In order to be successful when managing a short term vacation rental property, there are several key factors to consider
Operating a short term vacation rental property is more intense than most expect. You must wear several hats in order to do the job well. Some positions that you will be performing is Customer Service, Maintenance, Housekeeping, Marketing, Revenue Management, Accounting, Security, and more. If you have the time to manage it yourself, be prepared to spend hours working on it.
A lot of people can get overwhelmed and find that they are not cut out for it. Not to worry as one of the services we provide at Zenith Degree is management of short term rentals!
But for the person who is wanting to handle it on their own, we want to share our knowledge to better help and equip you with all that is needed to be successful.
Property Management Software: This will be your one stop shop to be able to communicate to housekeeping, sync calendars across several different Online Travel Agencies, and using smart pricing. Its critical to ensure that not only your price is set right across all channels, but that when you change information or your listing in one area, updates everywhere.
For now, we use Guesty for Hosts and have been loving the integrations. You can install smart locks connected to your wifi and connect them to your property management software to have them auto populate codes between guests stay to ensure safety.
For smart pricing optimization we use and suggest Price Labs. Price Labs looks at local trends for bookings allowing your listings to find peak and off peak seasons and price them accordingly and retain a good occupancy rate.
Marketing: When you market your property we have seen the best success come to those that can highlight features their property offers that others do not.
One great example is of our first and latest listing offers a game room. While we were onboarding this property, we noticed that all of the other properties around it didn't offer one. By adding air hockey/table tennis, a basketball hope game, corn hole, and shuffleboard, it gave the property a special feature for families and friends to experience what other properties lack.
Professional photography IS A MUST. Nothing is worse then viewing a listing where someone took photography on their smart phone and uploaded it. Post edit in photography is crucial and professional photographers know how to capture real estate and get the correct lighting.
Its important to make sure that all unique aspects of the properties are photographed so when are people booking online, they are stopped in their tracks.
Screening Guests: This can be tricky as we want to make sure that the guests we are hosting are there for the right intentions. For our properties we have some rules like no parties, no smoking, and for some properties a strict no pet policy.
We verify guests to make sure that they list the correct headcount they are traveling with, that they are aware of our rules and policies, and that we know their reason for traveling.
For AirBnB guests, you can see reviews of guests from other hosts as well as how long they have been on the platform and how many stays they have had. For Booking.com, its a bit of a blind shoot. All you can do is the best to mitigate any damage or issues.
Customer Service: No one wants to stay somewhere that has received poor reviews. When handling inbound inquiries, it's important to remember that you are in the business of hospitality. People have expectations, and whenever they are not being met, they want to be heard, understood, and cared for.
Where in the process of their stay did the stay go south? What can be done to fix it? Is there anything else that can be done to make the rest of their stay more enjoyable?
Put yourself in the shoes of the guest and ask yourself how you would want to be treated?
If you are detailed and thorough from the start, you can set up your operations to be successful. Here at Zenith Degree, we have the hospitality background to manage housekeeping, maintenance, revenue, accounting, customer service, and much more. Contact us today to learn more about our Short-Term Vacation Management services.
Comments