Kalkan Turkey Forum - EnjoyKalkan.com
The Owners Lounge => General Discussion => Topic started by: alantj on November 07, 2010, 03:01:14 PM
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I am just updating our websites for next year and wondering if it is worth advertising our villa on EK.
I would appreciate any views information about whether the number of enquiries/bookings from EK made it worthwhile, taking into account it is another website to keep updated.
Also we are finding that ownersdirect is now generating far more enquiries than holiday lettings and villarenters combined. Is anyone else finding this.
Regards
Alan
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You cant beat EK for price - its free! However keeping your advert up to date is very important and getting the photos right.
There are going to be a number of exciting changes to the accommodation section when EK gets its 2011 makeover :)
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Have only had one enquiry from our EK advert but it resulted in a three week booking for August 20101 which was very welcome. Holiday Lettings gave us the rest for 2010 but was rather slow and didn't fill every available week. Am trying Owners Direct (plus Holiday Lettings and EK) for 2011 as it has been getting very good reports. So far have had a number of enquiries but none converted to bookings.
So, in summary, they're all a bit like the curates egg, good in parts.
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We only got 2 enquiries and one booking through EK this year.
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Not has one enquiry with EK but fully booked with Owners Direct.
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We only had two enquiries thru EK for 2010 (zero bookings), 24 enqs with HL (2 bookings), 34 enqs with OD (6 bookings).
We find HL a better website as regards the amount of information we can supply and 20 photos allowed - but expensive, we have suspended our advert for a few months but will probably reinstate it after the New Year. OD is slightly cheaper but with only 12 photos.
This year we found we had a lot of last minute enquiries whereas next year seems to be the year of early enquiries/bookings. People always shop around various websites anyway, there's only so much of the market you can cover and HL & OD take a good proportion of that.
We seem to be lucky if we can get enough bookings to cover our bills! Our bookings are so low we have not been able to afford to get over to Kalkan ourselves this year - which is NOT our idea of a sound investment! We have offered discounts, kept prices the same two years running - we are running out of ideas to attract punters.
Maybe 2011 will be a better year for us. Oh, and our apartment is up for sale too - any takers? ;D
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A few enquiries through Kalkan Luxury Rentals but never able to accommodate due to confirmed bookings. OD is the only site for me, always fully booked, reasonable advertising rates and an easy site to find and navigate.
Possums, in my experience photos are the way to go. Have you perhaps thought of refreshing/updating your photos? However, one has also got to 'hook' the potential clients in the first instance when they're browsing. Therefore, I believe it's the front photo and the opening lines which will do it.
Imagine it's yourselves looking through the web site and what would attract you, your older relatives/friends and children. What is it that's most important to you when choosing a villa/apartment? Therefore, think of what's the best feature of your property? (Think back to why you bought that particular property, why it attracted you) and try to convey those points in the few opening words on top of the front photo and the opening paragraph of your advert. Sometimes it's not always the discounts that grab people, because they perceive (wrongly) that the product is 'cheap'!
Anyone buying a property abroad to make money out of it though will probably be disappointed. Whether at home or abroad a property needs care and maintenance which takes time, effort and not least of all, expenditure. But the owner should at least be able to afford to visit and enjoy at least once or twice per year, otherwise it's questionable to own abroad.
Rosie
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..from a serial renters perspective, if owners might be interested, we only use either Holiday Lettings or Owners Direct. The accomodation information on EK doesn't appear to be updated...I appreciate that may be the owners responsibility, but some are showing not booked at all, when in fact they are pretty much completely booked on other sites and one is showing prices for 2008?!. I prefer HL or OD as they are both very slick operations, from the renters perspective, and having used both sites with no problem in the past, you tend to stick with what you know works.
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I too am a serial renter and agree with K4E, we generally use OD as I like the layout of the site and you can advance search to narrow down choices as you wish. One piece of feedback I would give re the EK rental section is that everytime you click on a properties details and then return to the main page, all the properties are in a different order. I appreciate there may be a reason for this in that property details are rotated so that the same ones aren't always at the top of the list. However it makes the whole experience quite cumbersome, so I gave up.
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Hi All,
The EK properties rotate by design to ensure that there is a fair spread as to where a persons property appears (so the first listing isnt always number 1 etc)
However, EK is currently undergoing its 2011 makeover so I welcome any feedback, just send me a PM
Cheers
Jon
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We always use Owners Direct with a link to my own website and all of my bookings have come from there. My only grizzle with OD is that you can only put your link in at the bottom of the page and clients don't seem to look there.
I am on EK but can't get into my ad now to update it, I have sent mails requesting help but have never received any reply. I can only hope that the 2011 makover will allow me access.
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Thank you to everyone that has replied. Overall at the bargain price of nothing it seems worthwhile to list, as several people have had at least one booking.
It would good if Jon could take account of the comments from Kalkan4eva and Jossfloss, i.e. stop the order changing and require listings to be updated on a regular basis. How about displaying in last updated order, so that there is an incentive for owners to update their ads, as renters can see when ads were last updated and maybe decide to ignore anything below a certain point
I decided to list our villa but have encountered a problem in setting up the account, the free offer is showing as expired.
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Hi Wendy
I can see a password reset was sent to you yesterday, have you checked your spam folder just in case?
Cheers
Jon
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Free offer expiry issue fixed
Existing members please log in and check your account is enabled :)
Thanks
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I think it is only fair to rotate the EK accomodation ads so that everyone gets a chance at the top of the page. All the popular holiday rental sites such as Owners Direct and Holiday Lettings etc rotate their ads to give all renters a fair chance so why should EK be any different?
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Holidaylettings already put the regularly updated sites to the top of the pile.
Its up to Jon but I think this would be a good way of improving the service to renters, it's very very annoying when you go to all the trouble of selecting a property only to find it is already let for the dates you are after.
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Free offer expiry issue fixed
Existing members please log in and check your account is enabled :)
Thanks
Jon, I have just tried and the package is still showing as expired.
Regards
Alan
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Free offer expiry issue fixed
Existing members please log in and check your account is enabled :)
Our apartment no longer appears in the EK rentals listing - it has disappeared completely! :o
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Our has disappeared also. Is there any way of getting it back Jon without having to put it all on again from scratch?
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No problem Ill look now for you :)
Anyone else with an issue just send me a PM
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Try now please :)