How to Automate Your Holiday Rental Business
November 2024
The days of doing everything manually are, thankfully, behind us. In the 21st century, we have thousands of tools at our disposal to automate work — and yes, that includes your holiday rental business. Save time and increase efficiency by using technology. Here are some of the best ways to automate your holiday rental.
Why automate your holiday rental business?
If you’re a bit of a tech phobe, the thought of automation may send a shiver down your spine — but it’s time to change that and embrace the machine era. There are so many benefits you’ll find when you automate your business, including:
- You’ll save time. This is the big one! By letting machines take care of tasks for you, you can relax and spend more time focusing on what really matters.
- You’ll improve efficiency. Say goodbye to the nightmare of double booking. Automation lets you cut out human error, which makes a huge difference.
- Guests expect it. This is particularly true if you’re targeting younger guests, such as Generation Z. If things aren’t automated, they may see it as a red flag.
- You’ll have more energy for other tasks. There are some aspects of holiday rental management that really need the human touch — and some that don’t. When you automate, you can forget all about the menial tasks and dedicate your energy to the more important things. This can help boost your business and grow your brand.
Ready to look at automation? Here are some of our favourite methods:
Sync your calendar across platforms
This is one of the most basic but essential ways to automate your holiday rental business. You might want to advertise your holiday home across multiple platforms. That’s a great way to reach a wider audience, but it can also lead to double bookings if you’re not careful.
Fortunately, most holiday rental portals allow you to sync your calendar. This means that as soon as someone makes a booking on Holidu, their dates will become unavailable on all the holiday rental websites that you use. Every landlord dreads contacting a potential guest and telling them that you’ve had to cancel their booking. Now you won’t have to.
Use channel management software
Now, let’s take that calendar-syncing to the next level. Try signing up for channel management software. There are a number of programmes that help you improve holiday rental management, syncing with all the platforms that you advertise on.
Here are some of the advantages of a good piece of channel management software:
- You’ll be working from the same piece of software every time. That means you won’t need to navigate six different interfaces if you advertise on six different platforms. Instead, you can just learn to use a single platform.
- You’ll have everything laid out in front of you. No need to flick between tabs — it’s all there in one neat package.
- You can integrate other parts of your business. For example, you can create an account for your cleaner, who’ll also be able to see at a glance what needs cleaning and when.
- You can update all your listings at the same time. When you take new photos of your property, your software will let you upload them to every platform that you use instantly.
Automate communication with guests
With any luck, you’ll be hearing regularly from people who want to rent your house for holidays. Answering every email can be quite tedious. It’s far more efficient to automate your guest communication. Set up the following template emails:
- A booking confirmation and invoice.
- A pre-arrival message asking for check-in time, containing a guide on how to get to your property and providing any crucial information.
- A post-check-in message to check that everything is okay.
- A post-check-out message that encourages guests to leave a review.
Some landlords wince at all of this — what about the personal touch? The good news is that automating messages doesn’t mean giving up on human conversation. Your automated messages should form the base of your communications with guests, but you can still build on that base.
Encourage guests to contact you with any questions they may have. If they do so, don’t reply with an automated message, or they’ll think they’re talking to an AI bot. Instead, this is the moment to communicate directly. The good news is that after you’ve automated all the basic messages, you’ll have more time to spend on these crucial, personal conversations with guests.
Try an automated check-in system
This one is a bit controversial, so we recommend offering it — but still providing an alternative. Some travellers, particularly Generation Z, expect automated check-in when they rent a holiday flat. Other guests will prefer something more personal and may be deeply uncomfortable with an automated process. Different strokes for different folks. If you can offer both options, you can keep everyone happy.
There are a number of ways to automate check-in. The easiest is to use a smart lock on your property door. The day before check-in, send guests an email (automated, of course) providing information about how to enter the property. You’ll need to change the door code after each guest, but that will only take a couple of minutes.
A word of warning: automated check-in is very easy to implement in some countries but trickier in others. Always check the relevant legislation first. In countries like Spain, you’ll need to see a passport or ID from each guest. If you want to automate check-in, that means asking them to email the documents beforehand. Some guests will be deeply uncomfortable with this, so don’t be pushy, and always make it clear that traditional, in-person check-in is also an option.
Try using pricing software
If setting the right price for your property makes your head spin, consider automation in this area, too. There are a number of tools available to help you offer dynamic pricing without needing to update things manually. Decent software will let you create special offers, automatically apply a discount to guests staying more than seven nights, introduce lower prices for mid-week stays, and so on. Pricing software lets you experiment and find what works best for you.
With pricing automation, you can also get a better look at how your property is performing and see if you’re meeting your occupancy targets. It just takes a few clicks to monitor your business and a few more to change your prices accordingly. That means that even if you’re not a maths whizz, you can set the most effective prices and enjoy greater profits.