Did you know that 25% of European travelers have stayed in a vacation rental before? Marketing to international travelers with a multilingual vacation rental website can increase your earnings and give you an edge over the competition! While only 14% of travelers reported they felt comfortable booking a stay from a website in a foreign language, 73% were more likely to book if they could access the website in their native language. In this article, we’ll cover the benefits of making your vacation rental website multilingual, as well as six tips for making this change to your website.
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Benefits of a Multilingual Vacation Rental Website
Building your own vacation rental website can undoubtedly thrive your rental business but is it worth it to make your vacation rental website multilingual? We’ll let you decide that after reading through the following benefits.
Attract International Travelers
With a multilingual vacation rental website, you can welcome guests from all over the world! A site with only English will result in you missing out on many potential guests–and they could even end up choosing your competitor, just because their site is more accessible than yours. A multilingual website allows you to broaden your market and appeal to a much larger group of potential guests.
More Accessible for Non-English Speakers
How likely would you be to book a stay at a rental property if the site was in a language that you weren’t familiar with? A multilingual website makes all the information regarding your vacation rental property accessible and understandable for non-English speakers. It makes them feel more comfortable and secure in choosing to book your rental. A multilingual vacation rental website resolves any doubts international travelers may have had about making a reservation.
Improve Conversion Rates, Bookings, and Income
Since having multiple languages on your website supports your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Google rankings, you’re likely to experience improved conversion rates! This means that more people will see your site listed when they search on Google, which also means that more people will click on your vacation rental website. And with more people clicking on your site, more bookings and more profits are sure to follow.
Increase Brand Awareness
With an improved position in search results comes more brand awareness. The more people who see your vacation rental property website, the more exposure for your brand. Having a multilingual vacation rental website gives you the reputation of a credible, global company. To make your brand more effective, be sure to use the same name and logo for your vacation rental business on your website and all social media profiles.
Earn Positive Reviews
With a website and automated messages in different languages, you’re set up for great guest communication, even with international guests who might not speak the same language as you. You can increase overall guest satisfaction, improve your reputation, and earn positive reviews from satisfied guests by catering to these international guests.
6 Tips for Your Multilingual Vacation Rental Website
While you can simply jump in, translate your website into a few different languages, and hope for the best, that won’t necessarily maximize the benefits you can get from a multilingual vacation rental website. We’ve included several tips below to help you make your multilingual website as effective and successful as possible.
1. Choose languages wisely.
First, you’ll need to consider which languages you want to be accessible on your website. Take the time to research the languages that will be most relevant and effective for your business. The most prominent languages spoken by international travelers include German, Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, and Portuguese. The five most spoken languages in the world are Chinese, Spanish, English, Hindi, and Arabic. But depending on the types of guests that most often visit the area where your vacation rental property is located, you might want to consider other languages as well.
It’s wise to take a look at your vacation rental website’s Google Analytics. Where are your website visitors coming from, and what languages do they speak? Sift through your past guests and upcoming bookings as well. Do you see any trends with international travelers?
2. Always have a native speaker check your translations.
While Google Translate and similar websites are a good place to start, it’s crucial to have a native speaker double-check all translations before putting them on your website. You don’t want to have any misunderstandings due to inaccurate translations that could have been avoided! If you don’t know anyone who speaks the language, you can hire a freelancer to complete the job for you. Getting your translations checked by a native speaker is the most professional and credible way to ensure that your vacation rental website says exactly what you intend for it to say when translated into other languages. This way, you’ll avoid anything getting lost in translation.
3. Translate your automated messages, reviews, and FAQs.
Along with translating your listing, it’s best to also translate your automated messages, reviews, and FAQs. These are all important to potential guests who are considering booking a stay at your vacation rental. The listing alone provides tons of important information, but messages, reviews, and FAQs are also essential to making a decision between multiple vacation rental properties.
Answer as many FAQs as possible, and you’re less likely to receive messages asking questions. Meanwhile, having automated messages ready to respond to non-English speaking guests is a great way to continue communication even if you don’t speak the language. Of course, reviews are important to potential guests as they evaluate what other people thought of the vacation rental and whether it’s true to the listing or not.
Once your guests arrive, a nice touch is to translate your welcome binder. Also, make sure to be clear about time differences when messaging with international guests. This is especially important when talking about check-in and check-out times.
4. Use lots of photos to give explanations that don’t require words.
We’ve all heard that a picture speaks a thousand words. So, add as many photos as possible to your listing in order to explain everything you can without having to type it out. You can even add pictures of various amenities and toiletries so that guests know what to expect when they visit your vacation rental property. Be sure to include a mix of indoor and outdoor photos as well so that potential guests can have accurate expectations of what they’ll encounter when they arrive. Typically, the more photos you have, the fewer questions guests need to ask because they can already see the answers. However, since photo captions are a great place to add more details that can’t necessarily be shown visually, it’s smart to translate the captions as well.
5. Advertise on sites used by international travelers.
Do some research to see what sites the particular international travelers you’re targeting like to use when searching for vacation rentals. However, managing listings on multiple websites can be challenging, and it can even lead to double-booking if you don’t keep up with your calendar. That’s why it’s important to use a channel manager or PMS (Property Management System) to organize all of your bookings into one cohesive calendar and keep track of everything for you. Plus, using these tools automates many of your tasks as a vacation rental owner and opens up your schedule for you to spend time on other important responsibilities.
6. Offer secure payment options.
One thing that international guests will definitely be looking for is a secure payment option. Accepting credit cards is typically the best way to do this. Credit cards aren’t linked to bank accounts, and they offer protection against fraud. It’s also very simple to issue a refund to a credit card, and a bonus for you is that credit card payments improve your cash flow. The money is deposited into your account immediately, so you’re not left waiting or worrying about a check bouncing. Another way to make payment secure is to ensure you have SSL encryption on your website. You can check to see if your website is SSL encrypted by looking at the web address. If it contains “https,” then it is SSL encrypted.
Main Takeaways
Here are some of the main benefits of making your vacation rental website multilingual:
- Attract international travelers and expand your market
- Be more accessible for non-English speakers
- Improve conversion rates, bookings, and income
- Increase brand awareness through improved standing in search results
- Earn positive reviews thanks to the accessible guest experience you’ve provided
These six tips will help you get the most out of your multilingual vacation rental website:
- Choose languages wisely, doing research using your previous bookings and Google Analytics.
- Always have a native speaker check your translations to avoid miscommunication.
- Translate your automated messages, reviews, and FAQs as well as your listing.
- Use lots of photos to give explanations that don’t require words.
- Advertise on sites used by international travelers.
- Offer secure payment options, namely the ability to pay with a credit card.
