As a website developer and marketer, I'm very interested in how people use our vacation rental website.  To help understand visitor "surfing" habits, we have an analytics program that collects relevant user data. This information is used when making decisions on how to improve the site to more closely match the preferences of our website users and potential guests. One of the more important elements of a vacation rental website is the property search feature, and I thought it might be interesting to share some of this data with you.  Here is the last two months of search data from our TahoeStay.com site.

Search Filters Used

• Default Settings (view all) = 56%
• Arrival & Departure Dates = 42%
• Specific Area = 12%
• Number of Bedrooms = 12%
• Number of Guests = 8%
• Price = 6%
• More Search Options = 4%

These numbers show the frequency of how each search filter was used.  This can be confusing, so let me explain.  The first number shows that 56% of the time people are browsing ALL the properties without any filters in place.  The next number indicates that 42% of the searches use the arrival & departure dates as a filter.  Similarly, 12% of the searches involved an Area filter, and so on.  This clearly indicates that people like browsing through the whole property list, and that the availability filter is overwhelmingly the #1 preferred filter.

I'm somewhat disappointed that the "More Search Options" isn't more frequently used.  Maybe the link doesn't stand out enough, or maybe it's just not convenient.  This is something we'll consider changing.  At any rate, when it is used, the top three amenities that people choose are:

1. Hot-Tub
2. Pet Friendly 
3. Waterfront 

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