What to Look for in Vacation Rental Photography

Vacation Rental Photography Tips

What to Look for in Vacation Rental Photography

What to look for in Vacation Rental Photography.

Why do you need professional photos of your rental? Your cell phone takes pretty killer pictures now!

  • Good photos of your vacation rental are essential in marketing your property.
  • Travelers that choose to stay in vacation homes are savvy shoppers, and most compare many properties online before they book.
  • Your photos help your property stand out among the competition and directly impact your bookings. It is crowded on the booking sites!

1. Professional Photography

One cannot stress the importance of having professionally photographed images of your home.

Amateur photography will not only poorly showcase your rental; it suggests that the owner or manager of the home simply does not care.

Professional architectural photographers know how to frame each image and to keep the vertical lines of the structure vertical.

They know how to show your view and your interiors without blowing out the windows or darkening the insides.

A good vacation rental photographer has an eye for best showcasing your rental!

2. Cleaning and Staging Your Property

Vacation homes are an alternative to hotels, and hotels usually have fabulous photos that are immaculately styled and photographed.

Vacation owners can do the same, endeavoring to keep the images real.

Hotels may have restrictions on props and amount of staging, but rentals are homes. People will lounge in them, cook in them; take leisurely baths and more.

Stage the rentals to reflect these homey comforts. We suggest that you style your homes with items that come with the rental such as the tableware, adding extras such as a small flower arrangement and fresh fruit.

Vacation Rental Photo

3. Focus on the Strengths of the Rental

Vacation rentals tend to be unique, reflecting the owners sensibilities in décor, furnishings and goods stocked. Photos should display the character of your home. Flaunt the majestic sunset, the resplendent bath, and the thoughtfully stocked games cabinet. Star that chef’s kitchen.

Have the photographer take pictures of nearby scenic attractions, common pool and other features. Your guests will appreciate any assistance in fleshing out their daily itineraries, and nearby attractions add value to your rental. Aerial images are a great way to showcase the desirable location of your rental.

4. Decide on Types of Media

At a bare minimum, owners should have a suite of 25 or more good still images.

Owners should then consider supplementing stills with a select few virtual tours. Unlike still images, which show a room from one vantage point, a 360 degree panorama shows all corners of a room, giving travelers a better spatial awareness of your lodging. Your guests ultimately have greater confidence in booking your rental.

Below is an excellent example of a vacation rental virtual tour.

Click to Enter Virtual Tour

Finally, if your budget permits, invest in a narrated video tour of your home. While still photos and virtual tours tend to be documentary in nature, a well-produced narrated video can evoke a more emotional response from a visitor.

5. Displaying Your Photos

It is critical that your professional photos are properly showcased on the web. Display the images in high resolution and full screen on your own website. Use relevant captions, tags and keywords to describe each image. On booking sites that downsize your images, link back to your own webpage. If using 2 or more types of media, display them in full screen from a single viewer. Enable high resolution display of stills, virtual tours and videos on mobile devices, including Apple devices.

PanaViz is an architectural photographer providing vacation rental photography services on Maui, Kauai, Oahu and Big Island, Hawaii. Our affordable photography services are utilized by vacation rental owners, management companies and booking sites.

Vacation Rental Visual Marketing

PanaViz produces media for Hotels, Resorts and Vacation Homes. The hotels have a much larger marketing budget than vacation home owners, but we are creating the SAME content for both of them (at different price points). Where they diverge is the implementation.

Hotels take our large format images, virtual tours and videos and display them prominently on their web sites in high definition formats. Virtual tours are easily found, usually on the first page. They distribute images and media through third party sites, in high resolution and optimized formats.

Vacation home owners take our high resolution images and scale them into itty, bitty sizes for their sites. Sites like VRBO and Homeaway degrade these images even further. A majority of the vacation homes that we shoot are significantly better than neighboring 4 star hotels. The owners need to drive home this point. They need to show in high resolution their amenities, their square footage, their multiple rooms as a comparison to the one room vacationers get at a hotel for the same rate.

Here are some suggestions on how to best implement you visual assets.

Large Images

Even facebook takes images up to 720 pixels wide. Put a link to a slideshow, preferably linking to your own website, that displays images gloriously in fullscreen or a big format. People have larger monitors now, and small images look like thumbnails on some monitors.

Professional Photography

Your vacation home images should be vibrant and crisp. They should be staged with touches such as flower arrangements, set tables and more. Professional photographers ensure that vertical lines such as wall corners remain vertical in photographs. The photographer should strive to capture the mood of your place.

Visibility and Accessibility

Videos and Virtual Tours as well as still photos should be implemented on the page describing the property. Your potential clients should not have to click more than 2 times to get to your media.

Competition

Have your own website. Showcase your home with quality, well staged photographs and rich media. Have well written, search engine optimized content. If you are listing your property on a site that allows links, link back to your own site. There you can expound on the benefits of your home instead of distracting the looker with other homes in your area. Promote your site on as many venues as possible. Facebook, booking sites, twitter and more.

Many travelers have already discovered the convenience of vacation homes. Others still try to book hotels rooms. Others may have had children and are ready to discover the home away from home joys of a vacation home.

Vacation Rental Photographer

Copyright PanaViz 2019

Revised: April 26th, 2019.