Opinions & Comments

We are having a problem with the HVDFeed link to Facebook. Hopefully the interruption to service will not be significant, but for now none of the amazing images of your accommodation, which you upload regularly to Facebook, will flow into your HVD accommodation profile. I do hope the problem does not exist for too long! Below explains.

HolidayViews Direct is now automatically posting its subscribers’ deals onto a dedicated Facebook page. See https://www.facebook.com/hvdealzone/ .

You need more coverage to promote your deals?

The HolidayViews Direct ecosystem is taking shape. I kicked this project off this time last year, with something of a vision for the #BookDirect #BookFeeFree accommodation market, but with little idea of the technological challenges which lay ahead. The vision was, and continues to be borne out of frustration at what the global Online Travel Agencies have done to the market for holiday let/vacation rental accommodation.

This is a great article on LinkedIn by Duncan Chappell on how the 'Book Direct' model has to shape-up to compete against the established Online Travel Agencies.  Yes, I realise it's focus is the hotel sector, and there are some pretty obvious differences.

However so much is relevant to the furnished holiday let/vacation rental space. For me, there are 3 key take-aways:

HolidayViews Direct has linked HVDFeed, the social media download service, and HVDealZone, the Seasonal Promotion and Late Availability deal advertising engine, to enable accommodation adverts to be generated automatically.

With almost no additional effort, owners can now extend the reach of their accommodation deal posts on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to the HVDealZone accommodation offers & deals repository.

Mea Culpa! I made a tactical error earlier in the year, but I am now putting things right.

HolidayViews Direct has now integrated a feed of content from Facebook business pages into its holiday accommodation listings. Owners registered with us can now opt to have either Facebook Pages, Instagram or Twitter content, or a combination of all three feeds, dynamically pulled into their accommodation listings. 

Hot on the heels of Instagram approving our HVDFeed link, I have added Twitter to the mix. So, accommodation listings on HolidayViews Direct can now pull the owner’s most recent Twitter and Instagram content into their accommodation listings.

I am really pleased to be able to announce that Instagram, a community of more than 800 million people who capture and share the world’s moments, has approved the HolidayViews Direct 'HVDFeed' application.

I spent most of the summer investigating yet another crucial technology as I slowly work towards the HolidayViews Direct vision of building a ‘view’ of a holiday rental property listing which: