Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / The Real Reason Your Airbnb Isn't Booking (It's Not Your Price)

Transcript

The Real Reason Your Airbnb Isn't Booking (It's Not Your Price) · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

0:00
Really look for those new guests.
0:01
You've got to have fresh blood coming into your portfolio.
0:04
You have to have more bookings this year than you did last
0:06
year. Always.
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If you don't have more bookings this year than you had last
0:10
year, your company is shrinking. Period.
0:12
When bookings slow, most hosts do one thing they drop their
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prices. But what if that's the worst
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thing you can do? In this episode, you'll learn
0:23
why pricing isn't the real problem, why relying solely on
0:27
OTAs is riskier than ever, and how the best operators are
0:32
creating demand, not chasing it. This could completely change how
0:37
you run your short term rental business.
0:40
Welcome to the host Planet podcast powered by Housefully.
0:44
I'm your host, James Varley, and today I'm joined by Amber
0:47
Knight, general manager at Bookings Cloud.
0:50
Amber has worked across some of the biggest names in the
0:52
industry, including I Trip and Live Res, and now helps property
0:57
managers optimise marketing and revenue across large portfolios.
1:01
Today we're talking about something most hosts get wrong
1:05
demand. Let's get straight into it.
1:13
Amber, thank you for joining us on the Host Planet podcast.
1:16
Let's start here. When bookings slow, most hosts
1:20
drop their prices. Are they solving the problem or
1:23
exposing something much bigger? Hi, James, great to be here.
1:29
I really see that when you drop your prices, it's a symptom.
1:35
It's not a strategy, right? Most managers we see and most
1:40
operators we see, they have a, they don't have a doing it
1:42
problem. They have a visibility problem.
1:45
Not enough people are seeing their properties, right?
1:48
If no one sees your property, it doesn't matter how low your
1:51
price goes and you're just eroding your margin.
1:54
So, you know, I think the other thing that we really see is that
1:57
discounting trains your guests to wait to the last minutes if
2:01
they can't find the perfect property.
2:03
And so then you end up contributing to the issue that
2:06
you're trying to solve for. So if your only lever is price,
2:10
you're already behind. Do you know what?
2:13
I find interesting is that in the?
2:14
Airline industry for example, usually the closer you get to
2:19
when the flight is often the price will.
2:21
Go up. Yeah, In short term rentals, the
2:24
price just drops. Is that because there's just
2:27
this fear? Of Oh my God, I don't have a
2:31
booking, I'm going to slash the price.
2:34
Yes, there are managers that look at demand and if they see
2:39
that occupancy for their market is going to be exceptionally
2:41
high, they do raise rates at that that last minute.
2:45
So it really just depends if, if supply is low and demand is
2:50
high, you can raise rates, right?
2:53
And that's what you have to look at is how much supply, how
2:56
unique is your property, right? If you're 1 of 300 grayed out
3:00
condos in Florida, your only lover is price and standing out
3:05
separately. So it's if you if because
3:07
there's there's so much more supply than demand.
3:10
So you really have to make sure that you are differentiating
3:13
your properties and you understand what's different and
3:16
you're getting them in front of your guests in a way that is not
3:21
one of a list on Airbnb. So what are the best ways to?
3:26
Differentiate your. Property if you are, especially
3:29
if you are in a bit of a. Cookie cutter location.
3:32
Where there are a lot of competition and a lot of similar
3:35
properties, what can you do to stand out?
3:39
You can one, I think your website is number one, right?
3:43
Your website, your local presence, because if it's if
3:47
you're 1 of 300 condos and but they know this is a local
3:52
provider. You, you're a local manager with
3:54
a local team and you operate professionally and the property
3:58
is fully has all the amenities, has a full kitchen, right?
4:02
They're not having to work off of dollar store spatulas, right?
4:06
And scratched up hands those things if when you can
4:10
differentiate that really lean into your reviews, right?
