Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / From OTAs to Direct: STR Listing Strategy with Hostfully

Transcript

From OTAs to Direct: STR Listing Strategy with Hostfully · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to Houseplanet Bite Size, the podcast brought
• 0:03
  to you by Houseplanet and Housefully.
• 0:05
  My name's James Farley, the founder of Houseplanet, and our
• 0:08
  goal is to share everything you need to know about buying and
• 0:11
  managing short term rentals. Today's guest is Joseph Cox and
• 0:15
  he's got a bunch of tips to share about listing platforms.
• 0:18
  OK, real talk now for all you hosts out there, you know that
• 0:21
  moment when you guest messages you again with, hey, what's the
• 0:25
  Wi-Fi code? Or you're staring at 5 different
• 0:28
  calendars wondering if you've accidentally double booked the
• 0:31
  cottage. Yes, we've all been there.
• 0:35
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• 0:48
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• 1:01
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  Less stress, more bookings sorted with Housefully.
• 1:42
  Joseph, thank you for joining us on House Planet Bite Size.
• 1:46
  You've got a bunch of tips to share on where to list your
• 1:50
  short term rental. So shall we begin by running
• 1:53
  through the usual suspects? I do, yes.
• 1:56
  I have several. Yeah.
• 1:57
  Thanks, James, and good to be back.
• 1:59
  Yeah, several listing sites. I mean, I mean, predominantly,
• 2:03
  you know, we find that and hopefully, you know, 90 or so
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  plus percent of bookings come in from mmebooking.com, VRBO and
• 2:12
  Google. They seem to be the top 4
• 2:14
  currently. You never know, things might
• 2:16
  change, but they're sort of the big ones, especially in Europe,
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  you know, MEMB and booking.com, they seem to really stand out.
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  VRBO is, you know, more US based, but yeah, you know, if
• 2:26
  you want those US guests definitely be listed on there.
• 2:28
  And then Google's an absolute winner because whenever a guest
• 2:31
  goes on there and they look to book, it'll just push the guests
• 2:34
  to book direct to the direct booking website.
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  So yeah, same on those fees, which is always, always good.
• 2:40
  Absolutely, Yeah. So let's just run through those
• 2:42
  a little bit then Airbnb. Is that the place to start, do
• 2:47
  you think, for most vacation rental hosts?
• 2:50
  It is, yeah. I mean, they get a lot of
• 2:52
  traffic, Yeah. They're in booking.com, you
• 2:54
  know, seem to be the hot spots to go to.
• 2:58
  But you know, I very much wouldn't rely just on those
• 3:01
  channels for bookings, you know, definitely as a good touch on
• 3:05
  and as soon just, you know, book direct and have the direct
• 3:08
  booking website as a as a good safety net in case.
• 3:11
  But yeah, Airbnb is huge. They've you know, they've bought
• 3:13
  out experiences this year. They seem to be growing more and
• 3:16
  more and more as much as a as the Marmite love, hate
• 3:19
  relationship sometimes with that Channel.
• 3:22
  It's definitely worthwhile being on there for sure.
• 3:24
  Yeah. Why is Airbnb so popular and
• 3:29
  what are the differences between maybe the big two, Airbnb and
• 3:33
  booking.com, especially if we're looking from a European point of
• 3:36
  view? Yeah, I mean BI mean from my
• 3:38
  end, I, I, I look to use it just because I mean, it's so simple,
• 3:42
  so easy to use. You go on and it's it's, it's
• 3:45
  really, it's quite, quite fun and interactive in a way.
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  You go on and there's so many unique stays out there.
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  So kind of sells itself in a way that's got these unique stays.
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  It's sort of the first of it's kind to kind of jump into the
• 3:56
  industry and, and sort of, yeah, kind of kind of blow up the
• 4:02
  industry in a way that it's got this new sort of what strategy
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  and way. So yeah, I mean, you know, it's
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  just unique. It's simple, easy to use, you
• 4:10
  know, it's very intuitive. The, the, you know, the
• 4:14
  potential guests can go on and they can get a real
• 4:16
  understanding of what they're going to experience in their
• 4:18
  state and get it, get used to the, the local community.
• 4:22
  The yeah, a lot more, quite a lot more depth, you know, is if
• 4:26
  you go to a hotel, it's a bit more sort of water, water level
• 4:30
  kind of experience, yeah. And what would you say that the
• 4:35
  big difference is maybe from a hosting point of view of being
• 4:38
  listed on airbnbversusbooking.com and
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  maybe like versus Verbo as well, you know, where are the, I
• 4:45
  guess, like Airbnb, booking.com kind of cater for every kind of
• 4:48
  property, Verbos maybe a little bit different.
