Best Vacation Rental Guest Experience Tools 2022

Vacation Rental Management can be challenging - especially if you are a Property Manager looking after two or more properties. Daily tasks such as greeting guests, sorting the cleaning schedule, ensuring the property is secure after check-outs and checking for damages can take a lot of time. Which is why a little help with communications, automation of tasks, payments and managing staff and maintenance can really make a huge difference to ensure that everything runs smoothly. But as a good business owner, you might be doing due diligence to make sure you’re selecting the best possible tool for you. Or perhaps you just want to switch providers.

Making sure you choose the most coordinated, guest management, and communication tool has never been more important. In fact, our research on hospitality industry trends has shown that 78.8% of hospitality professionals say their guests either “appreciate” or “expect” digital functionality, such as keyless check-in, as part of their hotel guest experience. As a result, hotel and vacation rental managers today are looking for the best digital tools for their guests and ways to send them crucial information as easily as possible. Digitizing the guest experience can save you time and empower your guests.

What are the Best Vacation Rental Guest Experience Tools for 2022?

1. Wishbox (Duve)

Wishbox or Duve is a hospitality platform that helps professionals manage everything from check-in to guest communication, relationship management, guidebooks, and more. Wishbox integrates with systems you already work with, providing useful solutions throughout guest journeys. A personalized guest experience platform that helps property managers to increase sales and overall improve guest engagement in a unique way. Wishbox is highly customizable to suit your needs.

__Features __

• Digital guestbooks (such as local recommendations) so guests are more likely to see them.

• Digital house manual (including house rules and info such as check-out times) to ensure guests actually read it.

• Online check-in and mobile keys so guests can check in themselves when they arrive, without input from your team, waiting in line, or for someone to meet them.

• Upsells and automated deals sent to guests to boost sales and improve revenue management.

• Unified inbox so you can delegate guest communication among your team.

Digital checkout so guests can leave easily without waiting or needing input from you.

• Online payment collection on check-out, plus review requests for feedback after guests leave..

• Auto-translations: be able to communicate with guests in their own language, as emails and guidebooks are available in over 14 languages.

• Guest-app and Guidebook: get your own branded and personalized guest app customized only for you.

• Document scan: collect scanned passports, ID’s, documents and guest e-signatures automatically for you.

• Scheduled messages: send outsmart and personal auto messages in real-time to your guests (and personalized SMS messages).

2. RueBaRue

The Guest Experience Platform by Rue Ba Rue is the new standard for guest experience for vacation rental managers and owners. The RueBaRue Guest Communication Platform delivers the tools to simplify operations and drive more revenue. It helps vacation rental companies and rental owners use smart messaging to communicate with guests, schedule texts and email automatically, and respond quickly with questions they may have using the Team SMS Inbox.

Features:

Message Scheduler This automatically sends digital guest books, area guides, guest satisfaction surveys, social media campaigns and more via SMS or email.

Property Guide Property Guide provides essential information about what your guests require about their rental homes e.g. arrival times, door codes, WiFi password, and general house maintenance rules.

Team SMS Inbox Smart messaging with Team SMS Inbox answers questions from guests before, during or after their stay via text messaging. It also provides a Destination Guide, which gives your guests everything they need to know about activities in the area, restaurants, events and essential area information.

Five-Star Reviews This is where you can address the problems guests had with their stay before their reviews post.

Alert notifications Alert notifications send out automatic messages by email or text informing guests about area disruptions such as fires, road closures etc. Surveys can be built to find out what your guests think of your business before, during and after their stay.

Overall, Guest Communication Platform by RueBaRue helps save time and cut costs, answer guest questions instantly, keep your guests informed in real-time, upsell and boost your bottom line, being paperless, and outpace the Competition.

3. Operto Guest

Operto is perfect for hospitality professionals who want to offer guests personalized recommendations without needing to be super tech-savvy or being forced to spend hours in front of the computer. It can connect everything under one easy dashboard, and integrates with many of the tools we’ve listed below too.

Plus, because it offers a hyper-connected bridge between your property management software and its guest portal, Operto Guest is more than just another platform. It’s actually the link that connects all of your tools under one digital software solution and enables you to streamline guest communication, so you can answer common queries remotely and easily—such as your check-out policy, and the most popular local attractions.

You can communicate with guests personally in minutes, and replace any previous cumbersome paper documents and time-consuming manual processes with digital solutions instead. Guests have everything they need in one place, including contactless check-in, details of the property and local area, and the option to contact you easily if they have further questions.

Operto also offers effective security options, such as integrating with the digital trust platform Superhog, allowing the operator to check guest IDs. It also connects with Autohost (described below) to provide additional guest screening and important security checks such as credit card validation and damage deposits.

With a wide range of PMS integrations, Operto Guest also connects with Airbnb smart locks and generates individual codes for each guest automatically (and every cleaner gets their own code too), freeing you from spending time manually generating codes for each booking, and further boosting security. Operto ensures you have everything in one place, with all the automation functionality you're looking for from your digital tools, without piling on the tech overwhelm or fatigue.

Pro Tip: Operto does all this without anyone needing to download a separate app, and without requiring you to flip between hundreds of tabs or programs, or being super tech-savvy.