4:15
Properties that have more than ten reviews do meaningfully
4:19
better than identical properties with less than that responding
4:23
to reviews. You have to show you care.
4:26
Another thing that you can do there is make sure that your
4:32
your description of your property stands out right.
4:35
A really good way to do that that some people do is they talk
4:38
to the homeowners. They'll say, why did you buy
4:40
this property? Why is your condo the best condo
4:42
in this building? And they'll say something like,
4:45
well, we've really, we've put hooks all over the the house,
4:47
right? That's the thing that you
4:48
wouldn't know just from being a standard manager.
4:50
So when you ask the owner and you put that note in there from
4:53
an owner, it personalizes it and it creates that local experience
4:57
which makes that stand out. Or yeah, it's got a full kitchen
5:00
or it has, the beds are comfortable, right?
5:03
Those things mean so much and that's what stands out.
5:05
So you need to do, you know, make sure are you easy to find
5:10
on your website? Are you reliable to find on like
5:12
Google local search results And does every step of the way
5:16
really optimize the merchandising of that inventory?
5:20
Have you optimized each individual piece and made it
5:23
stand out? You mentioned there the the
5:26
direct booking website can can help me to stand out.
5:30
Of course, many in the industry have relied on OTAs for for many
5:34
years now. Do you?
5:35
Think there are some operators who are a bit.
5:37
Too dependent on these. Platforms to generate the
5:39
bookings, absolutely. You know, I would say 78910
5:45
years ago Airbnb and VRBO, HomeAway, they came to the
5:52
vacation industry and they said we are the cheapest cost of
5:55
guest acquisition. Don't worry about acquiring new
5:58
guests, we're going to do that for you.
6:00
So nobody invested in software, nobody built tools for guest
6:05
acquisition. And the individuals, the
6:07
marketers and the specialist in the industry kind of stopped
6:11
using that muscle, right? Because it was true, Airbnb and
6:14
VRBO are the cheapest way to acquire new guests.
6:17
And that is not true anymore, right?
6:19
And so it is if they're becoming more and more expensive and
6:22
they're going to be because now like it's a, they know that
6:26
they're the only, they feel like they're the only way to acquire
6:30
those new guests. So we all collectively as an, as
6:33
an industry have to start building that guest acquisition
6:36
model and be willing to invest in it and to talk about it and
6:40
to diversify where we get our bookings.
6:42
So no one booking source is can call the shots on your own, but
6:49
your local business what? Do you think are good
6:53
percentages between direct bookings and OTA bookings?
6:58
Should you be quite heavily diversified or is it better to
7:02
just? Have all direct bookings.
7:06
That answer really depends on your market.
7:08
I'm gonna say Nashville, TN has a very different answer than
7:11
Hilton Head, SC, right. That has a different answer
7:15
than, you know, Sun River, Oregon.
7:17
So that's one piece I would say you want to make sure you're,
7:23
you have a good mix of a diversified portfolio, right?
7:26
So that if one, one piece of that portfolio falls, your
7:30
business is still resilient and can kind of pick up the slack,
7:33
right. So you want to have a good mix
7:35
of new guests and returning guests.
7:38
You want to have guests coming in from the OTAs and you want to
7:41
leverage like Airbnb is great for low ADR properties that book
7:45
the last minute. Those are, it really is it's,
7:48
it's a very cost effective way to manage that.
7:52
You know, there's a, there's a specific demographic that's
7:54
always going to book on Verbo. You don't want to dismiss those
7:57
and you want to definitely optimize for those and you want
8:00
to build your portfolio and you want to build how you're
8:03
acquiring those guests and marketing those properties
8:06
specifically to lean into the strengths of the specific OTAs.
8:10
And you know, kind of move that into a situation where you have
8:15
more control, right? And so the direct bookings, you
8:19
have control of, you know, the guest name, you've got the guest
8:23
information, you can, your communication is more under
8:27
control. And if something happens on the
8:30
other side, you you still have that, but on the other side, you
8:33
don't just relying on your website, just relying on fully
8:36
direct that's leaving guests on the table.
