http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:22:24 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Within the next two weeks we will have our new website ready to launch in closed beta (i.e. using live data, but before everyone else gets to see it). We are looking for anyone who is interested in trying out the new version of the website and giving us some feedback ... http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog/2009/06/beta-testers-required-for-our-holiday-rental-website/ It's a big day for us. Today our latest team member joins us, direct from his mum now that he is 8 weeks old! Harry, a yellow Labrador, is just the cutest dog and already has the coolest laid back attitude. He loves the attention of all the people who come ... http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog/2009/06/our-newest-team-membercalled-harry/ We are big fans of Open Source here. We make use of a lot of community lead development that is done for the benefit of the Internet community rather than to fund a big corporation. With that in mind, I have been asked by Andrew to talk about a few of ... http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog/2009/06/10-must-have-tools-when-making-your-own-holiday-rental-website/ Up until now we have allowed all private owners to list their properties for free. That's really helped us out, allowing us to grow quickly and listing a combined 110,000 holiday rentals, of which nearly 15,000 are private owners. We have generated tens of thousands of leads for our charter members ... http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog/2009/05/last-chance-for-free-listing-of-holiday-rentals/ We encourage all of the people who rent holiday properties through our site to leave reviews about it. As enough time has passed now for the reviews to start, we are getting some interesting issues around what to do with holiday rentals that have bad reviews. For me personally, the answer ... http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog/2009/04/what-to-do-with-holiday-rentals-with-bad-reviews/ I am delighted to announce that Direct Holiday Bookings has won the North East Digital Awards best business website. While shortlisting is based on votes, the final decision on the winner is made by a panel of leading Internet specialists who look at all aspects of the business, from commercial model ... http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog/2009/04/direct-holiday-bookings-wins-north-east-digital-award/ We have just released the latest batch of search improvements, making it far easier to find what you are looking for. As we pass 100,000 holiday rentals it is more important than ever that you can find the rentals that match your exact requirements. The changes are: - You can now search for ... http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog/2009/03/85/ I may have forgot to mention that we started listing Thomson Holidays villas a few weeks ago. Anyone looking for a way to start a great commercial relationship with a partner take note! This is a great way NOT to do it. I really like Thomson as they do great villas and ... http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog/2009/03/oops-did-i-forget-one/ We welcome today Premier Holidays and Bungalow.net as the two latest agents to join our community. Here is a great Ibiza Villa by Premier Holidays and here is a great holiday home from Bungalow.net. They are both great agents with a great stock of good quality holiday homes, all of which ... http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog/2009/03/welcome-to-premier-holidays-and-bungalownet/ We list all holiday properties on our site for free. Now if I had  a pound for everytime someone said 'there is no such thing as a free lunch' when discussing us, then I would be.......(you get the idea). So I was speaking to a holiday home owner this week to answer ... http://www.directholidaybookings.co.uk/blog/2009/02/the-penny-finally-dropped-with-me/