Vacation rentals have become increasingly popular in recent years, as they offer travelers a more affordable and convenient alternative to traditional hotels. They can now be found all over the world, and come in all shapes and sizes. Short-term rental property managers must be familiar with the vacation rental market in their area in order to successfully manage a vacation rental property and use the best tools at their disposal, such as a channel manager, to increase efficiency and facilitate growth.
What do short-term rental property managers do?
Vacation rental property management is the art of handling vacation rental properties and dealing with their various needs and requirements. This includes everything from marketing and advertising the vacation rental property, to handling bookings and reservations, to cleaning and maintaining the vacation rental property. They must be organized and efficient in order to successfully manage a vacation rental property.
There is a plethora of vacation rental software that property managers can use to help them with their job. One of the most important tools for property managers is a vacation rental channel manager.
What is a vacation rental channel manager?
Channel management is the task of ensuring all your property listings are present on the biggest OTA (Online Travel Agent) platforms such as Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com to attract bookings. When done manually, channel management can be quite tedious and have scope for errors.
A channel manager is a type of vacation rental software that helps property managers list and manage their vacation rental properties on multiple vacation rental booking sites and platforms, making channel management quick and efficient. It works in tandem with property management systems and communicates to all your channels and distributes all your listings across booking sites.
Vacation rental property managers can use a channel manager to save time and money, as they no longer have to manually update their listings on vacation rental booking sites. A lot of channel management providers will also offer a free trial of their software to give you an idea of its features.
How does a vacation rental channel manager work?
A vacation rental channel manager works by connecting to your listing information and distributing it across multiple booking channels. This means that you only have to update your listing information in one place, and it will be automatically updated across all of your channels.
In addition, vacation rental channel managers may offer powerful features like automated pricing, automatic guest communication, and real-time booking synchronization. These features can save you time and help you increase your bookings.
What are some of the common features of channel managers?
Most vacation rental channel managers will offer a variety of features to help property owners manage their businesses effectively. Some of the most common features included in channel managers are:
- Listing Management: List your properties on multiple channels such as Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com for booking online from one central platform. This is the primary purpose of a channel manager.
- Calendar Management: Sync your calendar availability across all of your online booking channels. This is an extremely important channel manager feature that helps property managers avoid double bookings.
- Payment Processing: Accept and process payments from guests through multiple payment methods.
- Guest Inquiries: Manage guest inquiries and messages from multiple online booking channels in one place. Property managers may sometimes use specialised software, separate from their channel manager for this.
- Property Descriptions: Create and manage property descriptions for all of your listings.
- Photos and Videos: Manage photos and videos for all of your listings.
- Rates and Pricing: Manage rates and pricing for all of your listings. This is another aspect of the property management business increasingly handled using specialised dynamic pricing software by property managers, instead of simply using a channel manager.
- Reviews and Ratings: Manage reviews and ratings for all of your listings.
- Insights and Analytics: View valuable insights and analytics into your business.
These are just some of the most common features offered by channel management software platforms. Depending on the platform you choose, there may be other features available as well.
Why use a channel manager?
Channel managers are designed to create ease for the average property manager. They avoid double booking and distribute instantly to all your channels, which comes in handy when you are trying to save time.
There are many benefits of using a channel manager, but here are some of the most important ones:
- Save time: A channel manager saves you time by letting you manage all of your booking channels in one central system. This means you don’t have to log in to each individual channel to make updates or changes as your channel manager will communicate to all the channels on your behalf.Even those who might use a direct booking website still rely on online travel agencies (OTAs) like Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and more for a sizeable chunk of their bookings. Having a direct booking website, unfortunately, does not free you up from that, and channel management remains a requirement for property managers.
- Increase bookings: A vacation rental channel manager can help you increase your bookings by allowing you to go beyond your direct booking website and publish your listings to multiple channels. The more channels your listings appear on, the wider your reach, and the most bookings you attract.
- Stay organized: A good channel manager helps you stay organized by keeping all of your listing information and booking details in one place. This makes it easy to track your property’s performance and identify any areas that need improvement and ensure that there are no double bookings.Vacation rental property managers often find it challenging to track bookings records, and channel managers simplify that by a lot by eliminating the need to keep external records.
- Offer a better guest experience: A channel manager can help you offer a better guest experience by providing features like automatic guest communication and real-time booking synchronization. Also, by avoiding double bookings, channel managers also help you avoid distraught guests when their booking is canceled due to double bookings.
How to choose the best vacation rental channel management software for my business
There are a number of different channel managers available in the market, and choosing the right one can be tricky. There is no one channel manager vacation rentals all love equally.
The best holiday rentals channel managers will offer a number of features, such as the ability to manage multiple vacation rental listings, automatic listing updates, calendar synchronization, and more.
Property managers should select a vacation rentals channel manager that offers the features they need to successfully manage their vacation rental property. From a free trial, zero double booking guarantee, to a flexible pricing plan – property managers must identify the features and inclusions in the channel managers of their choice to make the best possible decision.
There is no best vacation rental channel manager, for the simple reason that a channel manager’s efficacy is entirely contingent on whether you pick one that suits the unique needs of your business.
When choosing a vacation rental channel management software for your business, it is important to consider your specific needs and requirements. Some factors property managers may want to consider include:
- The number of vacation rental properties you have: If you have a large portfolio of vacation rental properties, then you will need a platform that can accommodate all of your listings.
- Number of online booking channels you use: If you list your vacation rental properties on multiple online booking channels, then you will need a platform that can manage all of your listings in one place. Property managers must look out for whether a channel manager connects to all your channels before making a decision.
- Your business model: If you run a complex vacation rental business with multiple properties and guest types, then you will need a platform that is able to handle all of your bookings and inquiries.
- Flexible pricing: Vacation rental channel managers can vary greatly in price, so it is important to consider your budget when choosing a channel manager.
- Free trial: It is always worth looking into a free trial, if your shortlisted channel manager offers them, to see how fast you and your team are able to adapt and use it. Especially if you are going to use a channel manager for the first time, a free trial can help you understand your own needs much better.
- Integrations: In case you use a property management system, then the best channel manager for you will be one that offers seamless, direct integration with it. It is important for a channel manager to be able to work in tandem with any other software tools you use.
- Customer support: The best vacation rental channel managers offer one key differentiator, which is great customer support. This will be key in case your channel manager begins to malfunction at a crucial point, as how quickly and efficiently they resolve your query may cost you bookings.
- Extras: Is the channel manager you are considering offering you an additional level of customisation to suit the needs of your specific vacation rental business? Double booking is one of the biggest issues attached to publishing your listings on multiple channels. So, does your chosen channel manager offer a zero double booking guarantee? Does it offer built-in extra tools for revenue management, guest messaging, and other convenient features such as website builder?
Once you have considered your specific needs and requirements, you can then start to compare different vacation rental channel management software platforms to find the best one for your business. It is worth noting that in 2021, Rentals United won a hospitality industry award for best channel manager.
If you are a vacation rental property manager, or are thinking about becoming one, consider using a vacation rentals channel managers to help you with your job. With channel managers, property managers can save time and money, and list and manage properties with ease. Vacation rental property management doesn’t have to be difficult. Choose the right channel manager, and make navigating the vacation rental industry a breeze.