8:39
So be where your guests are and make sure that you're presenting
8:43
the best inventory for those guests.
8:48
What's the real? Difference between capturing
8:51
demand on OTAs like Airbnb, booking.com, Verbo and actually
8:57
creating your own demand. Kind of break it down for us.
9:01
What does it look like? Yeah, OTAs are great at
9:06
capturing the existing demand. Somebody's already searching for
9:09
a four bedroom house that has, you know, a ground floor bedroom
9:15
that allows pets that's within walking distance to the beach,
9:18
right? That's a very specific list of
9:20
amenities they're going to go look for.
9:21
They're going to get those results and they're going to
9:24
kind of sort through those results. 67% of guests looking
9:28
for a property can't find the property they're looking for,
9:30
right? So, and in that list, people get
9:33
overwhelmed. So there's a lot of, there's a
9:35
lot of ways to you really want to talk about how do you
9:38
influence guests before they choose a specific property?
9:41
So you want to look at social, you want to look at awareness
9:45
discovery, kind of like you, you want to get there before that
9:50
moment of search, honestly. So social is a really strong
9:53
tool. Search is a really great tool.
9:55
Your local presence newsletter, like there's all, all sorts of
9:59
different things. And it's, it's not an easy one
10:02
step solution, but if you can get there before you're 1 of
10:08
5000 available properties that meet that requirement in your
10:11
market, you're going to stand out and get that booking for a
10:15
higher price for a longer stay. Be where your guests are.
10:18
Simple. Yes, simple.
10:20
As that quick it's. Simple to say it's it's simple
10:25
to say. Yeah, it's sometimes difficult
10:27
to do, but yeah, think, think where your guests are hanging.
10:29
Out. That's probably the.
10:30
Simplest way of trying to trying to execute it Quick pause then.
10:34
This series is powered by Hastefully, which helps
10:37
professional hosts and property managers run more efficient
10:40
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If you want to streamline your operations and deliver a better
10:48
guest experience, simply scan the QR code on screen if you're
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with a big friend of the show, Frank Bosey.
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And don't forget, host Planet listeners get 2 exclusive
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offers, $500 off onboarding for the property management
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11:09
All right, back to it, Amber. You work with large portfolios.
11:13
When occupancy drops, what are the best operators doing
11:17
differently to everyone else? They have a different mindset is
11:22
the number one thing that I'm going to say really we see the
11:27
best operators are curious, right?
11:30
And they're adaptable. Honestly, they look at something
11:34
that they did two years ago and they assess why they decided to
11:37
do that. And if that those conditions
11:40
still apply, right? And that's kind of the number
11:44
one thing that I see is there's a lack of, there's kind of a
11:48
fear of being curious and a fear of adapting that happens.
11:51
And that's, that's, I'm going to say the opposite.
11:54
That's what holds operators back, right?
11:56
So that's the the mindset shift that the best operators have.
12:01
If you want to get into the real like the nuts and bolts of it,
12:06
they understand pacing really well.
12:09
How are not just how did I do last month?
12:11
How are my bookings pacing for the future?
12:14
Do I have more bookings this month than I had last month of
12:17
people who want a book in the future?
12:20
They are, you know, integrating marketing and, and revenue
12:26
management into one system. How do I cohesively raise the
12:30
revenue for these properties, not fight for each individual
12:35
reservation, right? And they're, you know, like we
12:38
talked about before, they're diversifying their, their, where
12:41
they're getting their demands and they're really dialing in
12:46
which properties need marketing before the, you know, before
12:52
that property has a bad month. Like how is it pacing for the
12:54
future really and just watching that and, and taking action
12:59
early. Why do you believe pricing
13:02
alone? Is one of the most overused and
13:06
misunderstood. Levers.
