March 2023 Update
Over the past two months, we’ve been executing a strategy to build completely custom direct booking sites for upcoming and established vacation rental brands. This strategy has proven incredibly successful with the launch of a number of new direct booking sites.
Over the past two months, we’ve been executing a strategy to build completely custom direct booking sites for upcoming and established vacation rental brands. This strategy has proven incredibly successful with the launch of a number of new direct booking sites. For example, Unwind Escapes and Instant Suites are regularly processing bookings from travellers around the world through the Dtravel Direct booking engine. We received a significant amount of interest since our last update and already have many more builds in the pipeline including an internationally known player in the luxury rental market.
In addition to the continued work on Dtravel Direct, our direct booking engine and website builder, we launched the beta of a completely new product for travellers. This new product is the first of its kind and one that we are incredibly excited about.
Without further adieu, let's jump into the updates from this past month.
Recent Updates in March
- Monthly Stats
- Travel Profile
- Self-hosted Subdomains
- Custom Designs
- Marketing & Press
Monthly Stats
Going forward we’ll start releasing a high level overview of our month-over-month short-term rental merchant statistics for Dtravel Direct, our direct booking website builder and booking engine.
Month-over-month (MoM) stats for March:
New Merchant Signups (Short-term rental operator sign ups): -39.93%
New Active Merchants (One or more bookable listings): +16.67%
New Active Listings (Number of new bookable listings): +128.57%
New Reservations (Dtravel Direct booking engine usage): +112.5%
Crypto Enabled Listings (Merchants offering crypto payments): 92%
During this period, Instant Suites, a vacation rental brand from Canada, reached a new milestone after receiving a 30-night booking.
Travel Profile
At the end of the month, we launched our latest product, the Open Passport, a beta version of our travel profile in partnership with Travala.com.
The Open Passport is a composable NFT that empowers Travala’s Smart Program Diamond Tier members with the ability to begin collecting digital mementos called stamps for every flight, stay, or activity booking.
Since the product is in closed-beta, much of the functionality we have planned for the travel profile will be saved for the public launch.
By collecting digital mementos, travellers will not only create a unique way to visually commemorate past trips, but our aim is to empower holders with complete ownership and control over their booking data and history. Through this ownership, travellers will have the ability to monetize their data by unlocking new ways to earn from travel.
Keep an eye out for more announcements related to the travel profile as we get closer to the public launch. This is one you’re not going to want to miss regardless of whether you are a short-term rental business owner, property manager or traveler.
Self-hosted Subdomains
We’re constantly introducing new ways for vacation rental brands to adopt the Dtravel Direct booking engine, even if the preference is to not use our website builder.
For example, last month we enabled vacation rental managers with the ability to upgrade their existing direct booking site simply by pointing their “Book Now” button to a self-hosted subdomain added to the Dtravel Direct dashboard.
Previously, operators could only add a self-hosted domain (e.g. “northerndirectstays.com”) to the Dtravel Direct dashboard. With our latest update, operators can now use a subdomain as their self-hosted domain (e.g. “book.northerdirectstays.com”).
For more information on how to integrate the Dtravel Direct booking engine into an existing site via subdomain, refer to our tutorial here: How to Configure Self-hosted Subdomains with Dtravel Direct.
Custom Designs
As mentioned at the beginning of this update, working with established vacation rental brands to accelerate product development has proven to be a successful strategy over the past month and will continue to be a focus going forward.
We’ve already learned a great deal from these dedicated operators and are seeing a significant uptick in Dtravel Direct booking engine usage.
Even though designs for Unwind Escapes and Instant Suites went live in February, we are continuing to provide updates while beginning the builds for a number of new brands.
For example, last month we improved the credibility of the Reviews section for each custom site by adding timestamps and platform logos. In addition, we’ve improved the page speed, optimizing to > 60.
If your business is currently driving direct bookings and you would like to upgrade your site, please book a call, we'd love to hear from you.
What’s Next
New custom builds will be a key theme over the next couple of months, including one with a major player in the luxury rental space. In addition, we are focused on delivering more customization and monetization features as well as new ways to integrate the Dtravel Direct booking engine into existing sites:
- New Dtravel marketing site
- More custom designs — our pipeline for custom designs is filling up fast. Please reach out if you’re interested in a new site for your brand.
- Buy now, pay later functionality via Affirm, Klarna, and Clearpay or Afterpay.
- Dtravel Direct dashboard updates to significantly improve UI and UX for operators.
- New customization features (add pages, host other content, FAQ, blog, and more).
- Customizable reservation add-ons to help increase your average checkout value.
- Dtravel Direct insurance options, providing up to $5M of protection per booking.
- Free Guest Screenings for all Dtravel powered bookings.
Marketing and Press
A brief recap of marketing and media placements over the last month:
Dtravel at ETH Denver
We were invited to speak at multiple events during ETH Denver, both at the main event and larger side events.
- DAO Denver - Herding Cats - DAO Performance Management
- DAO Denver - Developing Leadership in DAOs (panel)
- R3AL WORLD - Dtravel Demo
- ETH Denver - F*ck The Matrix. Rebuild the Matriarchy.
- Hav3n - Charting Your Own Course for Career Success
Dtravel Interview with CertiK at ETH Denver
Our CEO and co-founder, Cynthia, was interviewed by CertiK at ETH Denver where she provided an overview of Dtravel and the problems we’re solving for the vacation rental and travel industries.
Podcast Interview on Lightnode Podcast
Cynthia was interviewed on the Lightnode Podcast, a podcast where lightnode (saczyyy.eth) connects to the fullnodes (guests) to check the current status of the blockchain (or to gain some alpha and have some fun), about how Dtravel is disrupting Airbnb.
Complimentary Consultation
To help you get started with setting up a Dtravel powered direct booking site and advertising your site, we’re providing vacation rental businesses white glove onboarding support.
Contact us for a FREE marketing consultation to learn how you can grow your direct bookings.