MARKETING TO MAXIMISE INCOME
This article looks at ways to attract guests to your holiday home in Sicily, and is part of our comprehensive series of guides for owners..
What do most guests want from a holiday home in Sicily?
What do most guests want from a holiday home in Sicily?
The most important things that guests search for in Sicily, in our experience, are location, air conditioning, a terrace or outdoor space and, at the top of the market, a private pool. Private parking comes up consistently in platform filter searches – more often than many owners expect. Reliable, fast WiFi is absolutely non-negotiable.
Beyond the practical, visitors choose Sicily for cultural experiences, not simply a getaway in the sun. So they will be inspired by characterful, traditional decorations like terracotta floors, exposed masonry, majolica and wooden beams. Properties with a genuine sense of connection to their region consistently outperform generic ones in reviews and repeat bookings.
Cleanliness comes up in reviews more than any other single factor. Even a modest property rates well if it’s spotlessly clean and honestly described.
How Solemar can help
Our rigorous selection process is a guarantee that any property managed by Solemar Sicilia is going to be appealing to a large number of potential guests throughout the year. We filter to avoid properties which only have seasonal appeal.
If we are not able to add your holiday home to our portfolio, we will always explain our reasons in full. Where we can see a route to a positive outcome, we invest time and effort in making sure that the owners have the support they need throughout the process of upgrading their home until it meets our standards.
We even have a project management division who can take care of renovation or construction work on your behalf, keeping you comprehensively informed on progress if you’re not in the area while it takes place.
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What’s the best way to advertise my holiday home in Sicily?
A well-presented listing on the right platforms is the foundation of everything in the short term lettings world. Invest in professionally taken photos capturing the home in natural light, ideally bright sunshine, and with the property properly tidied and dressed. Choose a primary photo that showcases your most marketable feature, as many users only see these before deciding whether to read more. A short virtual tour is increasingly popular.
Write an honest, detailed description, and if you can, get it translated by a professional. Be upfront about house rules. Noise, pets, smoking and waste disposal are the most common sources of disputes that lead to bad reviews, so if you can set clear expectations about these from the start it will pay off. If you are asked any question more than once, add the answer to the listing.
Make sure that you are always able to respond to enquiries quickly. 24 hours should be a maximum. Prospective guests are usually considering multiple properties at once, so every moment can count.
How Solemar can help
We will make sure that your home is photographed by professionals and create a video including drone footage on request.
Our descriptive texts are written in all relevant languages by mother-tongue copywriters who specialise in the tourist industry.
Our office team work every day, meaning that there will never be any unnecessary delay before your prospective guests’ enquiries receive a polite, thorough and hopefully persuasive response.
Should I use portal sites like Booking.com, or manage reservations myself?
It’s almost essential to be able to use both. Portal sites give you visibility, but the ability to take direct bookings will reduce your commission over time and allow you to cultivate relationships with returning guests.
The main platforms (Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo) give you immediate access to a large international audience that’s almost impossible to replicate independently, especially in the early years. The trade-off is commission: both Airbnb and Booking.com currently charge hosts around 15% per booking. Vrbo is cheaper, at around8% including a payment processing fee, but whichever route you take this adds up significantly across a full season. Booking will also offer you a very easy and attractive reservation management platform which may prove challenging to replicate if you ever decide to leave their platform.
Listing across multiple sites increases your exposure but creates more admin to keep calendars synchronised and avoid double-bookings. For a monthly subscription a channel manager like Lodgify, Smoobu and Hostaway can centralise this process into a single app, but this will still leave you with the responsibility of adding a lot of information manually. It helps, but it certainly doesn’t take away all the workload, or the possibility for human error – which can be extremely costly in the event of a double booking.
Direct bookings, through your own website or returning guests, cut out commission entirely. However these will require you to create contracts independently, process payments in compliance with Italian law and dedicate time to managing enquiries.
How Solemar can help
As you can imagine, the Solemar team has an unrivalled level of experience in navigating and getting the most from all major booking platforms. We list all the properties we manage across the full range, while taking the admin responsibility upon ourselves.
Moreover, our digital management system, provided at no extra cost to all of our clients, allows them to:
- List their property on multiple portals simultaneously;
- Automatically synchronise all their calendars;
- Manage all bookings from a single system;
- Vastly reduce the risk of overbooking;
- View bookings and availability in real time.
Guests are also able to make enquiries and bookings direct through this site.
How much should I charge for my holiday home in Sicily?
As a very rough guide, a well-presented two-bedroom home in the areas we cover can generate a gross income of €20,000–25,000 a year. Especially elegant or well-located properties, or those with a third bedroom, can reach €30,000–35,000.
The nightly rate that brings you to this total will vary significantly by season. In Sicily, August always commands the highest prices, followed by July. For May, June, September and October, pricing 20–30% below your peak rate is a reasonable starting point, adjusted against what comparable properties in your area are actually charging on the main platforms.
Once you have a booking history, dynamic pricing tools may be worth considering — they adjust your rates automatically based on local demand and competitor pricing, and generally increase annual income without requiring you to monitor the market manually.
How Solemar can help
The breadth of our portfolio means that you will have access to data not only from your own property but aggregated across a large number of comparable vacation homes in the region, giving you every possible advantage when it comes to determining price policy.