Leaving Hostaway because of the 2% booking fee?

Selling our North Carolina mountain cottage and I have a question about selling my guest list...

Monica R
Jul 17, 2020 10:55 PM
Joined Feb, 2018 86 posts

My husband and I are selling our western North Carolina mountain cottage this summer. For twelve years I have run the vacation rental myself and I have amassed an email database of our 500 prior guests which I use for marketing purposes. My question is... if the person who purchases our home intends to use it as a vacation rental, what's the best way to approach them about the guest email list? My feeling is that it's a valuable asset I could sell separately, but having never done this before, I'm clueless and would love any input and opinions!

Thanks!

BlueMtnCabins
Jul 18, 2020 7:47 AM
Joined Jun, 2016 1133 posts

Monica R said:

My husband and I are selling our western North Carolina mountain cottage this summer. For twelve years I have run the vacation rental myself and I have amassed an email database of our 500 prior guests which I use for marketing purposes. My question is... if the person who purchases our home intends to use it as a vacation rental, what's the best way to approach them about the guest email list? My feeling is that it's a valuable asset I could sell separately, but having never done this before, I'm clueless and would love any input and opinions!

Thanks!


It may not be even legal to sell unless they gave explicit permission. I have 3 cabins in TN Smokies (across the border) and I have list of over 2000. IMO these lists actually have very little value because even when I send out emails it do not get more than 1-2 re-bookings a YEAR from that.

Monica R
Jul 19, 2020 5:17 PM
Joined Feb, 2018 86 posts

Wow I'm surprised to hear that! Even with my relatively small list I get a lot of re-bookings from my email communications.

Ken T
Jul 21, 2020 11:53 AM
Joined Aug, 2019 1706 posts

We are not lawyers!!! But, generally speaking, a business is usually considered to be within its rights to contact its existing and previous clients.

A vacation rental property is obviously a business, and I think most jurisdictions would consider the guests of a specific property to be naturally associated with that property in its legitimate operation as a business. So if you sold the property to another person who was also operating it as a vacation rental, there shouldn't be any legal issues with the list of guests of that particular property going along with it.

Now, if you were to sell the guest list to someone else entirely, that would be a different matter. We wouldn't recommend doing this.

BlueMtnCabins
Jul 21, 2020 12:05 PM
Joined Jun, 2016 1133 posts

Monica R said:

Wow I'm surprised to hear that! Even with my relatively small list I get a lot of re-bookings from my email communications.

I would not buy a list .. it is useless. Email, as advert medium, is dead. Just think how many emails you as a consumer get a day.. how many you actually open.. how many delete..delete..delete...My last mailchimp campaign was sent to 1990 emails. You know how many opened AND clicked on any link? 46! Booked: 0.
That is not very good outcome, so what I am saying I doubt you can get any money for your email list. Maybe throw it in as a freebie to sweeten the pot.