Why the Anticipation is Better Than the Vacation

If asked, who would ever say that they prefer crawling through lists of flights or rental properties to actually being on holiday? Tapping in your passport details and comparing prices is nowhere near as enjoyable as spotting elephants grazing in the savanna, or strolling through the boroughs of New York. So why is anticipation often so much sweeter than reality? Why does planning a vacation provide the sort of subconscious thrill that can seem absent from the actual trip?

You develop a mental image of exactly how things are going to go. This is a flash frame mental montage. You don’t include the 45-minute wait for a taxi, or the scramble to find the right change. The sea isn’t cold in your imagination and rain and clouds only exist in the dreary reality that you’re preparing to leave behind. Anticipation deletes all the boredom and frustration that even the best vacation rental manager can’t help.

Taking the step from just anticipating to actually booking is what vacation rental managers having been doing since their inception. However, it’s not an exact science. Practical ways how you can make sure your business creates this buzz for every guest that looks at your site is what we are discussing. Here are some tried and tested techniques that you can use on your website to build anticipation that result in more visitors becoming guests after anticipating the perfect stay in your vacation rental.

Feature Real People
When creating your listing remember that you are helping people imagine themselves in your property. They want to see just what booking with you involves. They want to be transported there. Don’t just list what you can do, mention how they will feel. Getting previous guests to submit their photos or videos to your social media is one way you can do this. Instead of a business telling you this is a relaxing spot for a holiday you can see real people, people like you, doing exactly that. You can picture yourself in their place. It is an aid to imagination and it also serves as a tacit recommendation.

An old sales cliche says that people don’t products for their use, so much as to become altered, better people from the products. The same type of motivation that sells gym memberships is at work in every product. Without it, you are you, as always, but with it, the possibilities open up. Booking a holiday is the same. They want to become the relaxed, tanned, contented versions of themselves they can picture. You’re cultured, refreshed and travelled. Life will be different after. Using real people bridges this gap for visitors to your website.

Use reviews that tell a story
Occasionally, you will get a review that goes beyond a standard description of the amenities, the cleanliness and the location. Some reviews just stand out because they tell a story and allow you to imagine yourself in the place of the reviewer. Look for multiple uses of the first person narrative, emotive descriptions and personal reflections.

Once you have found these reviews, highlight them. Put them in pride of place on every property description. Suddenly the voice speaking to your guest switches from you as a business, but as a single person with a personal account. They have nothing to gain and

Share why you love this property
Your own experiences don’t just help your guests to anticipate staying in your property, they start to build a connection between you. When booking, your guests are customers, you are the business. You are faceless. Small businesses become successful because they are able to demonstrate what led them to opening the business. How they became passionate about what they do and the personal care attention they put into their business and properties. Just letting your guests get a sense of why you rent out this property will be enough to create this sense of anticipation.

Creating a sense of anticipation and letting your guests’ plans start to run wild is not an easy technique, but it is effective. Using these ideas will help you to tap into this excitement of going away and get people to set their hearts on your business over any other.

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