A guide to furnishing your holiday rental: Tips and strategies

Here’s a basic guide for hosts to ensure that your holiday apartment or house is both tasteful and a pleasant place to stay. The host’s priority should be the utmost satisfaction of the guests. This is achieved by studying decorative formulas, and modern and practical ideas that appeal to various types of guests. But, beware, we must also avoid those mistakes that are often made in holiday rentals and can detract more than add. Will you join us in this article to discover how to furnish a holiday rental?

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Five ways to make your holiday home more appealing to travellers

Our role as hosts is to ensure a comfortable, welcoming, and high-quality stay. And when we talk about quality, we mean ensuring that the property has everything necessary for a few days’ stay, with useful and attractive furniture, and that the rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms are clean and ready for use. But we can’t stop there; we must go further to rent out our holiday flat or rural house: we must offer added value. Here are several ideas for making your holiday home stand out when advertising it, giving it its own unique touch. Take note.

1. Study your target audience and adapt your property

It’s just common sense; if we’re going to furnish a holiday rental flat or house, the first thing we should ask ourselves is who our property is aimed at or intended for. Offering a rental to large families with children is not the same as offering it to young couples, groups of friends looking for a party, or a group of retired individuals. They’re very different demographics, and we’ll need to adapt our furniture accordingly.

If our clientele is varied and eclectic, we can opt for standardised decorations, which work for furnishing any holiday rental property. Think for a moment about the success of the large Swedish furniture company; why did this gigantic home furnishing company achieve unprecedented success? Indeed, it managed to create standardised home furnishing lines that could appeal to everyone and were also affordable. If we have a heterogeneous audience, it’s necessary to look for common patterns that cover a broader and more diverse guest profile.

2. Use versatile and multifunctional furniture

The choice of furniture with which you equip your accommodation is crucial. The idea is to gain space and comfort without sacrificing functionality. Folding chairs, sofa beds, extendable dining tables, Murphy beds, stackable stools, etc. Unless your house is particularly spacious, avoid bulky furniture that takes up too much space. Often, some guests rearrange the furniture, so it’s convenient for our furniture to be easily movable.

3. Create comfortable, spacious, and livable spaces

This is a non-negotiable condition in all types of housing, including luxury homes. It’s proven that guests search on holiday rental websites for properties with good presentations that are comfortable, where they know they will spend a few quiet and comfortable days. In this sense, it’s important to care for the design of the space and its layout, that is, the planning phase. Then there are some very basic rules you can follow:

• Occupy space considering fluid circulation and no obstacles.
• Take care of proportions and optimise space; use furniture that matches the scale of the room’s dimensions.
• Don’t forget about lighting. Discard dark furniture in areas with poor light, where you should opt for light tones. And vice versa.
• There are essential pieces of furniture. A good living room isn’t complete without a comfortable sofa that invites relaxation. Neither is a kitchen without a side table. Or a bathroom without a multipurpose vanity. All this will make guests’ lives easier.

4. Invest in durable furniture

Surely you’ve heard one of the classic sayings of a holiday rental host: “Cheap things end up being expensive”. The reason is obvious: if the furniture we’re going to use can’t withstand normal and continuous use, in the end, we’ll have to invest more time and money to replace it. Ideally, opt for quality furniture; some are specially designed to guarantee their durability. They’re more expensive, but they end up being a choice that multiplies performance. Additionally, many of the guests who frequent holiday rental websites pay attention to such details: the quality of the chosen furniture is fundamental.

5. Seek professional advice

If you’re very concerned about how to furnish your holiday rental flat and don’t have extensive knowledge about it, you always have the option of hiring an interior designer. It will cost you some money, but the margin for error will be lower. They’ll provide a specialised service tailored to your demands. Thus, the style of your accommodation will be just as you imagined.

The five most common mistakes made when furnishing a holiday rental

Some hosts wonder, “How can I rent out my holiday home more often?” There’s no firm and indisputable answer that guarantees success, but we must avoid a series of common mistakes that are repeated and can lead to the loss of potential guests.

1. Displaying disorder

Disorder is not only a problem when moving around a house or property; it’s also a sign of unprofessionalism. Order and cleanliness are the two main aspects valued by travellers. Presenting our property in a disorderly manner, whether in person or on our holiday rental portal, is a major mistake that is more frequently committed than imaginable.

2. Avoiding baroque style

Presenting a house overloaded with furniture and accessories is another very common mistake among some hosts. Keep in mind that guests don’t want to go to a museum-like house; they simply need pleasant accommodation to spend a few days. Moreover, a house full of things is more prone to domestic accidents.

3. Not providing the necessary equipment for renting a flat

Another major mistake. If we want our bookings to multiply, we need a flat or rural house with everything necessary for the stay. It’s unacceptable for the kitchen to lack basic cooking utensils, for the bathrooms to lack soap and toilet paper, or for the main living room to lack a good TV or some books. The stay becomes pleasant if we have our needs well covered. Paying attention to details is essential.

4. Beware of furniture personalization

Customising furniture is trendy but beware: excessive customization of furniture can be counterproductive. Our experience as a holiday rental portal indicates that travellers value simplicity, neutral tones, and the warmth of homes. Avoid flashy, overloaded, or garish furniture.

5. Furniture must never be obstructive

The placement of furniture is crucial, but so is knowing how to scale each one properly. We must avoid placing any furniture in the property that obstructs passage, interferes with the natural flow of the guest, blocks a door from opening, etc. It’s preferable to have a small and well-placed piece of furniture than a large one that protrudes and inconveniences the occupants. Common sense, no more, no less.

We hope this guide on how to furnish an Airbnb or a holiday rental has been useful to you. Remember, on Holidu, you can find many tips for hosts so you can make the most of your holiday property.

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