News
Owner Newsletter 13 Dec 2009
A quick reference guide for the new website is now available, in addition to the owner manual sent out previously. The quick reference guide is a simple one-page “how to” and covers most basic functions you will need to manage your property, enquiries, and bookings. You can download a copy of it here.
The ‘front-end’ – the public website – looks similar to the old site, but the ‘back-end’ – the owner functions – are completely different, and I apologise for the inconvenience of having to switch over.The old site simply wasn’t reliable enough. The new system takes some getting used to but is jam-packed with really great features. Some of the things you can do:
- set different rates for different minimum stays, eg $250 per night for 3 night stays, $240 per night for 4 night stays, $230 per night for 5 night stays, and so on
- set different rates for different numbers of guests, eg 2 guests $250 per night, 4 guests $280 per night, 6 guests $300 per night etc
- have different rates groups, eg Standard Apartment / Deluxe Apartment, or Nightly rate / Weekly rate
- list your property on multiple different websites without having to do anything and at zero extra cost!
- easily change rates for certain days, or block your calendar ….
More information is available in the Property Owner’s Manual, or give us a call.
Every property that lists on Darwin Holiday Apartments website is eligible for a free email address at darwinholidayapartments.com. Having a professional email address rather than one from a public email provider like hotmail or gmail helps instill confidence in customers, and convert enquiries to bookings. You can access your @darwinholidayapartments.com email address via any standard mail program (eg Microsoft Outlook), and via the web anywhere anytime using our webmail facility.Your email address is absolutely private and accessible only by you. There is no extra charge for this service. Please contact Cathryn if you would like to take advantage of this free service.
One of the really great features of the new website for owners is that you can embed your property’s ‘search and book’ page on your own website. It’s really easy, and it’s absolutely free. If you’re a little bit tech-savy you can download these easy instructions (or give them to your web developer), or alternatively contact Cathryn for assistance.
If you don’t have a website and would like one, Seekom (the NZ company we have partnered with to build our new website) can provide pre-made websites at a *really* good price (ie $35 a month). You can even run your own off the Darwin Holiday Apartments database, so there’s virtually no setup and you can be up and running in 24 hours.
The benefits of having a Seekom website with online booking capability are tremendous:
- you can have a super-slick professional website up and running in 24 hours, with no technical skills required
- you have a central place to store and manage all your bookings and enquiries
- it runs off the DHA database, so there’s no doubling up of calendars or bookings. As soon as you make a booking from your site, it shows up on ours.
- you reduce the work and time involved in managing bookings, through the automated booking system (honestly, I spend about 1/10th of the time managing bookings now)
- because customers can search book and pay online all in one easy transaction you get a a higher conversion rate of enquiries to bookings
- having your bookings and property management system online means you can access it from anywhere anytime.
- importantly, you save money because you’re not paying all those fees to other websites for bookings and referrals
We at Darwin Holiday Apartments have saved literally tens of thousands of dollars in fees and commissions to sites like stayz, wotif, quickbeds, and so on since establishing our own website. To encourage you to do the same, we are offering to reduce our commission to just 4% for anyone who runs their own website off our booking system. Please contact Cathryn for details.
Owner Invoices
Yes I know. I’ve been so busy getting the new website up and running that I haven’t invoiced. Don’t worry, I will do this in the next few days, and your invoices should be in your inbox before Christmas! Thanks to all those lovely owners who continue to operate on an honour-based system – we’re in this together and I really appreciate your support.
We wish you a happy and safe Christmas filled with good cheer, and good bookings.
kind regards,
Cathryn
