Vacation Rentals Made Simple
The Challenge
Have you ever tried booking a vacation rental online only to leave the web site frustrated because it was difficult to find exactly what you were looking for or it was confusing to navigate? In 2009 two partners had a vision to address that frustration. They formed a company called Weary Head Vacation Rentals. Weary Head Vacation Rentals is a web site unique from most other sites in the rental market. Its robust search feature allows users to search for specific geographic locations, vacation dates, amenities, and rental type. The site also allows property owners to take advantage of lower-cost listing rates than VRBO (and other related competitors). To make this dream a reality, Weary Head chose Your Creative People. The site needed to be scalable as property owners signed on, capable of growing from its first customer to over 50,000 customers. The site also had to be easy enough for property owners, vacation renters, and Weary Head staff to use. To complete the project, Your Creative People also needed to create a new brand identity (logo) for Weary Head that would harmonize perfectly with the new web site.
The Solution
With less than 90 days to build the site, Your Creative People pulled out all the stops to make Weary Head a success. Using various technologies (asp.net, Java script, Ajax, Html, and CSS) seamlessly, we created one of our most complex and feature-rich sites yet, while still appearing deceptively simple to those who use the site. Advertisement areas give Weary Head the ability to sell ad space on their web site to local businesses in the area.
The highlight of the web site is its advanced, yet easy-to-use, site search. Whether it is by date, price, location or amenity users can conveniently narrow searches to display only what is important to them by using a simple “drill-down” process of elimination search method. The site also features a “Hot Deals” search that allows property owners to offer special discounts and timely promotions - all on their own.
Property owners can add a listing at any time, and from anywhere, by logging in to their account via the web, easily adding new text and images to their rental property and choosing from an extensive list of amenities they can apply to their property. With its 10 years of experience in web marketing, the YCP team was able to bring new ideas and recommendations to the table, one of which was a Google Map plug-in that orients the potential renter to the property’s physical location on a map. With the site’s unique “E-Club” feature, potential renters can opt to receive e-mail alerts if a lower price appears or new availability opens up, allowing them to stay up to date on properties they are watching.
With Weary Head, Your Creative People was able to expand the use of Backstage and put all of its functionality to use. Weary Head is the perfect example of how a very complex site was streamlined into a simply-managed, user-friendly tool, while keeping a high level of visual branded appeal.