Increasing day booked / revenue generated.

[John6275]

We are just heading into our first full year as host.   January-April appears to be our prime season.  Snowbirds tend to come down and say through the winter with us down here in Sunny Florida.  We lucked out with one of or properties.  A guest booked it January-March.  Our second property seems to be getting shorter term bookings, some are mid-month, so it is kind of killing the rest of the month, for persons looking for longer stays. 

We are currently set up to accept bookings as little as 2 days. 

We have a hard time making any real profit, when we get 2 or 3 different guest booking 2 or 3 days each in a month.  

We are in Palm Harbor, Florida (Tampa/St Petersburg area) How would you suggest we get our total monthly revenue up?  Should we increase our daily rate to make these 2- and 3-night stays more profitable, or would you suggest, increasing our minimum night requirements to 4 or 5, or more?

[Fred13]

Three different types of clientele?

1. Weekenders - 2-3 days

2. Vacationers - 4-6 days

3. Long stay - snowbirds

Which one would you prefer?

[John6275]

In order we would prefer:  Snowbirds, Vacationers, then weekenders.  

Snow birds (28 days+) give us the monthly return we are looking for.  2 or more vacationers a month would get us the monthly return we are looking for.  I just don't see the weekenders being a profitable model, as a whole, unless we got quite a bit more on a daily basis.  But I do see there need during the off season or to fill in gaps between longer stays.  

[Fred13]

Aye @John6275 , if types #3 nor #2 then type #1 (2-3 days) would do in a pinch. Type #2 is not bad if charged the 'right' price.

Nowadays we have adopted a new approach - set our price to be more than happy renting only 20/30 days, the other 10 days being either a bonus (or a welcomed break).