualified enquiries for Winter Park and Colorado
Wholesaler & Travel Agent Network
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An extensive Wholesaler partnership program with the
leading domestic and international tour operators for both
individual and group business
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Winter Park Central Reservations subscriber
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On-line 3rd party intermediary representation (eg:
Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, etc)
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Use of our own maintained travel agent database
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Formal travel agent training sessions
Print Advertising
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Selective print advertising in magazines,
journals, directories, guides, etc, in both the domestic and
international marketplace
-
Ski & Summer Shows
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Attendance, or brochure distribution, at ski shows,
travel agent shows, summer shows and conventions, etc
In-house Sales & Marketing
Subscriptions and Memberships
Vacations Inc has ongoing memberships with a select
number of professional bodies and organizations on a local, state,
national and international level, whereby our membership derives direct
benefits in the form of:
- sales
- lead generation
- marketing presence and representation
- key resort industry reports and information.
Our memberships include:
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Winter Park & the Fraser Valley Chamber of Commerce
-
Winter Park Central Reservations
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Grand County Tourism Office
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Denver Metro Convention & Visitor's Bureau
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Colorado Hotel & Lodging Association
-
Colorado Ski Country USA
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Colorado Tourism Office
-
Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International
-
Mountain Research Travel Program
-
Ski Tour Operators Association
-
Vacation Rental Managers Association
Internet Marketing Strategy
Overall Philosophy
I probably don't need to give you any figures to highlight how important
the Internet is as part of any marketing strategy in the leisure
industry. It goes way beyond merely just the existence of a website and
hoping that the sales will follow.
The design of the site itself has to be pleasing to the
eye and attempt to appeal to all tastes. At the same time it has to be
professional enough to instill confidence in the visitor, such that they
will feel comfortable in making their reservation in deference to the
competition - be it on-line, or through a phone call as a result of what
they see on the site.
Equally important, is the "visibility" or prominence of
the site itself. It has to be promoted aggressively enough such that it
appears as an option to be visited whenever a potential guest might try
to find lodging information (and more) at a ski resort - both summer and
winter. This is an extremely costly and time-consuming exercise, but is
necessary to stay ahead of our competition and as such is a vital part
of our overall website strategy.
Website Design & Content
In March of 2004, it was determined that our own website was in need of
a major overhaul, together with a more aggressive promotional strategy
appropriate to this era of internet marketing. The underlying objective
is to increase the amount of traffic to our website, and also to ensure
our site achieves higher search-engine rankings. This would increase
visibility and ultimately, would generate significantly more
reservations for the properties that we represent.
We therefore committed significant long-term resources
in this regard, and retained the services of industry leaders Blizzard
Internet Marketing, Inc, to undertake an initial re-design of the site,
and then conduct a continuous, aggressive promotional campaign to
increase traffic to our site.
The website was re-launched on July 9, 2004. The visual
aspects of the site are considerably more appealing. Through the use of
rich photography, attractive color scheme, and flash animation, the
intention is to grab the viewer and ensure he or she explores the site
further. Through consistent presentation of material, with the emphasis
on lodging of course, the viewer will be able to find the information
they're looking for, research it, and hopefully proceed to a booking
scenario, either on-line or by phone.
The photographs are changed regularly to keep it fresh,
and reflect the winter or summer booking season. We secured the rights
to some great action and scenic photographs taken by local photographer,
Byron Hetzler, which we believe emphasizes what Winter Park is all
about: as an example - for winter - great snow, enabling fantastic
skiing and snowboarding, and in one of the most beautiful settings any
resort has to offer.
All properties we manage under our condos, townhomes,
and private homes pages are rotated randomly, so that anyone commencing
their review of what we have to offer from the "top down", would not
necessarily start with a complex or unit whose first letter is at or
near the start of the alphabet. Blizzard introduced a "property rotation
script" to achieve this objective, and moreover has made it "seamless"
such that each property is not separated by an unattractive and
traditional horizontal bar. We also rotate units within property ‘type"
on the Home Page via our "Featured Properties" showcasing.
Throughout the site are multiple "calls to action",
especially in the form of on-line booking. According to the "J.D. Power
& Associates 2004 North American Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study",
guests who book directly on a hotel chain's website report significantly
higher satisfaction with their stay than those who make reservations
through an independent travel site. The study finds that the number of
consumers who booked a hotel reservation online has increased more than
50% over 2003 among those who have Internet access. Our ongoing
objective is to capitalize on this trend.
Promotion
It is one thing to build a new site, a second to market and promote it
effectively. "If you build it, they will come" is certainly NOT true in
this instance! Together with our marketing partner Blizzard Internet
Marketing, we embarked on an extremely aggressive website promotion
campaign to increase the "visibility" or prominence of our website, as
much as possible. The methods to achieve this are many, varied, and of
course costly, but vitally important in bringing traffic to our site,
and include the following:
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An holistic approach to search engine optimization,
combining efforts to achieve high organic positioning for our
targeted keyword phrases (see page 8 for a full explanation),
together with an aggressive "pay-per-click" program
-
Extensive advertising with the major on-line ski and
lodging websites, including banner advertisements, hyperlinks, etc
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Significant in-bound links from industry-wide websites,
plus paid listings with a multitude of fee-based lodging directories and
free listings on many others
-
Special features on e-mail newsletters to our database
of e-mail subscribers who have opted in to receive such material.
Regular e-mail newsletters are an exceptionally effective, qualified and
cost-efficient means of getting our product, specials, packages and
"newsworthy" events into the hands of the consumer.
Results
According to available comparable data, user traffic continues to
outstrip that of our major competitors. Actual reservations generated as
a result of our internet presence continues to climb dramatically, and
accounts for an ever-increasing percentage of our total gross sales.
We continue to explore new ways of increasing the
visibility of our website through greater promotional and other
advertising expenditure. Our focus is to secure our position as the #1
most visited lodging website in the community. Some of the feedback we
get is that "we're everywhere" which is exactly what we want to hear!
Most importantly, we are getting excellent organic (or
natural) search engine positioning, across the three main Search Engines
(Google, MSN and Yahoo) for our targeted keyword phrases. According to
market research, 85% of people researching a vacation of some sort on
the Internet, start with a Search Engine, and then type in a few words
into the Search box, on the topic they want more information about.
Everyone searches differently, and will use different words,
combinations of words, and consequent refinements of their searches
during the search process. The objective is to ensure that we appear as
high in the "results" as possible, for any combination of key phrases or
search terms that people might use.
Our own research and statistical data demonstrates that
we are consistently out-performing our local competition for virtually
all the most important phrases pertinent to our business and location.
We complement these efforts through an aggressive "Pay-per-Click"
program, whereby we are charged whatever our bid amount is, for anyone
clicking on our website when it shows up in the results for "Sponsored
Links".
The underlying objective is that more people will come
to our website if we continue to achieve these high ranking results
(page one of the results is good, a top four position on page one is
excellent), and thus we stand a better chance of securing their
reservation than the competition.
President, Brian Lence would be very pleased to go
through some of the reports, statistics, and results in our databank
that support the above analysis, perhaps demonstrate some of the
techniques we employ, and talk further about our internet marketing
strategy if you are interested in learning more about this particular
aspect of our operation.
If you would like to take learn more about our Rental
Management program, we would be very happy to send you our comprehensive
Rental Information Pack in the mail to you. We would also welcome the
opportunity of talking with you in person. Please feel free to call
Brian Lence on his direct line: 970-726-6265, or contact him via the following form:
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