• 4:52
  Yeah, yeah. I mean BI mean more to the short
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  term rental side of things. booking.com has, you know, a bit
• 4:57
  they've started off as hotels. They do do short term rentals.
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  So you know, definitely worth being on those two.
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  VRBO, they're all different on fees.
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  So something to consider. You know, you know, they have
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  the the simplified pricing. booking.com they do range in
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  fees with booking.com and VRBO does as well I believe.
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  But I think there may be a bit on better on fees.
• 5:18
  So that's something to consider VRBO that they seem to be more
• 5:20
  and more popular in the US, so definitely worth being on there.
• 5:25
  But yeah, in Europe it's less so.
• 5:28
  But yeah, so that's they're different in a way that they're,
• 5:32
  they're kind of similar to MBB, I guess.
• 5:34
  Yeah, yeah. book.com stands out as the sort of the, the big, big
• 5:37
  system. And Airbnb and Ferber are sort
• 5:40
  of like the short term rental side of things.
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  They kind of niche into that area.
• 5:44
  But yeah, they're, they're all very, very popular.
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  Very popular. So they're the big boys.
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  Then we've got Airbnb, booking.com, VRBO.
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  Talk to us about a few of the more niche platforms that house
• 5:57
  and property managers should be taking a look at them and
• 5:59
  potentially getting listed on. Yeah, for sure, Yeah.
• 6:02
  I mean it depends on yeah. I mean, there's so many options
• 6:04
  where you can go down the routes of, oh, you know, I have got
• 6:07
  some, you know, a campervan to rent out or something like you
• 6:10
  can go down the option of cool stays or glamping herb, all that
• 6:16
  sort of area things. And they, I think they, they're
• 6:19
  abroad as well as the UK. So it'd be worth being on there.
• 6:23
  If you have a really high end rental, it'd be worth being on
• 6:25
  Plumb Guide or homes and villas by Marriott.
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  You know, they, they, they specifically cater just to the
• 6:31
  top 54321 percent of, you know, high end rentals.
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  So definitely worth being on there and just just to sort of
• 6:38
  stand out and even promote it as to say, you know, look, you
• 6:40
  know, we're also promoted on here.
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  You know, this is with this was chosen as a as a sort of
• 6:45
  preferred property in this channel.
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  So definitely worth being on those.
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  And there are many other sites as well, I guess in your local
• 6:54
  area. It's going to depend where you
• 6:56
  are. I mean, there are many listing
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  sites. I mean, we work with a couple,
• 6:59
  for example, Simply Owners or groupaccommodation.com.
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  If you want to get direct bookings, these are a good place
• 7:07
  to be because you, you don't have to pay the Commission fees.
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  You just pay that annual fee. Usually it might be a few 100
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  lbs. And then however many bookings
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  you get, they're just going to come direct to you and there's,
• 7:15
  there's no Commission to pay. So it's worth doing your
• 7:18
  research I guess. Definitely, yeah, yeah, no,
• 7:20
  these channels, these OTA fees, you know, as much as it's good
• 7:22
  to get get the most traffic, it's also good to be aware of
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  these fees and costs. So definitely worth, you know,
• 7:28
  looking at simply owners, their, their fee is, is very good for a
• 7:31
  full year and getting the traffic out there.
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  And then and then just, you know, book direct promote, you
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  know, on marketing spaces and social media and all these
• 7:41
  things. There's so many directions you
• 7:42
  can take. But but yeah, predominantly, you
• 7:45
  know, it be me booking VRBO and Google are sort of the top, top
• 7:48
  four to be on. Certainly recommend those.
• 7:51
  You've mentioned Google there a few times and I'm sure there'll
• 7:54
  be hosting property managers out there thinking, how do I get on
• 7:57
  Google? How do you know if somebody
• 7:59
  Googles my location? How do I make sure my property
• 8:02
  shows up? So how do they do it?
• 8:05
  Yeah, really good question. So you can only be on Google
• 8:08
  Travel through PMS like Hostfleet.
• 8:11
  And to go onto it, you don't need to create an account at
• 8:13
  all. You simply just push your
• 8:15
  listings out to Google Travel from, from Hostville.
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  And then once they're on, it'll showcase onto Google Maps, onto
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  Google Travel, which is a sort of specific OTA where you can
• 8:26
  kind of highlight if you want to, you know, if the guest wants
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  to search for a hotel or a short term rental or vacation rental
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  or whoever wants to call it that.
