A special overnight stay is quite an experience for vacation guests. Many of our users offer a selection of special overnight accommodations. We like to share some unique overnight accommodations that you can be inspired by and share some trends with you. We also talked to Vipio, a booking platform focused on special overnight stays, to find out what exactly is meant by 'special overnight stays' and where you can find such a special stay.
What is a special accommodation?
A special overnight stay can be anything. What is special, of course, varies from person to person. But broadly speaking, there are some criteria by which a special accommodation can be recognized. Vipio has set them out for us: The location, the interior and/or the type of accommodation. The location can quickly turn a normal accommodation into a special night. For example, is the accommodation located by the water or in the middle of the forest? A special place can make a stay very special. The interior also plays a role, is an accommodation fully themed in the style of an artist or just historically decorated? Then this stands out in a positive way! And finally, the type of accommodation makes an overnight stay special. How about spending the night in a church, tree house, silo, crane, tiny house or gypsy wagon? And then we've only touched on the tip of the iceberg!
Trends around special accommodations
Vipio sees that the current generation of twenty-somethings is looking for much more of an experience. This need is getting stronger with each generation. Cheap is no longer the most important factor and it can be seen that parks are responding to this with tiny houses and wellness options. By looking at where you can add an extra experience to an overnight stay, you can make it special. You can then also charge more for such an overnight stay. A valuable upsell for both you as a recreational entrepreneur and the holidaymaker who is looking for something unique.
Sustainability is also a relevant theme in recreation; we wrote a blog about it earlier this spring. But a combination of sustainability and special accommodations is something we see regularly in the industry and among our users. Extremely luxurious homes with wellness but also with solar panels and smart home automation or a tiny house made of climate-neutral building materials with minimalist furnishings: vacationers are increasingly looking for this.
Get inspired by exceptional accommodations from Booking Experts users
Using Vipio's guidelines, we have some noteworthy accommodations from our users that we'd like you to be inspired by:
- Wellness. If a vacation home has wellness features, you already have an edge on the "special accommodations" checklist. Think sauna, hot tub and/or whirlpool. Wellness can be found with many of our users. Park Berkenrhode,
Hof van Salland, TopParken, Recreatielandgoed de IJsvogel and Onthaasten in de Achterhoek already offer this option in abundance. - Tiny houses. Small and cozy overnight stays in a tiny house can be found at many vacation parks and campgrounds. The furnishings can be very luxurious or back-to-basic. Tiny houses can be found at an increasing number of our users including Vakantiepark Ackersate, Oesterdam Resort and MarinaParken.
- Sustainable 'Wikkelhouses'. These vacation homes are made of sustainable materials and largely biodegradable. Among other things, you will find cardboard in these vacation homes. These cool special cottages can be found at vacation park De Klepperstee and vacation park Beerze Bulten..
- Direct location on the waterfront. What could be nicer than diving straight into the water from your cottage, getting into your boat or casting a fishing rod? Does your park border on water? Link this to an accommodation and make it special! Tusken de Marren, Oesterdam Resort, Strandweelde and MarinaParcs, among others, offer this.
- Thematized accommodations. Here, your creativity knows no limit! But ideally you should choose something that suits your environment or target group. For example, Recreatiepark Duinhoeve has a Vincent van Gogh chalet given the Brabant origin of the famous painter. And at Holiday Park Mölke you will find several themed children's bungalows with themes such as soccer, knights and princesses and farm.
- Lodging at altitude. How about a vacation home on stilts, tree house or skycabin? By literally going up in height, your accommodation will stand out among the "standard" offerings. Camping de Koeksebelt with their Stork's Nest, Camping Vreehorst and Camping Si-Es-An with their Skycabins and Sandberghe with their Heydehuizen on stilts preceded you!
Add your own special accommodation to your offer
Having an unusual accommodation in your rental listings has several advantages. First, of course, visibility. A special accommodation stands out. Good images support this. On your website, social media communications (and advertisements!) and with tour operators: orienteering vacationers will see your accommodation stand out from the crowd. Your entire park can benefit from this. Because once a new vacationer is in the picture, chances are that they will also look at the rest of your offer and park and will be more inclined to make a booking.
Secondly, special accommodation also opens doors to new tour operators who specialize in special accommodation. Vipio is a good example of this. Indeed, it is sometimes very difficult to find special accommodation with "general" tour operators. People looking for something special therefore like to book with a specialized tour operator. A special team at Vipio always evaluates the offered accommodations manually. This keeps the offer always special and/or unique. Another advantage: Vipio has recently entered the international market, so your accommodations are visible to German, English and French vacation seekers.
Booking Experts and Vipio
Vipio is something you've heard mentioned regularly by now. This tour operator is directly linked to Booking Experts through an app in our App Store that they built themselves. Vipio was created three years ago from the problem that it was difficult to book something special on the well-known platforms. So they started doing this themselves! The search is now less long when people land on the website, after all, they are already looking for something special.
Would you also like to work with Vipio? Then a number of steps precede this. First, you contact Vipio to check whether your accommodations are special enough. This is of course without any obligation. Take a look at their website to find out what kind of accommodations fit the Vipio platform. If the answer is 'yes', you can sign up further via the app in Booking Experts, you will automatically get an account. Vipio then creates the accommodations on their website for you as an extra service, of course you keep final control. Because of the automatic link with the calendar and prices, this is automatically loaded, then you can live! Will you take this opportunity when it comes to special accommodations?
Tim
Wietze
