Tots To Travel

For such a small company Tots To Travel have managed to create  heated discussion amongst owners, both positive and negative. I’ve been meaning to write about this niche listing site for some time, as they are a good example of how niche marketing can add bookings to your holiday rental. First things first, though, they are not really a listing site – they are an agency.

They focus on the family market, on properties that are safe and friendly for kids and babies (tots) to stay in. Handpicked Family Friendly Holidays is their strapline, and  “safe” means the swimming pool is fenced, stairs have childgates, and so on whilst “friendly” means cots, high chairs, plastic bottles and cutlery and the other trappings a child friendly environment should have.

Currently with about 200 or so properties, they don’t cover all the popular destinations, partly because their business model needs them to have support staff in place in each of the country’s they operate in.

To join them you need a visit (or two) from one of their in-country consultants who will inspect your property and discuss recommendations with you for making it child safe and friendly. You pay for this visit – even if you later decide not to advertise with them, or if they decide you don’t fit their requirements. The visit cost varies with property size, but typically is around £250.

Should you accept their recommendations you’d be expected to invest in the equipment/changes to your property they have recommended. TtT, not you,  will then write up the advert that appears on their website, so you don’t have control of the copy – though I don’t see why that should be seen as a disadvantage.

This next bit is what makes them an agency: The ad placement is free and bookings are taken by TtT staff on your behalf. They’ll charge you commission: currently (November/2010) 10 % for July/August and 17.5 % for other months. (The rationale for the higher charges out of peak season is they claim 2/3rds of their bookings are off-peak). They also reserve the right to price your property higher than your standard rental rates;  quite what happens when a customer finds out about the price difference isn’t clear. ToTs explain it away as part of their charges for providing their service to the booking holidaymaker.

Oh, and you can opt to actually pay them more by purchasing their ‘add-on’ packs; this gets you extras such as the time of a professional photographer shooting your property. The ‘Enhanced’ Package costs an extra £479 annually and includes your property on their branded blog, support to get on the social netwoks, some training support for SEO and access to webinars. For a once-off £1,000 and a further £120 annually you’ll also get given a pro  shoot by a photographer and a video DVD of your property.

They don’t go for SEO rankings, instead they focussing their effort on media coverage and PR, creating as high a profile as possible on TV, radio and in the press. There’s no traffic or comparable data on them – they are too small for the ranking/traffic companies to measure.

So why do owners get so heated in their discussions about this listing site. First, Tot’s are booking agents rather than a conventional listing site (not semantics, as the charging structure and control they have is classic agency approach). Second, they’re not cheap, and take control of your advert and your prices. That’s the Anti’s. The Pro’s, though, claim to have considerable success with extra bookings from them, and that their support and help in finding customers is second to none.

My view: I wouldn’t use them for several reasons: I want control of my prices; I don’t need more bookings so much that I’m willing to give away 17.5%; I don’t like the fact they charge for a ‘consultation’ visit; I don’t like the fact they may price higher than my list prices;

But if you’re doing poorly off-season it could be a win-win for you: Compared to sitting on some other sites such as H-R – or Villarenters who take 10% of your booking fee – Tots will do the hard work of finding customers for you.

Tots To travel are here