13:07
In short term rentals. I'm going to date myself a
13:12
little bit here, but when I'm going to say seven years ago,
13:16
right, 2000 and eighteen, 2019, that's when we started talking
13:21
as an industry about Rev Par and about the importance of
13:25
occupancy like that, the combination of ADR times
13:28
occupancy and by maximizing the revenue that I'm making a
13:32
property every single night and pricing managers, they don't
13:37
have a tool to adjust to increase demand.
13:40
That's a marketing rule, right. That's something that marketing
13:43
can do. So when you look at a pricing, a
13:46
revenue manager that just does pricing, that's their lever is
13:50
to lower and increase rates is to make it, you know, change the
13:54
cancellation policy, lower the length of stay, that kind of
13:57
thing. And so really it's just kind of
14:00
that the siloing of marketing and revenue management has, has
14:04
caused this situation where there's things you can do in
14:07
marketing proactively. And once you get to pricing
14:11
that's reactive. It's it doesn't respond to
14:14
demand, it doesn't create demand, but it's easy to change,
14:18
right? So that is that's what's going
14:23
on. And I would say a lot of markets
14:24
had a lot of pricing power where they had more demand than
14:28
supply, right. When you have more demand than
14:30
supply, pricing is a great tool. But in these markets where
14:34
demand has increased significantly in the last five
14:36
years, they're still using the same tools even though the
14:39
market is shift and they have more supply than demand and
14:43
you're having to funnel that demands to specific properties
14:46
instead of just adjusting. Rates do you think?
14:49
Other travel sectors. Are doing much better when it
14:52
comes to their marketing and revenue management, people
14:55
actually speaking to each other and being properly aligned and
14:59
and. What are the specific things
15:01
that? Short term rental property
15:03
management businesses can do to make sure you know what are the
15:05
tactics they can. Use to make sure that they're
15:07
they're. Both on the same page.
15:11
Marketers and revenue managers are using different data sets.
15:15
That's one of the biggest things that I'm going to say.
15:17
And I really don't see, I don't, I see very little alignment
15:21
between those teams and interactive strategies.
15:24
You know, maybe 10% of managers and that I'm being optimistic
15:28
when I say that are integrating revenue management and
15:32
marketing. And I think a big piece is that
15:35
marketing is a it's, it's harder to measure, right?
15:41
And we're, we have different expectations for marketing.
15:44
We're like, you have to prove this reservation happened at
15:46
this time. It was caused by this thing that
15:48
I did. And that's so specific.
15:51
We can't do that for revenue management.
15:53
It doesn't exist, right? So we don't do that.
15:55
We say you adjust the rates and the revenue goes up and that's
15:58
what we want. We want more revenue per
15:59
property. And then so the marketers are
16:01
held to a different standard and they're not using the same data
16:04
to have the conversations about this and they're not talking to
16:07
each other. So that proactively saying, hey,
16:09
this property a is placing behind, let's get more
16:13
visibility on this property. They're not doing that.
16:17
But the the levers are proactive.
16:19
They're early in marketing and they're just, they don't talk to
16:23
each other. I think marketers who are using
16:26
data to make decisions early really are winning and they
16:32
they're going to change the game for sure.
16:35
So and that's going to make sure that businesses are influencing
16:38
demand and not just reacting to it.
16:41
How exactly are the best? Property management companies
16:45
dealing with this right now are there.
16:47
Are there? Kind of marketing teams, do they
16:50
have like? Full commercial teams which?
16:53
Have revenue management and marketing.
16:55
As part of that team and that you know, day by day they're
16:58
talking to each other and say, well, this is what we're seeing
17:00
in the data and this is what we're doing from a marketing
17:02
point of view and how do we how do we make sure everything's
17:04
aligned? Yeah, I think they have.
17:08
They have somebody who is regularly asking the questions
17:12
holistically the business and it's generally the owners.
17:15
Like I don't think you need to have huge teams.
