Vacation rental managers face several challenges as the operational workload of property management is inevitably high. Hotelminder describes the essence of vacation rental management as a multiple location business that should take care of different unit types’ tasks. Doing the tasks in-house or using third-party services are two ways of managing short-term rentals operations. For the former, you need to start learning about property management systems. For the latter, you should get to know the most reputed and best software for the operations management side of your vacation rental business.
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What Are the 10 Challenges That Vacation Rental Managers Face?
In a separate article, Zeevou introduces 4 Areas in Vacation Rental Operations Management to Automate, housekeeping, maintenance, guest vetting, and security. However, you might not choose to use a property management system and instead go with third-party service providers.
Managing a vacation rental business includes:
- initial refurbishment and staging the properties;
- maintaining the condition of the rentals;
- keeping the units sparkling clean;
- logging a list of available local housekeepers and repairing companies;
- updating the photos of the properties;
- setting competitive rates;
- responding to guest reviews;
- generating leads & bookings;
- taking care of the booking process;
- managing multiple users, from guests to housekeepers and owners.
The Best Software for Vacation Rentals Operation Management
Zeevou has researched the available solutions to find out the best software for vacation rentals operation management. The list is derived from our experience of using them and by reading reviews. Some software providers offer more than one aspect of the job listed under them, and we are sure that you will find what else is included by visiting their websites.
Cleaning: The Best Software for Vacation Rentals Operation Management
- Properly helps serviced apartment operators and Airbnb Hosts to manage their cleaning, maintenance, and changeover services. Its fame comes from its visual checklists for cleaners. Properly marketplace offers lists of local service providers.
- TurnoverBnB manages and even pays the vacation rental cleaners. It can also pull the calendar from OTAs and booking platforms into one central location.
- VRScheduler is an operation management tool whose feature list is not limited to cleaning services only.
- Breezway is an operations platform that automates your operations.
Maintenance: The Best Software for Vacation Rentals Operation Management
- Fixflo offers repairs and maintenance management solutions. It has a white-label reporting platform that allows occupiers to report maintenance issues with pictures. Fixflo automates assigning tasks by allowing property managers to set their rules.
- GetApp has listed some other applications of building maintenance providers.
Revenue Enhancement: The Best Software for Vacation Rentals Operation Management
- BookingPal is a vacation rental distribution platform for property managers. As expected, it helps in getting higher exposure and a higher number of bookings.
- YourWelcome’s marketing message is Drive revenue by adding a service layer to your business from booking to check out. It helps in the pre-arrival check-in process by collecting guest ID and unmasking OTA emails. It also interacts with your guests which reduces calls from guests during their stay.
Dynamic Pricing Tools
- PriceLabs, Beyond, and Wheelhouse are all dynamic pricing tools that help keep your rates competitive to increase your revenue.
Payment Tools
- PayPal, Stripe, and LynnBrookGroup are payment processing software providers which are essential for generating bookings through OTAs or your direct booking website.
Distribution
- Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Tripadvisior, and HomeAway are among the long list of distribution channels, OTAs, and booking platforms to help you rent out your vacant rooms and properties.
Company Management Software: The Best Software for Vacation Rentals Operation Management
- Monday.com is a cloud-based workspace which streamlines workflows for the teams. You can automate repetitive works and manage different projects of your team even though your team are in other locations. This application is available in several languages. It also provides CRM to track all your customers in one place.
- Todo.vu is another famous task management tool to track work across multiple in-house and client-related projects. It also provides CRM to track all your customers in one place.
- Timely is also another option to help you know how your business spends time by recording everything your team works on.
Guest Check-in: The Best Software for Vacation Rentals Operation Management
- Keesy gives guests a warm welcome and useful tips. It can control different aspects of check-in,
- CheKin improves check-in experience by automating the steps of the check-in process, from the booking confirmation till the check-out.
- HelloSign and DocuSign are both digital signature tools to collect e-signature for a legally binding contract.
Guest Vetting: The Best Software for Vacation Rentals Operation Management
- NoiseAware uses innovative technology and remarkable customer services to manage all your properties in one place, 24/7.
- Autohost to avoid risky reservations. Autohost is a guest-screening and automation platform for hospitality providers.
Digital Marketing Solutions: The Best Software for Vacation Rentals Operation Management
- Odysys makes a website for you and does digital marketing, from Google Ads to email marketing for your business.
- Mailchimp is a marketing platform which helps you manage your audience database and automate marketing campaigns.
Guest Experience: The Best Software for Vacation Rentals Operation Management
- Mews provide solutions to enhance guest experience. Mews Operation automates a handful of tasks; it helps in a better guest journey and an easier payment process.
- Aircall is a cloud-based call centre software connected to your tools.
Conclusion
The number of challenges that vacation rental managers face regularly is almost unlimited. Communication, distribution, marketing, team management, reports, accounting and so on are in the list. In this article, we tried to introduce some of the best software for operation management of vacation rentals if you decide to get help from third-party service providers. The list of the software introduced for management covered:
- Cleaning
- Maintenance
- Revenue enhancement
- Company management
- Guest check-in
- Guest vetting
- Digital marketing solutions
- Guest experience
The list of operations to handle might seem overwhelming, and this is the moment you might need to hire a vacation rental manager or take advantage of a vacation rental property management system with all the solutions in a single hub. Tell us about your business experience. What is the most efficient way to manage a vacation rental business?
