Recently viewed apartments

A Cities Reference FB fan asked how to keep track of the apartments recently viewed.

We will soon add a 'Favorite & Compare' option to further simplify this process.

What we have in place already is the 'Recently viewed apartments' feature which you find bottom right of your screen as per attachment here.

This feature keeps track of the apartment pages just visited and provides an easy link if you want to go back to it. Same way again if you want to go back and fro to compare amenities and features of each apartment.

If you don't like performing the back and fro, just open a new tab.

If you want memory of your apartments search results 'Send' it to yourself on Facebook see picture below, that will provide you with a link you can easily go back and use again whenever you want.
Got questions? Contact Cities Reference and/or Find the Answers.

Cities Reference's Discounted Commissions

image credit forexbrokerz.com

  Cities Reference's Discounted Commissions

This post is addressed to travelers, apartments' owners don't have to worry 'cause nobody is touching their net fee when we apply Cities Reference discount coupons to the bookings.

If you're reading this chances are you are already eligible for a discount on Cities Reference's network as a repeat client, friend or family of a repeat client or Facebook page fan. Therefore you know how easy it is to get our (in)famous 5% discount.

The question we'd like to answer today is what does that 5% discount corresponds to when weighted against Cities Reference's official commissions as explained in our previous post. The answer is appalling (for us, mind you, it should sound just fine to your ears).

Here follow the list of the real % of discount we apply on our own commission when you cash on your CitiesReference discount, starting from our highest possible commission down to the lowest, mind you, we're dividing in discreet amounts although the descent from Max to Lowest happens gradually in inverse proportion to the total rent, you'll have to use your calculator and our previous post to figure what's inbetween the layers below:

• Discounted Max Commission: you get a 27% discount on our highest commission of 20.5%+VAT.
• Discounted Average Commission: you get a 34% discount on the medium commission of 16%+VAT
• Discounted Lowest Commission: you get a 66% (!!!) discount on our lowest possible commission of 9%+VAT

Oh boy, wish we'd done the math before we launched this campaign!

OK, OK, you don't care, you want to know how much you're paying in commissions exactly when you get a discount. Here we go:

• You're paying 14.9%+VAT if you're paying our Discounted Max Commission, which is to say you're renting a relatively cheap On Request apartment for a relatively short period of time.
• You're paying 10.2%+VAT if you're paying our Discounted Average Commission, which is to say you're renting a relatively cheap Instant Booking apartment for a relatively short period of time
• You're paying 2.7%+VAT (!!!) if you're  paying our Discounted Lowest Commission, which is to say you're renting a relatively expensive Instant Booking apartment for a relatively long period of time

 Ok, we hear you, how likely are you to get the nicer looking commissions?

• Max Commission is paid in 12% of bookings
• Average Commission is paid in 76% of bookings
• Lower than Average Commission is paid in 11.5% of cases
• Lowest Commission is paid in 0.5% of cases

Yes, you've got to really deserve that lowest commission! ;)

Extreme makeover for the owners' back-end

Most of you Cities Reference property owners woke up after the week end to a brand new back-end experience on our website. Some of you complained, most did not express awe or emotions. Well actually... besides a few complaints, we didn't hear anything at all from you guys. Therefore we're opening a poll on Cities Reference Facebook page where you can mark the do's and dont's.

Most changes are actually cosmetic, meaning server and database haven't been affected, but your experience, at least in our intentions, is enhanced, better, revolutionized!

Let's quickly go through what has changed

Dashboard: You have alerts now. You'll be reminded

• if a client will be ringing your apartment's door bell soon. 
• If you have failed to update your calendar in the past month ;)
• If you don't have any pictures
• If you don't have a description or amenities

Your Listings: It will be prettier to look at your listed apartments, you'll see a picture first off and a wealth of info in a sortable grill (net rate/pending and confirmed bookings/city/address).

• When you click on your apartment's details you'll enjoy a visually enhanced and simplified calendar page. With simple clicks to block dates and a list of bookings (confirmed and declined) to the side. Just as you had asked us to do (see above)!
• The pricing tab will still include the test pricing, but more comfortably placed to the right of your screen
• Last but not least of the changes you can finally reply to the travelers' comments on your apartment on the reviews tab end right of your screen.

Your reservations: will list all the booking received for your apartments

Your trips: this section will keep together all the discounted bookings you make on Cities Reference's website when renting our listed apartments worldwide.

Now enjoy and let us know on facebook what you like and what you don't.

Cities Reference's Commissions

image credit forexbrokerz.com

Cities Reference's Commissions

Following recent changes and your Facebook requests for ever increased transparency and clarity here follow the details of how our commissions work.

Most of you seem to know already that our commission ranges from 9 to 20.5% and that you will decrease it by 25% when activating the Instant Booking. But you're unclear on how and why exactly the commission moves downward. Here follows our best attempt at shedding some light on the whole process.

Commission is composed of a fixed and of a variable factor. The previous depending on the booking system you apply to your listing (Instant or On Request), the latter on the total rent amount of your booking.  
The Variable Commission subtracts from the Fixed Commission in inversed proportion to the final rent cost.

