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 has always been clear. Providing the reviews are genuine (and we verify every one) then they stay, good or bad. That is the point of a review system.

However over the last few weeks I have listened to some well reasoned argument that once a holiday rental is confirmed as bad, then we should remove their property. The rationale being, if the property or it’s owner/agent is that bad then why should it be listed on a holiday rental website?

I suppose I am thinking that if it is bad, and people are aware through the reviews that it is bad, then that is a good thing. It informs renters about the property and the issue holiday makers have had. It is then up to the renter to decide if they ignore the reviews or ignore the property. Reviews are simply opinions. However, if there are enough of them saying the same thing though you need to be really careful if you ignore them.

So what’s the best way to play this - remove the properties with lots of bad reviews or leave them, informing our customers about the potential problems with a certain property?

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 through to customer experience. Our whole team were delighted to be recognised at a ceremony held in a renovated museum building in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

I dare say that we had a glass of wine or two to celebrate

Thank you for your feedback and input that has helped us to shape Direct Holiday Bookings into what it is today. I really appreciate all of the help and support you have given us. We have so much more planned for the next 12 months to make Direct Holiday Bookings as good as we possibly can for you.

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 anything you want related to your property, for example “dog friendly”. Just search whatever is important to you.

- When searching for a city/town we attempt to match locations in close proximity into the search result.

- The availability search (by date) has been improved and now returns a totally reliable result.

We have also released a change to improve the usability of the availability calendar when a customer chooses not to keep their calander updated. This avoids the need to load a blank calendar page and makes the process of you finding your next rental a bit faster.

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 are part of TUI group, largest holiday operator in the world. They also have ABTA approval so your money is protected should anything unexpected happen!

We are delighted to be working with Thomsons and being able to offer you some of the best holiday rentals from the biggest name in holiday travel.

So in a further attempt to make amends, here are a few of their best properties for you to look at:

Nice 4 bedroom villa

Good looking Cyprus villa

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 can be booked on-line.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank all of our private home owners, agents and visitors for being part of our community. Thank you.

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 their questions on our service and after I explained what we do, the chap replied back, “So it’s not a free service, it is funded by airlines, car hire companies and other related services”.

Genius! I wish I had thought to put it that way. That’s exactly it.

Put simply, a small proportion of customers who rent holiday properties through our site will also want a flight, car hire etc, and if they take those services by clicking on our adverts we get a small payment, directly from the company involved. That way, there is no cost to our home owners OR our kind visitors who rent properties listed on our site.

So now I have an easier way to explain why we list properties for free. We are now approaching 100,000 holiday rentals listed on our site, so perhaps we can double that over the coming 12 months - especially now we have a better way to explain it!

We are absolutely delighted to welcome Hoseasons, who have over 12,000 properties for rent in the UK and mainland Europe.

I recall from my childhood that Hoseasons was THE company to deal with for Holiday Park, Boat and Cottage holidays. I spent many a happy summers as a child in a Hoseasons park or cottage. Since then they have moved into mainland Europe and now have some best of breed villas available.

Here is a great example of one of their holiday villas in Costa Blanca, Spain.

I have spent quite a bit of time this week reading various research into holiday homes and the challenges of renting them on the Internet. I think the most interesting thing I read was a survey on why people who rent a hotel room did not consider renting a holiday home.

• An amazing 39% of people did not consider a holiday rental property as they only travelled for 3 days. Their perception was that a minimum stay in a holiday rental is 1 week. So for any holiday home owner who wants to double the size of their market, adding a 3 day option is an absolute must. That message is loud and clear.

• 22% of people wanted the services and amenities of a hotel, in particular a maid service and convenient eating arrangements.  Of particular note is the check-in/check-out arrangements, with lack of clarity striking fear into the hearts of many people who are unfamiliar with holiday rentals.

• 21% of people felt that the extra space meant extra cost, and so went for a small hotel room to save money. In the majority of cases that is simply untrue. We have on Direct Holiday Bookings several well placed rental properties that cost 50% less to rent than a local hotel - and the rental properties look a lot nicer too.

• 18% of people were travelling alone or with a small party and felt that a holiday rental was not appropriate.

I think 2 things strike me here.

Firstly, there is a lot of misunderstanding about how easy and convenient renting a holiday home is, and that is a message we all need to keep pushing at potential customers.

Secondly, customers have a few key requirements in mind when they are beginning to consider staying away from home, and it is up to the holiday home owner to ensure that their listing on our site addresses these concerns quickly and concisely.

We welcome today the TWO latest Agent to join our community.

European rental agent Belvilla provides some spectacular holiday homes with more than 12,000 properties available in 16 countries. I really liked that they also have a dedicated quality control team personally select and check all accommodation so you are guaranteed peace of mind.

Here’s a link to a great example of one of their rental properties:

Georgous Belvilla holiday villa

James Villas list some of the most beautiful holiday villas. Established in 1984, James Villa Holidays is the leading villa tour operator in the UK. They pride themselves on offering you hand-picked, quality accommodation, at an affordable price. Truly beautiful!

Here’s one of my favourites:

James Villas beautiful property

Today we welcome onto our website Clearstay, a leading US based holiday rental listing site, with loads of great holiday rentals throughout the USA.

The thing I really like about Clearstay is that they allow you to pay for the holiday properties on their website in real time. Due to lots of clever technical wizardry, the availability of their properties is  always 100% accurate, so if you book a rental property with them you know that the booking is guaranteed.

Here is an example of one of their properties:

Holiday Apartment In California