Features:

• Access with smart locks with keycodes

• Smart devices such as smart lights and thermostats

• PMS to enable guest communication and automated keycodes with each new guest

• Noise monitoring to reduce the risk of damage or unauthorized parties

• Team operations to enable you to delegate to staff, and coordinate housekeeping

• And guest management including calendars, upsells, and communication

• Screening AI platform

• Background checks and ID verification

• Security deposits and credit checks

• Online check-in portal

• Automated guest messaging

Some of Operto’s major integrations include:

PMS such as Mews, WebRezPro, Guesty, Kigo, Hostaway and Hostfully Smart lock providers such as Salto, Yale, Schlage, and Nuki Smart devices such as NoiseAware, Netatmo, and Ecobee

4. Guard Hog

Guard Hog is something quite different. It is an insurance company for AirBnB, Vrbo (Homeaway), Booking.com and all super short lets. Guard Hog lets you pay-per-stay insurances for hosts, guests and platforms. They are home-sharing experts, so they realize the problems in this specific area and have developed the right products to solve them.

Guard Hog has built bespoke technology which allows connections to be made to your listings on AirBnB, Vrbo (Homeaway), Booking.com, and more, to Guard Hog. This essentially saves you time, hassle, money, as will only be paying for cover when you have guests staying in your properties. Guard Hog has four types of cover; Host Cover, Home Cover, Deposit Cover, and Guest Cover.

You can also download their app, where you can pin them to your home screen for a quick, easy and better app user-experience. Onboarding is made easy, adding covers are straight-forward, going on Autohog is accessible along with getting access to policy reports and downloading tax statements.

5. HelloHere

HelloHere is a digital welcome book platform that also enables you to offer guests a destination guide, chat communication, automated messaging, and upsells. Its main USP is being a simple, user-friendly, and customizable guidebook, with extra guest features if you choose.

Features and integrations

• Visual, digital guidebook with recommendations for local attractions, cafes, and restaurants.

• Upsell capability including affiliate offers and commissions.

• Consistent branding is available across all your properties.

• Real-time in-app chat with guests, plus automated messages when needed.

• Enables direct bookings via its own reservation system, to skip the OTAs such as Booking.com and save money.

6. Auto Host

Using machine learning, Autohost has created a dynamic guest-screening process designed to flag risky reservations. Based on the guest’s booking information, Autohost runs a risk analysis, dynamically adjusting the verifications according to the reservation's risk level. Once the guest has completed the screening process, Auto Host provides you with our suggested next steps.

When you rely on Autohost to vet and de-risk your reservations, you can confidently remove booking restrictions from your OTAs. This maximizes the visibility of your listings, getting more eyes on your properties. By flagging risky reservations before check-in, the platform minimizes the chance of parties, property damage and criminal activity, reducing costs from chargebacks and unnecessary cleaning.

Flag all types of fraud including fake profiles, stolen credit cards and identity theft. Auto Host’s detection system catches costly incidents before they happen, saving you from paying out huge sums to chargebacks and damages. Keep your properties safe while growing your property portfolio. Autohost introduces a systematic and unbiased process for guest screening that can easily scale to match any-sized property manager through cloud-based infrastructure.

Autohost specializes in intelligent guest screening, and automation services for hospitality professionals. Its major USP is in checking Airbnb guest backgrounds and verifying details, to prevent unauthorized parties, damage, excess noise, and even criminal activity. It can help you stay within local guidelines, and prevent revenue loss, damage, and fraud.

__Features: __

Branded online check-in Build trust with your guests by customizing our Guest Portal with your company's logo and color scheme. The tool automatically vets thousands of reservations, verifying the identities of all guests before safely releasing the check-in instructions and all other proprietary information.

Quick and simple verification Each screen of the Guest Portal outlines what information you require from the guest and why it's needed. The process is quick and simple so the guest can get on with their stay.

Touch-free check-in Once the guest successfully completes the Guest Portal, their reservation is considered verified by Autohost. They’ll receive their check-in instructions by booking channel, email or SMS.

Check-in Verify your guests ahead of time with Autohost's contactless check-in process. Once the guest has booked your property, they’ll receive a dedicated link to access an online guest portal. After they've completed the check-in process and have been verified by Autohost, the platform automatically sends them their check-in instructions.

Guest screening Know Your Guest before giving them access to your property. Inside the Guest Portal, Autohost vets your guests, dynamically changing the portal's verifications based on the reservation's risk level, as determined by Autohost's Screening AI. By creating a global, consistent check-in flow, you can reduce risk to your business and unlock revenue opportunities.

Fraud and incident prevention Protect your properties from parties, fraud, criminal activity and more. Using a combination of techniques, we flag bookings with suspicious or threatening characteristics. For high-risk reservations, Auto Host can increase the friction in the verification process, providing you with the documentation and evidence you need for a hassle-free cancellation.

Regulatory compliance Comply with short-term rental regulations around the world. Regardless of where your property is located, Auto Host ensures that you're in compliance with all government, Homeowner Association and building regulations. It collects guest information and automatically sends it to the proper authorities, protecting your business from fines and eviction.

Key Takeaway

According to market research, Operto, Autohost, Duve (Wishbox), Superhog, Ruebarue and HelloHere appear the most popular Vacation Rental Guest Experience Tools for 2022. Did you know that all of these tool providers are partners of Hostaway.com?