It’s an exciting time to be involved in holiday rental management. In the post-lockdown era, demand for and bookings of private home rental properties has skyrocketed. Such a resurgence in this booming market means that there are many new vacation rental managers. The prospect of trying to learn the ropes in the industry can be a little overwhelming so we have put together a beginner’s guide to the tools that you need to help your property stand out from the crowd, keep you fully booked and run everything efficiently.
As with all small businesses in the tourism and hospitality sector, it can often seem like there are LOTS of things to juggle. You need to stay on top of managing bookings and updating your property’s availability, keeping it looking good, responding to guest queries, managing customer expectations and delivering an all-round great service. Whatever type of property you look after and wherever the location, there are a few vital tools that will make your holiday rental management experience a bit more of a breeze.
Maximising Booking Potential
With so many more vacation rental properties recently coming on the market, it can be a challenge to stay ahead in a highly competitive holiday rental management market. It’s vital that your property maintains great visibility on as many channels as possible to give you the best chance of keeping your property fully booked. Fortunately, there are some brilliant tools that can assist with this.
Grow Your Visibility
Listings sites including the newly launched Marriott Homes and Villas are one of the most effective holiday rental management tools marketing available to you. Listing your property on a number of carefully selected sites means that you increase your property’s visibility and maximise the opportunity to achieve full occupancy. If you’re selective in your channel selection you can also reach specific market segments such as those looking for luxury, high end properties.
The challenge for most holiday rental managers is that using more than one channel usually means that you see an exponential increase in paperwork and management time as you have to manually update listings every time a booking is made…unless you use a Channel Manager.
A well-connected channel manager will simplify the entire process, saving you time and money. Not only will you reach a much larger audience than you would with just a website or a social media presence, but the availability of your holiday rental property will be updated across all channels in real time every time a booking is made.
A good system will also give you comprehensive property analytics to be able to see which channels are working most effectively for your holiday rental.
Make sure you don’t miss out on those all-important (commission-free) direct bookings on your website. A fully integrated channel manager means it should incorporate an integrated booking engine and be able to connect your full booking ecosystem, from direct to third-party.
The Importance of a Website
Of course while a vacation rental channel manager will most certainly grow your reach and give you access to a much wider audience, it goes without saying that creating a website for your vacation rental property is still a necessity. Even if your property appears on a number of listings channels, most people will want to be able to see more information than these channels normally allow. The advantages of having a website for your holiday rental include:
- Enabling you to benefit from more direct bookings online
- Allowing you to showcase in detail the various key selling points of your property including using high resolution images, descriptions of the rooms, detailing the property’s amenities and local attractions.
- Presenting a more professional image of your property that can be reassuring and build trust for potential guests.
- Giving you the opportunity to appear in local Google search results and map listings.
Holiday rental management has never been easier thanks to the affordable software, technology and support that now exists.
Whether you rent out a single room, manage a couple of holiday homes, run a bed and breakfast or a luxurious villa, HiSITE’s Channel Management Software has been designed to accommodate property managers just like you. We can also help with website design with an integrated booking engine and more. Let us help you simplify your holiday rental management processes. Give the team a call now on 07 5574 4990 or contact us for a free demonstration of our software.