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  And then, yeah, once they're on, yeah, they're simply, you know,
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  someone will look around on the map on Google Maps, find the
• 8:39
  rental, and then it'll show the direct booking website on the
• 8:43
  sort of book now section. So go through book now and then
• 8:46
  it'll take them through to the direct booking website.
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  So the fees are purely just the payment processing fees, which
• 8:51
  is a real winner to get more bookings that way.
• 8:55
  Yeah, sometimes when you search on Google, vacation rentals will
• 8:59
  come up and they might come up with different ways that you can
• 9:02
  book. So it will show you different
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  OTAs, a direct booking site and it will show you the different
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  price. And you would imagine that most
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  people will go for the the lowest price, which might be the
• 9:12
  direct booking website You you would imagine it would be.
• 9:14
  So that that's a that's a real advantage.
• 9:16
  And we've mentioned so many of the platforms here and, and I'm
• 9:20
  sure there'll be hosts out there thinking, well, I want to be on
• 9:22
  all these platforms, but I don't necessarily want to go and
• 9:24
  create a profile and upload my photos and, and do it all
• 9:28
  manually 1 by 1. Why is it a good idea to be
• 9:32
  thinking about using Apms to make sure that you're listed in
• 9:35
  a lot of different places? Yeah, I have a question.
• 9:37
  So I mean it just unifies everything and it does simplify
• 9:40
  things in a way that, you know, not every PMS, but you know,
• 9:44
  like Hostfly and some others. They you can, you know, you can
• 9:46
  import all your listings from say Abbi me into Hostfly.
• 9:49
  It just takes a few minutes and then once you've got them in
• 9:52
  there, you can just push the properties out to the leading
• 9:54
  channels. And it'll also push out
• 9:56
  information such as general settings, images, descriptions,
• 10:00
  fees and policies, pricing rules, you name it.
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  So it'll just sort of push out in one case.
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  So you don't feel like you've got to sort of go in and adjust
• 10:08
  everything for each channel. And then once they're all
• 10:10
  connected, it's all unified and no double bookings, no delays,
• 10:13
  it's all just sort of instant. So it's a sort of, yeah,
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  streamlines everything. And that's that's what it's
• 10:18
  designed to do in sort of big picture of it all.
• 10:21
  And of course with Apms as well, like Housefully, you can create
• 10:26
  a direct booking website. So you've mentioned it a few
• 10:28
  times, but why is it so important to have a direct
• 10:31
  booking site? Yeah, there's several reasons.
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  I mean, I mean, the main one is safety reason, you know, in case
• 10:37
  you, you shouldn't rely on the OTA switch there B&B in case
• 10:40
  there is some sort of issue, you know, you never know, might be a
• 10:44
  bad review and it really drops bookings or it might be to do
• 10:47
  with, you know, not meeting the regulations of Airbnb, you know,
• 10:52
  sort of constantly changing. They they brought out some new
• 10:57
  pricing policies the other day. So it's constantly evolving and
• 11:00
  changing. So, you know, just it's always
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  good to have a book direct booking website just so that if
• 11:04
  there is, it's basically a safety net as well as sort of
• 11:07
  driving more bookings that way, just, you know, not have to pay
• 11:10
  those fees. So it's a win win really for the
• 11:13
  guest and for the host in a way that both them payless the fees
• 11:18
  are less and it's, it's a safety net for and it's also a good way
• 11:22
  of gathering guest information. You know these OTAs, they block
• 11:25
  guest information for the host. So instead they go onto the
• 11:30
  website, they book direct, you've got the e-mail, phone
• 11:33
  number, you can do marketing, you can carry it on with
• 11:35
  building an actual relationship with the guest instead of having
• 11:38
  to just play guesswork with who's coming up next.
• 11:41
  So it's definitely worthwhile. There might be hosts out there
• 11:45
  as well who perhaps are only listed on one platform.
• 11:49
  They've maybe got all the regs in one basket, maybe they're
• 11:52
  just with Airbnb and potentially they get enough bookings and
• 11:56
  their revenues fine. Why is that a bit of a risk?
• 12:00
  Yeah, just as I say, just, I mean, you know, if, if, if
• 12:04
  something goes wrong, you know, it could be that the the system
• 12:07
  goes down every, every, every piece of software out there has
• 12:10
  bugs and issues and maybe a something extreme like a hack or
• 12:14
  something like this, you know, just yeah, just don't Yeah, it's
• 12:17
  really not recommended. Go just have something as a
• 12:21
  backup just in case. You never know, it might happen
• 12:24
  to you and it might be a problem where, you know, your account
• 12:28
  gets blocked, you know, there might be a sort of issue or
• 12:32
  misinformation with a guest providing some sort of
• 12:37
  information to the channel that's saying this is not a real
• 12:40
  listing or this this happened on my experience.
