@Laura2592
Being in a popular tourist destination, we see this phenomenon frequently. Not necessarily with inquiries, but on the travel forums. Like TripAdvisor.
Many people are stuck in a mindset that their holiday can only be in a crowded beach Hotel, surrounded with high volume, low quality, and expensive restaurants, bars, and trinket shops. Perhaps even "all inclusive", with free beer and ice cream 24x7. That's a "holiday". And that's just fine, if that's what they fancy.
A whole house with their own private pool, large bedrooms and kitchen, lots of creature comforts, and normal prices at local supermarkets, and great restaurants at half the price of beach resorts, they'd never find in a beach Hotel at twice the price, is often considered to be "something less", despite the fact that it's quantifiably significantly more.
Many people just don't know the difference. We've had a few guests from the "Beach Hotel" set, who for whatever reason decided to try "something different", and every time, they've been really surprised at how much more enjoyable it is, at comparable or lower cost. A few even have written that in their reviews, vowing never to go back to the crowded beach hotels.
There's certainly advantages to "being in the middle of it all", but it's often a real eye opener for those who take a chance and choose "something different".
The pandemic led many people to "choose something different"; private homes, villas, etc, just for the isolation from crowds. In fact, here the "resorts" were all boarded up, while private accommodation remained pretty well booked. It might continue to be a trend... 🤞
Oh, I'd like to add, as @Michelle53 pointed out, that costs have risen. All the obvious stuff, of course, but also, in our case, the hotels really, really don't like competition from private Airbnb style accommodation, and the (rather powerful) hotel association has been aggressively lobbying to impose more taxes and hefty licence fees in private accommodation for years now, and they've been pretty successful at that.
For example, to obtain a licence now is ridiculously expensive, and once you have a licence, every public service goes up in price. We now pay *triple* the normal rate for rubbish collection just because we have a tourism licence. And they don't even collect it. We have to bring it to them!
Water and electricity rates are elevated for licenced tourist accommodation. And then there's "tourist tax", which for our property, is in the highest bracket.
So, yeah... It's expensive to run.