17:17
You can outsource specialists at a really high level at this
17:22
point where you don't. You know, one thing I'm going to
17:25
say, and this is going off topic a little bit, but the best, the
17:30
best short term rental operators, they're
17:32
entrepreneurs, right? They're extroverted, they're
17:35
social, they're sales people. They are good at talking to
17:39
homeowners and saying, trust me with your second biggest asset
17:43
and I will take care of it and I will pay you on time and I will
17:45
make you more money on it than anybody else.
17:47
And convincing guests everything else, right?
17:50
A revenue manager is a very analytical specific position.
17:55
Things with you on or off, They're black, they're white.
17:58
And so you know, you have to be really careful about it's very
18:02
hard for a vacation rental operator, short term rental
18:05
operator to manage full time a revenue manager and then to pull
18:09
marketing into this because it's they're different.
18:13
You kind of have to bridge the communication between all of
18:16
these people, right? And so either you have the skill
18:19
sets to be able to look at the larger pictures strategically
18:23
and say, this is, you know, this is what the data says.
18:26
This is what, this is what provides the best experience to
18:29
my guests, which gets them coming back and gets them
18:32
leaving great reviews. Because at the end of the day,
18:35
we are hospitality, right? The, the, you cannot turn
18:39
hospitality into an algorithm that is an experience.
18:44
And so it, it can't be quantified into something that a
18:48
revenue manager does. So you have to kind of you, you
18:50
have to have all these different perspectives.
18:52
And so you have to understand as as an operator, what your
18:54
strengths are, what your weaknesses are and where you
18:58
need help. And so sometimes hiring some of
19:00
those external revenue management firms to deliver
19:03
results for you and that you have a little bit of a bridge
19:05
there and, or hiring the markers just depending on where your
19:09
skill set is, right? Hire, hire like strategic
19:12
consultants or tactical executors for those pieces and
19:17
then start to pull it together and really pay attention to your
19:20
pacing, right? Did I get more bookings last
19:23
month than I did the year before for the same properties?
19:26
What's my goal this month for the number of properties, the
19:29
number of bookings I want and how much revenue I'm going to
19:32
get on the books? Right?
19:34
Like that piece there. If you're, if you're not paying
19:37
attention to how you did last month, if you're only looking at
19:41
what you, what money you made, you're, you're missing that
19:43
whole, how much money did I get on the books for the future,
19:47
right. And so when somebody is looking
19:49
at their business from that perspective and saying, is this
19:50
property pacing the way it did this time last year, yes or no?
19:54
Okay, why not? Let's go ask the right
19:57
questions. So having a strategic you know,
20:02
like a person. Kind of overall everything
20:06
asking, not having the answers, not knowing how to do it
20:08
necessarily. That's not what's necessary.
20:10
It is to go in there and say here's what I want to achieve.
20:13
I want to make more money on these properties than I did last
20:15
year. So I need my booking pace to
20:18
increase. And I'm going to ask questions
20:20
of people, of the people that I've hired to help me until I
20:23
get the answers that I need. And I'm going to adjust early
20:27
instead of having a fire sell at the last minute to this
20:29
property. And if you were running a. 20 to
20:33
50 property portfolio today what?
20:36
Would your demand strategy? Look like beyond just listed on
20:40
the OTAs. I would say again, not to harp
20:45
on pacing more, but you need to know like how's your portfolio
20:49
pacing? How are your each one of your
20:50
segments pacing in new bookings? Is it ahead or behind of last
20:55
year? How is that comparing to the
20:57
market? Really understand that.
21:00
Identify which properties actually need demands and then
21:05
allocate the budget for it and do that.
21:08
Do that like like like the Airbnb is and the the money you
21:14
paid OTAs like Airbnb and VRBO. That's also your marketing
21:18
budget, right? So I see people who are like, I
21:21
really don't want to spend 5 or $10,000 on the direct booking
21:25
strategy, but I'm but they spent $120,000 last month on Airbnb
21:29
fees. They have the money, they've
21:31
just not paid attention to it, right?
