How do orphan days affect the visibility of your vacation rentals?

We have some news for you: if you don’t properly manage orphan days, the visibility of your vacation rental will be negatively impacted. Why? We’ll explain below.

Orphan days in vacation rentals refer to those days that remain available between two consecutive bookings. These days can be challenging to rent out, as potential guests usually look for longer stays or ones that fit their specific travel plans.

Imagine an apartment with a minimum stay of 5 days and bookings from Monday to Friday. In two weeks, this apartment has two orphan days; the system doesn’t display these days as available unless the minimum stay is changed. This implies a considerable loss in revenue. It also negatively affects your visibility in sales channels.

Think about it; if you don’t manage your orphan days correctly, you’re missing out on the opportunity to have bookings on those days. Not only that, but you’re also losing money because you probably still have to pay for electricity, gas, internet, cleaning, etc.

This makes the algorithm place you in a lower position in the search lists. Moreover, you’re excluding yourself from some search filters due to these intermediate days between bookings. As a result, you might not frequently appear in search results, and when you do, it’s in a very low position.

*Turbotip: remember that Booking.com invests in your vacation rentals to display them in a higher position based on your conversion rate, use it to your advantage.

Visibility, although dependent on various factors, can be controlled. Therefore, it’s essential that you thoroughly review your strategies to minimize the damage orphan days can do to the visibility of your vacation rentals.

Would you like to learn how to manage your orphan days more effectively? Download our ebook “How to Tackle and Minimize the Impact of Orphan Days in Vacation Rentals”. You can get it here.