I saw the funniest thing from another mom and pop competitor today – vacation rental inquiry automation! Seriously? The whole object of an online booking platform is to reduce the number of inquiries by turning them into bookings BEFORE they inquire.

If you get an inquiry, a well crafted autoresponder is all you need – again driving them to your online booking solution. I am sure they have some other whiz bang stuff they think is great, but in the end automating inquiry responses just sounds downright dumb.

I won’t mention the competitor. They seem to come as quickly as they go. Must be a lot of folks with time on their hands, because there certainly are enough products out there now to fill any perceived gap in the marketplace.