21:34
So be intentional about where you're allocating your budget
21:38
and you can't get, you're not going to get something for
21:40
nothing. You've got to invest in your
21:43
strategy to diversify and if you want to stop like, OK, Airbnb is
21:48
15 1/2 percent, it will go up because Airbnb is a public
21:52
company. They now like they owe their
21:55
shareholders. They have to, they have to make
21:57
more money every quarter, right? And there's, they're not going
22:00
to get a significantly more listings.
22:02
So they're going to start charging more per listing.
22:04
They're going to get more per listing, right?
22:06
So this is, this is going to continue.
22:10
And so you have to plan ahead for that because it's going to
22:14
take, you know, I think one of the things I see 6 to 12 months
22:17
per new channel to develop that and build that out because it
22:21
starts slow and then it builds and then, you know, and, and
22:24
it's just kind of prepare for that.
22:26
And so budget properly, right? Really look for those new
22:31
guests. I you've got to have fresh blood
22:33
coming into your portfolio. You have to have more bookings
22:36
this year than you did last year.
22:38
Always if you don't have more bookings this year than you had
22:41
last year, your, your company's shrinking period.
22:45
And most managers cannot tell you I had X number of bookings
22:49
last year and I'm on pace to exceed that or I'm behind that.
22:53
So you know, that's a piece I would say like stop marketing
22:58
everything and start prioritizing what actually needs
23:01
bookings. So that's, that's a lot right
23:04
there. That's a whole piece.
23:06
We probably have a whole podcast just on that.
23:09
Let's look ahead a bit then, do you think?
23:11
The next generation of. Successful hosts will be the
23:14
ones who control demand before. Guests ever open an OTA?
23:20
Absolutely yes. I mean, it's like it's you know,
23:25
I and really Airbnb has changed its industry and Airbnb has its
23:30
place. Complete dependence on on Airbnb
23:33
is not a solution for a successful business period on
23:40
any on any of 1 channel, right? So guests are influenced before
23:46
they ever reach Airbnb, right. And with the way people use
23:51
social now and AI driven discovery of like how, how
23:56
people are searching early, you know, there's an opportunity
24:00
right now to really optimize your website to be personal, to
24:04
be real, to be a your local subject matter expert on a great
24:10
vacation in your market. And the AI tools recognize that
24:16
and they will they're like a real person who knows this
24:19
market. I'm going to send people to this
24:21
site because it makes me look good, right.
24:23
So now you can we're reshaping how trips are starting, how
24:27
trips are being built. So people who are building their
24:30
website and that they're their properties and their photos and
24:35
all their tagging and their like content for to be aware of that.
24:40
Those are the ones that are going to change the game going
24:42
forward. And they're shaping that demand
24:45
for their properties. They're not waiting until some
24:47
till the search results come out on Airbnb.
24:50
So it's Airbnb aren't going to go away or excuse me, OTAs are
24:54
not going to go away, but their rules going to shift in what
24:57
they do and with professional managers it's going to shift a
25:01
lot more. Yeah, we all want those LLM
25:05
citations, don't we? It doesn't matter what business
25:07
you're in, you want to get you. Want to get recommended if a
25:10
host keeps relying on the OTAs then and and discounting
25:14
whenever they need to fill the gaps.
25:16
What do you think happens to their business over the next few
25:19
years? The OTAs encourage almost
25:23
exclusive competing on price, right.
25:27
I think Airbnb just had something come out where they
25:29
said let's you know, we'll prioritize rankings.
25:32
If you lower your rates, they're going to keep doing that.
25:35
It doesn't Airbnb doesn't lose anything like meaningful by
25:39
asking you to lower your rates, right.
25:41
So that's going to continue for sure.
25:44
And then and they're they're so they're going to say we need you
25:48
to lower your rates. They're going to say, hey,
25:51
you're getting most of your bookings from me.
25:52
So we like your option. You can't, your business is done
25:56
if you don't use Airbnb. So we're going to raise our
25:58
rates too. And so you've got that kind of
26:00
combination, right? So you're getting less and less
26:03
money and your, your average resident per booking is lower
26:06
and lower. Your owner's going to be annoyed
26:08
and so they're going to go somewhere else.
