How to Sell Villas | 7 By using a villa company with pre-screened properties, the advisor can be confident each property listed is pre-screened to make sure it meets luxury standards, erasing the need to carefully scrutinize for signs of misrepresentation. The vetted offerings ensure that the travel advisor can be confident in the quality of every single option they present. By relying on the villa company’s specialists, travel advisors get help narrowing down the thousands of villa options to just the most enticing, and the ones with specific amenities, experiences, and layouts for their client’s unique needs. Even after a guest tries to book a DIY vacation rental, the work continues: they need to make the secondary arrangements necessary for an unassisted trip. They will head back to the internet and guidebooks in search of reliable transportation and information about the specific area they are in — where is the grocery store, and how will they get there? But when they book through an advisor, that all gets done for them — and, thankfully, not by the advisor. When renting luxury villas that come with their own personal concierge, the concierge takes responsibility for creating the magic of a resort with the benefits of a private vacation rental. Whether stocking the house with snacks to please the party’s kids or arranging romantic tasting menu feasts at local restaurants, the concierge uses their knowledge and local connections to make sure the guest gets exactly the trip they hope for. They can deal with the tricky last-minute issues with itineraries, arrange excursions to local sites, and generally smooth out every bump in the road — or at least make sure the transportation has excellent shocks. Working with a reputable villas company is like suddenly adding a few team members to help travel advisors plan the perfect trip for their client. Travel advisors get 24-hour-a-day, seven- day-a-week support from the company, a specialist helps them narrow down the options, a villa specialist gives insight into the location, and the concierge does the on-the-ground planning. The advisor gets to focus completely on the client, while their new team does the legwork — and they reap the rewards, including protected, competitive commissions on all of their clients’ current and future bookings as they discover the ease and comfort of luxury villa rentals. 81 Percent of luxury travelers believe that working with a travel expert is the only way to have a true luxury travel experience While travel advisors might not have stayed at every single one of the villa destinations, the way they might have with resorts that they recommend, the extensive experience, trained local destination experts, and thorough inspections done by villa companies mean that travel advisors can be confident in the quality of their client’s unique, one-of-a-kind experience • Start with easy fits, like multi-generational families and celebration trips — they usually require more than one hotel room, so villas become a better value quickly. • Look for villas in popular destinations such as Italy, the Caribbean, and Mexico. • Find out what the client is looking for: Ask what their dream trip looks like! • Listen to their descriptions of top meals and vacation moments and work to create similar ones. • Use the villa specialists and work with them to curate your client’s villa vacation. • Break down the pricing into “per room, per night” to show how it works in the client’s favor. TIPS FOR FIRST TIME VILLA BOOKINGS 1 Tuscany 2 St John 3 Puerto Rico 4 Bali 5 Costa Rica 6 Ibiza 7 Orlando TOP VILLA DESTINATIONS