Operating a vacation rental property requires a significant investment of both time and money. As a result, it is important that you operate your vacation rental as efficiently as possible and automating your Airbnb is the best way to achieve that efficiency.
Vacation rental properties are becoming increasingly more techie and guests are expecting the same. Most vacation rental managers are aware of how important smart home technology is to improve their day-to-day operations.
- Smart Locks
By installing smart locks in all of your Airbnb properties, you will eliminate the need for in-person key exchanges and be able to institute a self-check-in process, providing each guest with a unique access code that expires upon checkout with Hostaway’s Smart Locks feature.
- Smart Televisions
While a smart TV may not automate your Airbnb in the conventional sense, it certainly simplifies the check-in process for your guests and in turn, will reduce the amount of questions guests have. The Roku Smart TV remotes are so intuitive and easy-to-use that anyone can figure it out on their own without instruction.
- Noise Monitoring Systems
Utilizing the latest noise monitoring devices will allow your team to receive automated alerts anytime one of your properties’ noise levels rise above reasonable levels. By leveraging noise monitoring technology such as NoiseAware or Minut, your properties can reduce the negative effects of parties, thus allowing you to operate much more effectively.
One of the easiest and most impactful ways to automate your Airbnb is by leveraging automated messaging. Automated messaging is widely used in the hotel industry to ensure consistent and accurate information is being distributed to every guest and reservation. Many hosts are concerned that by using automated messaging the guest will feel as if they have lost the personal and authentic feeling of direct interaction, but that’s simply not true.
Use automated messaging to distribute critical information to your guests such as, check-in/ check-out times, driving instructions, Wi-Fi login details, and check-out instructions. You can also leverage AI and chatbots to do more, like answer routine queries.
Property managers have enough things to consider, from difficult guests to overworked cleaners, so why not simplify the process? With automated task management software you can schedule cleaning tasks or alert your maintenance team of any urgent repairs.
Task management puts your cleanings on autopilot, freeing you up to focus on other aspects of the business and optimizing your cleaning process.
Pricing and occupancy are the most important aspects of your Airbnb business. If you’re not competitively priced 24/7, your Airbnb property will suffer from a lack of bookings. Automated pricing software will integrate directly with your channel manager and instantly update the most competitive pricing each day.
The top dynamic pricing tools aggregate data from hundreds of thousands of vacation rental properties worldwide to determine the most optimal price point.
By using a vacation rental channel management system you can take advantage of seamless integrations with Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and other vacation rental booking platforms. This will allow you to engage in multichannel distribution as well as make edits to your Airbnb accounts, message Airbnb guests, write reviews, and edit price, all without needing to log into your account.
Channel management removes the risk and headache of double bookings if you're listing on multiple websites.
When doing anything for your business, it's important that you perform a cost-benefit analysis to ensure you’re making fully informed decisions. While there are many benefits to automating your Airbnb business here are the noteworthy ones.
- Work from Anywhere
If you’re able to automate your Airbnb fully then you can operate remotely from anywhere in the world.
- More Free Time
After all, time is money, and by automating your Airbnb you will find yourself with much more time to focus on the most important aspects of your life, whether that be work or personal life.
- Increased Efficiency
All aspects of your business will experience improved efficiencies, which will in turn take some of the workload off of yourself and your team.
- Improved Team Morale
Whether your team is interacting with guests, or scrambling to clean your properties properly, it's important that they feel motivated and empowered to complete the tasks required of them. By having automated processes they can know that everything is operating at 100% efficiency at all times.
- Scalable Growth
By automating your Airbnb your company can now scale up or down faster and more efficiently. The setup and management of a new property is no longer a burden to your team; they can absorb the responsibility without much impact.