The Society crossed paths with The Cottage Blogger, Heather Bayer, this week. She is the author of Renting Your Recreational Property for Profit and founder of CottageLINK Rental Management. Following our interview with Heather, we were greatly enlightened by the benefits of a cottage vacation.

The Society: For our readers who are not familiar with your company, can you give us a brief description of CottageLINK Rental Management?

Heather Bayer: We are a year-round vacation rental company in Ontario, Canada that specializes in lake front cottages. Ontario has an enormous cottage industry because it does consist of over 250,000 lakes. Unlike the States, going to cottages is a rite of passage for Canadians. Just as New York has the Hamptons, Ontario has the cottages. Of course, in the UK, where I grew up, we were very familiar with cottage holidays there as well.

S: Can you describe how the cottages are year-round destinations?

HB: There are five months of winter in Ontario, (we already have two feet of snow!), with many activities, such as snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and dog sledding, but summer is still definitely our high season. In the summer, we have a lovely Mediterranean climate where the temperature can reach eighty degrees from May to early September

S: What types of cottages are on your website?

HB: We don’t specialize in any particular types of cottages. We take on almost everything, even the smallest cabins, which are off-grid (a.k.a. solar powered) providing they meet our stringent quality standards. More and more of these properties keep coming on, as people are becoming increasingly environment-conscious. Being lake-front is the only quality that is absolutely necessary, as everyone goes to the water. With the amount of water we have in Canada, why should anyone rent something that does not have water? The biggest lakes are Muskoka, Joseph and Vernon, which house the largest of the mansions. Many celebrities have properties on the big Muskoka Lakes, such as Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.

S: How many homes do you manage in a year?

HB: Just over 100, at the moment.

S: Are you comfortable with this number, or do you see yourself increasing the amount of properties you manage?

HB: As Ontario is so large, only about two or three companies cover the whole province, while other agencies are dedicated to smaller areas. Our company is expanding into Southern Quebec and our future plans see significant growth within Ontario and other Canadian provinces.

S: As you said earlier, Ontario is very large. Could you explain how you can manage that large of an area?

HB: We have account managers that are specialists in the areas that they supervise. If people are looking for more information on a particular property, the account manager will then call that person and give an objective opinion.

S: Do you allow online bookings?

HB: We speak to every customer. We don’t want them to get any unwelcome surprises. For example, people need to know that 95% of our properties have septic drainage systems and even in some of our most luxurious properties, the water supply is drawn from the lake in front of the cottage. Every guest must be educated about this. We are transparently honest!

S: Switching to tourism, where are most of your clientele coming from?

HB: Seventy percent come from Canada, but there are a great deal from the states as well. We would like to get more people from the states, but the strong Canadian dollar does not work well in our favor. We do have a large domestic market though, so our clientele come back over and over again.

S: How do you advertise your company?

HB: We do very little offline advertising, but we do advertise in Toronto Life, which is a high-end magazine. We don’t rely on online advertising either. Mostly, we count on traffic coming into our website by the use of organic searches. By having a site and creating our blog, traffic has increased enormously. We are amazed at the amount of new users we have had this year.

S: We were extremely impressed with how your company creates activities for your guests, which then generates demand for off-season rentals. Can you expand on that?

HB: Our market is predominately made up of summer vacationers, so we have to attract out-of-season renters. We must be creative all the time, which is why we started a geocaching program, an activity that I enjoy myself. It gets the family out of the city and into the country. A full geocaching package includes a GPS monitor, instructions and a map. We also have winter adventure weekends, which may include snowmobiling safaris and dog-sledding.

Additionally, we currently have two celebrity chefs who come and prepare dinner, (with local produce) at select cottages. [One of the prize chefs is Christian Pritchard, a culinary instructor who has appeared on the Food Network and manages his own catering company, Bistrolicious]. It is a unique activity because it occurs on an independent property, not a hotel. We will also be providing a sommelier— using only Ontario wines of course!

S: When someone is finished with the cottage, do you receive any feedback?

HB: In the past, we’ve relied on surveys that we’ve sent out after the vacations, but the return rate was disappointing. We are now changing our focus to reviews, in order to generate more feedback. We know that when we get testimonials, the amount of inquiries will increase for those particular properties. People want to know what others think before they buy or rent.

S: Would you consider your homes to be in the luxury standard?

HB: We do have some first class rentals. However, a luxury home in Ontario may be a completely different experience than what most are used to. Luxury here is not what constitutes luxury in Vail. For example, we have properties here that are not even accessible by road. With these particular properties, you have to either own a boat or have the owner provide you a boat, but in return, you get your own island paradise. What every property does have is its own private waterfront, which to me is luxury in itself.

In my years of travel, I haven’t come across anything that can compare to Ontario.

To access the CottageLINK Rental Management website, click, here.

For the Cottage Blogger, click here.