26:10
It's not quite as relying on margin compression, right?
26:13
And so that's going to keep going.
26:15
And then you're not going to be able to re book remarket to pass
26:18
guests anymore. All your guests will be new
26:20
guests all the time because the OTAs are starting to lock down
26:25
the phone number, the e-mail address, all the communications,
26:29
right? So they're increasing dependence
26:31
because they can. And so then you're going to look
26:34
at that and you're just going to, you're going to be, you're
26:37
going to be reliant on another tool for your business.
26:41
And that is going to make your business more volatile.
26:44
It's going to make it less sustainable.
26:45
It's going to make it worth not nearly as much, if anything from
26:49
that that that piece. So and it's going to reduce your
26:53
ability to differentiate your properties.
26:55
And in that race to the bottom, you're going to see what was a
26:58
good, strong, resilient business the, you know, five years ago be
27:03
something that is not worth selling or doing at this point.
27:06
So there will be a lot of consolidation right, to those
27:11
managers who are able to master differentiating, diversifying
27:15
their booking channels, that type of thing.
27:19
Those the mid range properties, those ones like, you know, I
27:23
talked about like the, you know, the hundreds of two-bedroom, 3
27:27
bedroom condos that all kind of look the same.
27:30
Those are the pressure on those is just going to increase and
27:35
increase and increase and those are what's going to go away
27:37
mostly. So yeah, you're really going to
27:40
see a lot of just divide between the people who got a
27:44
sophisticated program and the ones that are kind of dabbling.
27:49
Yeah, Airbnb wants bookings because bookings equal
27:52
Commission. It reminds me, a few months ago
27:54
I got an e-mail from Airbnb saying oh.
27:58
Your properties. Are doing really well.
27:59
Basically, your occupancy's up, your revenues up.
28:02
Here's our recommendation. Their recommendation?
28:04
Was you should cut your price a little bit so.
28:07
I put this post on LinkedIn and I was like look Airbnb are
28:10
telling me I'm. Doing brilliantly, but.
28:12
Always the advice is. Cut your.
28:14
Price and and I think I put a question saying has Airbnb ever
28:18
told somebody to increase their price?
28:21
Probably not because they just want to keep.
28:23
Keep getting that, getting that Commission.
28:26
Just before you go then Amber, tell us about Bookings Cloud.
28:31
What do you do and where can people find out more information
28:33
about it? Yes, thank you.
28:36
We work with short term rental operators to create demand for
28:43
their properties and we do that right now by automating paid
28:47
social using real time property data.
28:50
So we'll connect to like hostfully, we'll connect to your
28:54
PMS and we'll analyze your data and we'll pull your your
28:58
property details. And we will use that to
29:02
prioritize the properties that need bookings the most with an
29:05
opportunity score, so you can identify the properties that
29:09
need that need marketing and would benefit from marketing.
29:12
And then we automate the creation of those ads to unpaid
29:17
social to, to drive those highly qualified, highly targeted
29:23
prospects directly to your website to book on, on your, on
29:29
your properties. And it's, it's incredibly
29:32
effective. So, you know, really we're
29:35
doing, we're not replacing strategy.
29:37
We're executing what teams don't have time for and really
29:41
couldn't do before, before a lot of these AI and machine learning
29:47
tools came out. So essentially, we help you
29:50
right get in front of the right guess before they ever hit an
29:55
OTA. Fantastic.
29:56
And what's the? Website itisbookingscloud.com.
30:01
All right, check it out. We'll put all those details in
30:03
the show notes. Amber, it's been a real
30:05
pleasure. Thanks for joining us on the
30:06
Host Planet podcast. Thank you so much.
30:09
Great to be here. Now over to you.
30:11
Let me ask you this. When booking slow, what's your
30:14
first move? Drop your answer in the
30:16
comments. Is it pricing or marketing?
30:19
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