SSA has staked it’s claim on Tecnorati’s illustrious blog engine… Technorati Profile

We have recently launched a small section on our website to help our users settle into their city break apartment and know something about the area they are in, what they can do, where they can go.  We hope to build a collection of interesting and useful articles about each of our destinations, and we are inviting our users to help.

If you are interested in contributing to our little city-break magazine/guide you can sign up here for an author account and join the SSA team in creating great content.

At the moment we have some content for Barcelona and Rome, however we will be adding content to our other destinations as and when we can.

Would you like to know what people have to say about the apartment they stayed in?

ShortStayApartment.com’s website now shows guests’ reviews so that, when you are browsing among the apartments we display online, you can get a feeling of what the accommodation is like, learn its positive and negative sides, as well receive tips given by people like you.

The reviews are displayed on the apartments’ profile pages with comments from guests, their rating and a quick reference of their origin and age group. Not all the apartments have a review yet, as we started collecting people’s comments through our review center only recently, however some apartments already display various.

For instance, the stylish studio you see in the photo below already has two reviews from guests who stayed there recently.

Studio Blanc in Amsterdam

Also the cozy Liceu B in Barcelona has collected many reviews already.

Liceu B in Barcelona

We hope that the guests’reviews can help you find your ideal apartment in one of our destinations and that if you reserve your accommodation through our website, you will be pleased to let us know your opinion.

The ShortStayApartment.com Development Team

ShortStayApartment.com is a website dedicated to providing short term rental apartments agencies and managers with an international visibility online, users’ reservation enquiries and, at the same time, present a selected choice of high-standard apartments both for tourism and business stays.

The statistics show that the website attracts a vast international audience. Our users come from North America - USA and Canada together are on top (30,7%), followed by Australasia (24,4%), then Europe with the UK (20,3%) on top followed by Ireland (5,7%), Italy (5,1%) Spain (3%) and France (2,8%).

The age group statistics prove our audience is a discerning mature group of people, as the main age group ranges from 35-50 years old. Most reservation enquiries come from Northern Americans and European nationals that use our website to find accommodation for their European tours, city breaks or business trips.

More and more often we receive enquiries and bookings from professionals that are being relocated and will stay in a capital city during several months or that are attending a specialization course. Some examples are doctors who attend a course in the famous IESE Business School in Barcelona, European Parliament interpreters who attend language courses in Amsterdam, entrepreneurs who visit Hong Kong.

Some comments from our users:

“I am a responsible medical doctor and will take care of the apartment as if it was my own. I am going to study in IESE and there are other apartments that are closer but your pictures are very nice and inviting. Also, response was quick and your site is very professional. Regards from Montreal”.

“I, interpreter at the European Parliament, and a colleague of mine are following a language course in Amsterdam and would like accomodation for 3 weeks, with 2 bedrooms. Anything available? Kind regards.”

Both professionals found accommodation through our site and confirmed their reservations. Their personal details were omitted to respect their privacy.

Feel free to contact us for more information, browse www.shortstayapartment.com for our contact details. Your feedback is really appreciated.

For easy browsing, large images and all the glamour of an animated website visit SSA in Flash.  You will find all the same apartments as listed on our HTML site with the same information, links to maps and our enquiry form, except with an intuitive flash layout.  Loading is quicker, navigation is easier and it’s all more fun!

Try it out now to find your rental apartment, click here.

We have recently added a Quick Start Guide for Barcelona which we intend to elaborate over time.  The idea behind these short guides is to give our customers a quick overview of their chosen destination, provide some starting points and ideas and a little background info, as well as incorporating some key local information that is useful for any trip.

The guide for Barcelona can be found here.   We hope you find it useful, any suggestions, recommendations or opinions are welcome and we will enrich the guide with your comments.

We are currently working towards integrating our apartments listings on Google Earth.

We are running tests on Barcelona at the moment and we would appreciate your feedback and ideas.

To try it out:

1. Go to our Destinations page, (http://www.shortstayapartment.com/destinations/), and find Barcelona.
2. You will see a small, blue KML Icon () and Google Earth written next to it. If you have Google Earth installed simply click on this icon and select Open With Google Earth to download our Barcelona apartments into Googe Earth.
3. In Google Earth you will need to right click on the ShortStayApartment.com link, in the left hand toolbar, and select “Add to My Places” to save it for future use.

Look out for our other destinations in Google Earth. Coming Soon.

As of June 1^st ShortStayApartment.com switched to an improved BackOffice Enquiry Management System. The improvements we have made are detailed below.

Overview

We have improved the aspect of the enquiry management system. We make it easier to quickly visualise what state each enquiry is in with a series of coloured graphics. This way you can see at-a-glance which customers are awaiting information, which have booked, and those who wish to confirm a booking.

Automated Enquiry Responses in Various Languages

We have made it easier to respond to customer enquiries with minimal effort, and in the customer’s native language. When you view the details of each enquiry you will have the options of declining a booking, confirming, or offering an alternative apartment. One click, fill out a few important details and leave the rest to us, we will inform the customers, encourage them to book and we will gather their credit card details in order to confirm the reservation.

New Statistics

You can now view the basic statistics related to your apartments. We show you how many hits each apartment has received, how many hits have turned into enquiries and shortly, how many confirmations have been made.

The Future

We have many more useful features planned for the BackOffice, all of which are geared towards making it easier for us to market your apartments and supply you with the enquiries you want, and when you want them.

Feedback

The system is new and we are awaiting your feedback to include many more useful features for the next update, so please don’t hesitate to contact us with your ideas at admin@shortstayapartment.com.