02/19/2023
Hey guys! This post intended to be informative and help educate our guests. The vacation rental space is constantly changing.
Broken Bow is a rapidly growing area with hundreds of new cabins being completed every year. Many are managed by a management company. However, there are several that are self managed like ourselves. As owners and hosts our intention is to provide a memorable experience for our guests by creating a space that they want to return too. A vacation is personal. It’s your time to unwind and create memories. Your stay with us is personal to us and we want it to be an experience that you can’t wait to come back too!
With that being said, to remain competitive with our fellow modern cabin owners our pricing has dropped considerably this year. We are working on a direct booking site to help you save $$$ when you want to come stay with us. Pricing and fees can and will vary depending on the platform that you book us on. We have NO control over Airbnb and VRBO fees, nor can we can control what they advertise as our “average nightly rate.”
That rate that the third party sites advertise as our nightly rate is automatically generated by an average for the year. (We do not control that price!) Like most vacation rentals nightly pricing is affected by the season, holidays and if it’s a weekday or weekend booking.
I felt the need to explain this in better detail because I understand that not everyone is familiar with how pricing works on Airbnb, Vrbo and other similar sites.
We recently received a very aggressive message from a potential guest that saw a VRBO ad with a photo of our cabin advertising the average nightly rate as $460. (This was not our ad, it is boosted by VRBO and they are paying for it.) When the potential guest proceeded to book a few nights with us the week of Thanksgiving he saw the rate was significantly higher and he was rather angry. It is a holiday week. And all the cabins nightly rates are higher to adjust for increased demand. Some even change their minimum stay from 2 nights to 3 or 4.
This is a business and our personal vacation home. We care deeply for our guests and the experience that they have. I do everything in my power to earn a positive review from every family, couple and group that stays with us. Negative reviews greatly impact our ability to gain new bookings and even place in searches for rentals in our area. Please take this in to consideration prior to sending your host, or a potential host, a message and show us the same respect and decency we are showing you.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.