The greatest tool is marketing a vacation rental is where you advertise it, but the second greatest tool is how well your vacation rental is presented. This is where great photography and videography comes in hand. With the current technology out there many people choose to take their own photos and videos, but we have found using a professional makes a world of a difference.
Photography
You want to make the pictures look as close to what the guest will experience as possible. You do not want dark photos that do not blend the interior and exterior well. More than likely this will cause guests not to book. At the same time you do not want to over edit the photos to a point when guests show up they fill that there was false advertising. We live in an area where there are ocean views and one of the most common complaints, I hear from guests of other properties is that the view that was in the photos was not the same view they got when they got to the property. Last, but not least, you want to get as many photos as possible of as many aspects of the property as possible.
Videography
For more luxurious properties videography is a great way to showcase a property. If done well this almost gives the guests a similar experience to walking throughout the property. If done well, these are not cheap and may not be good value if you do not have a property that demands a higher rent.
Virtual Tours
Virtual tours were a fad for a few years. There are companies that can take your still pictures and essentially put them together with panning software to give the guests what feels like a live virtual tour of the property as through they were walking through it. With the increased popularity of videography, virtual tours began to decrease in use since what videography could accomplish was so much greater.
If you have your vacation rental professionally managed, most Waikoloa property management companies take care of the photography for you.
