Who are we?

We have been hosting our holiday home in Venus Bay since 2017, listing on Airbnb, VRBO (Stayz back in the day), Booking.com and Riparide. We have positioned our property in such a way that we have enjoyed steading bookings all year round, which keeps our cleaner happy. We love hosting guests and sharing VB with others.

I have a background in IT, so it came naturally to look at ways to automate the booking process. A few years ago, I set up our website. We currently host 6 properties.

What do we offer?

We offer the following services:

1. You manage.  We list your property on our website, and you manage all aspects of the property and bookings.
2. We manage.  We list your property on our website, and we manage all bookings.  We keep your cleaner updated on future bookings.

How does it work?

The website is powered by Lodgify www.lodgify.com. It gives guests the opportunity to book direct. It also provides a website portal and mobile phone app that allows owners to view and manage all your bookings in one centralised location which include:

• Listing details.
• Photos
• Booking details.
• Booking settings including
  1. Instant book, enquiry only etc
  2. Preparation time
  3. Check in/Out days.
  4. Booking duration
• Pricing including default and seasonal rates.
• The ability to easily override rates to try and capture last minutes bookings.
• Additional fees such as cleaning, additional services fees etc.
• Promotions/discounts
• Damage Deposits
• Payment schedules
• Availability
•  Messages to guests.

The channel manager connects to the following online travel agents that instantly updates calendar and pricing for:

• Airbnb
• VRBO
• Booking.com
• Google Vacation Rentals

We use an application called Touchstay www.touchstay.com that manages our online guidebook. This is integrated into Lodgify so that guests receive a link to the guidebook as soon as they book. As the link is customised to each guest, we can monitor how many times a guest has accessed the guidebook. In most cases guests have already accessed and read the guidebook before you get notification of the booking itself.

What happens when a guest makes a booking?

Below is a typical lifecycle of what happens when a guest makes a booking.

1. Guest makes a booking via online travel agent like Airbnb etc.
2. Booking details are automatically sent to Lodgify. Guests receives an automatic, customised, welcome message from Lodgify.
3. All calendars including online travel agents are blocked out instantly.
4. Booking details are automatically sent to Touchstay which generates an email/text message to the guest with link to online guidebook.
5. 7 days prior to check in, the PIN code for the key safe and WIFI code is made available in the guidebook.
6. 2 days prior a pre arrival message is sent to the guest which contains info on how to access the property in case they haven’t read the guidebook.
7. 2 days after check out message is sent to guest inviting them to leave a review.

So, as you can see for a low maintenance guest (one that doesn’t ask any questions or requires extra handling) the booking process is seamless.

Who pays online travel agent fees?

Generally, companies like Airbnb etc charge guests a 10-15% service fee and then charge the owner approx. 2-3% to cover transaction fees. When using our website, you will be charged both the service and transaction fees. To cover this, we usually mark up the price set in the system by 20% to cover these expenses so you are not out of pocket. It also displays to potential guests a total price without extra fees.

How do I get paid?

Bookings made via Airbnb and Booking.com will be paid directly into your bank account as normal.

Bookings made via VRBO, and the website are processed via our Stripe credit card account and paid into our account. We will transfer the amount (minus booking and transaction fee) when guests check in.

Pricing

• You Manage
  
  • $400 per year subscription to website
  • $100 per year subscription to online guidebook

• We Manage
  • $250 per year subscription to website (waived for the first financial year)
  • $75 per year subscription to online guidebook (waived for the first financial year)
  • $25 flat fee per booking

Initial setup and training are included in the price. 

Next Steps

If you are interested get in touch to discuss next steps.