La Danse des Etoiles - St. Barts - Case Study

La Danse des Etoiles - Five Bedroom Short Term Villa Rental - Case Study

The short term villa rental business has evolved over the past 15 years as more and more people have grown to appreciate the advantages to renting a private home versus staying in a hotel or resort. There are still lots of challenges for a home owner to try and generate short term rental revenue.

Thought we would share a case study about our involvement with an owner of a five bedroom villa called La Danse des Etoiles on the island of St. Barts that has produced consistent exceptional results. After working closely with the owners and discussing the features, designs, and amenities that made a villa renter friendly, the design was finished and the build began. Once it was completed, our first challenge was to Share the Story from an owners and architects point of view. We knew this was a very unique property and you either liked it or it was not your taste. For those that liked it, we decided we wanted to share the story to make a deep emotional connection. Below is the story we published:

The initial reaction of the finished product was all over the map. Many fell in love with it and others believed it looked like a cold fortress. This translated we were going to have to build and produce stimulating and engaging content that would trigger peoples emotions and imagination.

Much of the early success of La Danse des Etoiles should be directed at Anne Dental, who was the Director of Sales & Marketing at Sibarth Villa Rentals. She had learned the villa rental industry under the wing of the “Queen of St. Barts”, who was Brook Lacour owner of Sibarth Villa Rentals. Without a doubt, Anne had become the spokes person for the island of St. Barts. The owners of the villas and the renters had a deep respect for her ability to generate villa renters from all over the globe. Renters knew they could trust her suggestions and guidance to help them find the best fitting villa that met their requirements. She knew the plusses and minuses of each villa in the Sibarth Villa Rental Inventory. Her memory for details was absolutely amazing.

La Danse des Etoiles was lucky to have Anne Dentel as its most powerful supporter. She published one of the most captivating marketing piece we had ever come across. It was a collection of the Top 10 Villas in the Sibarth Villa Rental inventory. La Danse des Etoiles was featured as one of the Top 10 and even got the cover.

With Anne’s endorsement and promotional piece, it gave La Danse des Etoiles a major jump start. Anne brought true meaning as an “influencer”.

We also need to recognize the long term dedication and support of Ashley & Kristina Lacour and the entire Sibarth Villa Rentals Team for their support of La Danse des Etoiles. Of all the distribution platforms, they were the top producers by a long shot.

Generating short term rental revenue is an on-going challenge as it is a perishable product that has a one day shelf life. Once a day goes past that it is not booked you can not make up the revenue. With a vast majority of villa rental clients at the higher end price point making their decisions 6-10 months prior to arrival, we knew we had to act quickly to create, publish and share the content with the villa rental specialists. In addition, find a way to create a “buzz” in the media. We knew that villas do not have brands like hotels, resorts, and cruise ships so we needed to build the “brand” for La Danse des Etoiles. Our strategy was to publish engaging content and reach out to the relevant media platforms to get their attention. We also knew we needed to find a way to go directly at the consumer. All this was to be done without a marketing budget.

Below are some of the action steps we took and the results:

• Built and managed a customized website - www.ladansedesetoile.com.. This included photographs, videos, writing descriptions, listing features, pricing suggestions, and calendar.

• Published a series of promotional pieces to use in constant communication with the villa rental specialists, distribution platforms, and direct clients.

• Reached out to the media for coverage: Success included La Danse des Etoiles being featured in Caribbean Travel & Life, Islands Magazine, The Robb Report, Building Stone Magazine, Stone World Design Magazine, DenzoMag Design, 1Kind Design Magazine, Ocean Home Magazine, International Property Luxury Collection, Perspectives On Design, Virtual Lifestyle, Freshome Design & Architecture, Fancy Cribs, Trend Hunter Art & Design, and iDesignArch.

We also knew about key zip codes where our target audience lived and work. Some how we need to get the La Danse des Etoiles brand could get in front of them. Our data indicated the location of the highest percentage of St. Barts villa renters lived and worked in NYC, Fairfield, Greenwich, South Port, Westport, Hamptons, and Jupiter, Florida.

We got connected to Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY. They were doing a fundraiser in NYC where they invited alumni that were actors to do a brief showing of some of their previous roles on stage. In between their “bits” they would auction off donations. The MC was Babara Walters. We addressed the owner with the possibility of donating a week in his villa as a donation to be auctioned off. La Danse des Etoiles was the key donations and got top billing on all promotional items prior to the event and during. It also generated the top donation for the school. We used black out dates to make sure we did not block any high revenue weeks.

Each year we directed our efforts to target various fund raising events that was relevant to our target audience. This included American Red Cross of Greenwich, CT that had their number one fundraising event at the NetJets hanger and Jupiter Medical Hospital in Jupiter, Florida.

Our daily efforts included also reaching out to the various distribution villa rental platforms and villa rental specialists to educate them about the selling features of La Danse des Etoiles. It is nearly impossible for the villa rental specialists scattered around the globe to be knowledgeable about the thousands of villas in their inventory. We knew we had to build and publish relevant informative content that gave the villa rental specialists and their clients insight. Not only did we take hundreds of photographs, capture floor plans, and videos, but we also added aerial photos and video footage.

We did not sit around and wait for the business, but took a very pro-active approach to go out and get it. Bottom line, La Danse des Etoiles became one of the top villa rental producers on the island. It also had one of the most loyal set of repeat clients.

If you’re a villa owner and are looking to improve or entry your villa into the wild world of villa rentals, please let us know. Happy to discuss the possibilities and develop a strategic plan to help you reach your goals.