The Fixed Commission

Instant Booking apartments are charged 16%+VAT of the price posted on Cities Reference's websites.
On Request apartments are charged 20.5%+VAT.

The Variable Commission

The above commission will decrease by 10% every 50% increase of the rental cost heading down to the set minimum 9%+VAT.

Please note: When comparing our fees to others please make sure their fee structure is clear, there often is a double charge, some to the owner and some to the renter. We only charge one flat fee.

Find furter information on Cities Reference help page.

Test Pricing

Test Pricing has been moved under the Pricing tab.

When activating a new fee or discount always remember to test the pricing to avoid unintended results. Just click on 'Test Pricing' and input the dates you want to check and the number of people. You'll see the net you'll receive for your rent itemized by the single fees or discounts you have activated.

Any doubts? Seek answers in Cities Reference FAQ page or Contact us.

Apartments' rating algorithm change to be launched tomorrow

Don't be surprised if your apartment will rank different tomorrow. In our bid to be as transparent as we can here is how apartments ranking update will work in broad lines starting tomorrow.

30% will depend on our reccommendation
20% on whether you're instant or not
30% on how often and for how long for your apartment gets booked. Note that booking logs are erased shortly after check out, so the ranking you earn with bookings is not there forever.
10% on how often and how well your apartment gets reviewed by clients
10% on how often and how deeply you interact with our website.

Got more questions? Find more answers in Cities Reference help page or through Cities Reference contact page.

Best tip to gather rankings fast? Get bookings. How do you get bookings even with a low rank? Competitive rent price, many travelers sort by price...

Image credit: socialmarketing.oneupweb.com

Happy New Year!

Wanted to check back with our followers that dig into our analytics. New year comes with plenty of nice surprises. Let's check it out

Cities covered are now 33! We're looking at a growth of 267% compared to the same day last year.
Apartments listed are now 3,651! We're looking at a growth of 346% year on year. Nice!
Instant apartments are 816, the ratio is 22.4% of total, we'd like to grow this dimension fast.

Alexa:
Roman Reference kind of stable at 58,000 (growing 11.5% year on year)
Cities Reference losing some ground at 63,000
Paris Reference losing ground at 118,000
the rest are way lower

Facebook
Cities Reference Facebook page has 1,331 fans/841 talking about it (more than doubled in the past couple of months!)
Roman Reference Facebook fan page is at 438 fans and 4 talking about it

Analytics Rome

• Rome grew unique traffic by 5% and 
• number of bookings by 18%, although the 
• goal value is broadly stable due to the fact that commissions have gone down dramatically under pressure from the competition
• conversion rate with the new website and lower commissions and apartments inventory up 55% grew a meagre 7% in Rome. It must be the crisis, or maybe it's just me and expecting more than 7% growth on conversion rate is not realistic despite all the investments made to that purpose.
• Weight of adwords on overall site traffic grew from 13.6% to 18.2 (grew 50% nominally year on year). Adwords weight of revenue and transactions on overall site results in the past year has been 24%, last year was just 14.6%. Nominal growth of adwords generated goals has been 73.5% year on year spreading up nicely when compared to the 50% growth on traffic. Adwords conversion rate grew 18% year on year and has been 32% higher than site average. CTR has improved 47%; CPC is up 26% (to 1.9 from 1.5), Impressions are equal. Adwords investment grew 79% year on year, it's ROI grew 490% (from 115% to 680%) Margin grew 63% (from 53% to 87%). Overall spreads on site average are looking good, year on year improvement on performance of adwords is looking nice pretty much on all dimensions especially considering the deepening of the global crisis and the increased competition.

 Analytics Paris

• Unique visitors grew 2.5%
• number of bookings grew 33% though with goal value going down 20% because of lowering commissions
• conversion rate is up 15.5%
• Adwords on Paris is a losing game our inventory is not competitive and competition looks too hard. Stable at ca 5% of total traffic. Conversion rate although growing 75% from .49 to .86 is still in negative ROI and below site average (!).

Apartments:
Rome apartments are 815. Growth year on year is 55%, which is quite remarkable. We launched the new website with improved apartments listing wizard last March, since between 2010 and 2011 the growth had only been 15%, it is fair to assume that the new wizard makes listing a whole lot easier and allows a 5X growth in apartment listing inventory for a mature website.
Instant Ratio is 42.3%. Growing! We can't wait to hit that benchmark of 50% which we're heading to, certainly before the end of this year we hope.
Visitors per apartment/month: is 15, lower than usual in low season. It's 35 on Instant Booking apartments.
Conversion rate is 1.38% on e-commerce and 82.7% on online bookings slightly better than the last update.
Booking requests went below the psychological benchmark of 600 briefly last month and they're now back up to 645, still worryingly low. Crisis is hitting all of us after all. It must be remarked that spikes in growth of apartments are usually coming together with lows in bookings. This period is no exception.
Apartment reviews 2,421




Paris apartments are 347. Growth year on year is 120%