Strange dip in bookings taken in first week of December.

[charles cawley]

Although we have had a much better year and advance bookings are looking good, for some reason, the last 8 days (first week of December) has seen a significant reduction in the normal number of bookings taken to be expected. Web traffic has fallen off (ppc and organic) but not quite so much.

This dip is a little unsettling. I can only put it down to the fact that last minute, at this time of year, may be waiting until very late due to the shocking weather at the end of 2013. If so, I can't blame the guests one little bit.

Booking patterns for owner generated bookings appear to be behaving in the same manner. If you are suffering from a similar pattern, (for UK holiday lets) do not be too worried... it's not you.

[apexblue]

Thanks Charles we are in the same position.

[dwtmill]

Much the same here in south Wales.

[Unibond3]

Hi Charles
Interesting comment and thank you for raising it.

Like you, our December bookings are also not as prolific as this time last year - thus far. December is traditionally the worst performing month of the year, but bookings are currently about 15% below 2013 figures.

However, having looked at the data a possible explanation emerges. Like you, we've had a fantastic autumn with bookings in September, October and November being almost double last year's achievements. Consequently, we have far less availability for cottages during the weeks that December enquirers seem to want, namely last minute Christmas/New Year bookings and the summer holidays, (which have booked well so far) so wondered whether the December drop in enquiries is was mainly due to the lack of availability at these times, rather than a drop in demand.

All our site rankings have maintained, if not improved their levels, visits to our websites have only experienced a slight fall commensurate with similar December falls in previous years and, as the number of site visitors exiting a site on its availability page has risen overall, we believe this to be the case.

Like you, we still take the matter seriously unless there is another reason that we haven't been able to identify, so look forward to other plausible explanations offered by the assembled multitude of wise Hatters.

If it is any consolation, if you look at Google Trends, you’ll see that the trend for enquiries using the search phrase ‘holiday cottages’ in December has been falling since 2005 http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q= ... 20cottages

Our main dilemma is, will things pick up again in January and February as normal, or should we use our healthier cashflow position as a result of a good autumn, to invest in more advertising just in case they don't?

I look forward to more viewpoints on this!

[charles cawley]

Unibond:

"Our main dilemma is, will things pick up again in January and February as normal, or should we use our healthier cashflow position as a result of a good autumn, to invest in more advertising just in case they don't? "


That is the $million question.

[Unibond3]

And oh, how I wish I had a million $ with which to answer it!

Thanks Charles

[Bunny]

I've taken 3 summer bookings this last week and thought the January rush had come early. Hope that's not it, rush over, been and gone, because I've still got plenty to fill.

[colinc1234]

Hello Charles,

We have seen a similar dip up here in Northumberland. Definitely quieter than we had expected. However we are lucky as the rest of the year has been good for us.

A few other points might also be of interest:

Google search positions. There has been a little more churn than we usually see - we tend to have a fairly stable set of results for whatever you want in Northumberland. Less so now.

Tablet and mobile usage continues to grow.

Looking at the hours when our visitors come to the website the largest drop off is mid to late evening. Last year we started to see a real high growth from around 7 pm onwards. This year it is less so.

Thank you for reading

Colin

[Lindisfarne]

The cream will always rise to the top

Booking patterns are as unpredictable as the weather

In terms of the drop in evening traffic on websites could this be due to the rise in catch up TV which is so popular now ?

[marsh frog]

We have noticed a definite drop in bookings this month too.