• 12:43
  And you know, these, these things happen.
• 12:45
  So just, you know, definitely have a direct booking website,
• 12:47
  definitely worth being listed on not just Airbnb, but
• 12:50
  booking.com, VRBO, Google and yeah, just keep that traffic
• 12:54
  coming. It's it's definitely worthwhile.
• 12:57
  Yeah, I think get get diversified because we do hear
• 12:59
  the horror stories, you know, like you say there guest might
• 13:01
  come along, give you an unjustified one star review and
• 13:06
  Airbnb might block your listing and then, you know, suddenly you
• 13:10
  can't get any more bookings. The bookings that you already
• 13:13
  have on the books, you might be not be able to to service those.
• 13:16
  So so yeah, it's just it just makes sense to be a little bit
• 13:19
  diversified. OK then Josie, so for the hosts
• 13:22
  out there who are interested in using a PMS like housefully,
• 13:27
  just tell us a little bit more about it and where they can find
• 13:30
  out more information. Yeah, for sure.
• 13:31
  Yeah, hopefully property management software, I mean,
• 13:34
  hopefully has been going for nine years and it's been used,
• 13:37
  it's used currently in over 90 countries and it's an all in one
• 13:41
  system basically. So login, you've got everything
• 13:44
  in there. You can do the analytics, the
• 13:46
  reports, the messaging, the bookings, the statements, you've
• 13:50
  got the owner's portal, the cleaning and turnover management
• 13:53
  all in one. Yeah.
• 13:53
  So just go in and it's designed to help, you know, basically
• 13:56
  increase bookings, automate workflow and just do everything
• 13:59
  in one space. You know, property managers,
• 14:01
  they don't have a minute spare. So, you know, having this
• 14:03
  software will just help, you know, streamline everything they
• 14:06
  can grow at ease. And and yeah, make sure the goal
• 14:10
  is for them to have more holidays if possible, so they
• 14:13
  can just do more in there. But yeah, I know if they're
• 14:15
  interested, just get in touch and we can chat further about
• 14:19
  it. More, more holidays for property
• 14:21
  managers delivered by host for the I love it and, and as well
• 14:25
  as the PMS, you've got digital guidebooks that you offer as
• 14:28
  well. So just tell us a little bit
• 14:29
  about those we do. Yeah, Yeah.
• 14:30
  They're designed to, you know, increase and enhance the guest
• 14:33
  experience. So the guests, you send them a
• 14:35
  unique link, It's got everything in there about the guest stay so
• 14:37
  that hopefully they're just designed to not bombard the host
• 14:40
  with questions, you know, like you can send them a link.
• 14:43
  It's got everything in their videos, images, text files.
• 14:47
  There's you can add upselling features, there's AI in the
• 14:50
  platform and the guide books as well, which we're really growing
• 14:53
  on. So yeah, it's it's just designed
• 14:56
  to help them. You can add, you know, Instagram
• 14:58
  videos, TikTok videos, you name it.
• 14:59
  And they just learn everything about their stay in there, as
• 15:02
  well as just, you know, enhancing their guest experience
• 15:04
  where they get a full in depth experience of the stay instead
• 15:10
  of them trying to work out what to do next kind of thing.
• 15:13
  So yeah. Superb.
• 15:15
  And we've got a couple of special offers as well.
• 15:16
  We've got $500 off onboarding for the PMS and also 30% off
• 15:22
  digital guidebooks for life. All the details are coming up
• 15:25
  soon and also they are in the show notes, so check them out.
• 15:29
  We've got some special links in there.
• 15:32
  Joseph, it's been a real pleasure.
• 15:34
  Thank you for joining us again on host Planet Bite Size.
• 15:37
  It's been great. Thanks, James.
• 15:39
  Great to chat to Joseph Cox there about listing platforms.
• 15:41
  Remember, Google vacation rentals is a must and you can
• 15:45
  only do that with a PMS. All right, that's it for today's
• 15:48
  episode. Remember, this podcast is
• 15:50
  brought to you in collaboration with House Philly, which is
• 15:53
  trusted by short term rental professionals across the globe.
• 15:56
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  That's it for today's episode. Until next time, happy hosting.