Directholidaybookings.co.uk - free listing means wider, cheaper choice for bookers?
© Iain Farrell

Directholidayboookings.co.uk is aiming to shake up holiday home rental sites by offering more interactive information to prospective bookers and by offering free listing to holiday home owners. The free listing should encourage a lot of owners to list their property on Direct Holiday Bookings which will mean a good selection of accommodation being available on the site.

The idea is to have destination blogs and an online visitors book containing reviews of the properties as well as the destination. You can search for property by activity such as scuba diving, wine tasting and skiing. Prospective bookers can contact the owner directly rather than through a third party booking agent.

The site was recently set up by Andrew Gibson, who owns a holiday home in Florida and believed that he could set up a superior holiday home rental site. Mr Gibson says that as he already runs a successful internet marketing company there is no pressure for Directholidaybookings.co.uk to make a profit. Now I'm not sure about this as if the site becomes popular there would be the opportunity to generate income from adverts on the site. There's always the possibility to add a listing fee at some point in the future if holiday home owners had evidence that being listed on the site brought in bookings.

I had a look at the listings for Scotland and there wasn't a great selection of accommodation. I didn't find any reviews on the accommodation I looked at. I was surprised to see listing for B&Bs and hotels as I though the site for was for self catering accommodation.

However I assume that the number of listings and reviews will increase as the site gets more publicity. Hopefully it will be cheaper for holiday makers to rent accommodation through this site as owners won't have to pass on the costs of agency fees to the renters.