SPOTLIGHT ON:

Safety

Proper smoke detector selection and maintenance are paramount.

How Many Guests is Too Many?

Short-term and vacation rentals have seen unprecedented demand in the last few years, leading local governments to reexamine exactly how many travelers their infrastructures, workforce housing supply, and ecosystems can sustain. Overburdened towns, cities, and counties are increasingly turning to limiting or even banning STRs as a solution – but does this actually work? 

In this live recording of Sarah and T, co-hosts Sarah Bradford and Tim Cafferty discussed how vacation rental operators everywhere need to be part of effective tourism management. Being involved in the conversation draws guests to your destination in a way that’s a win for you and a win for your community.

“Proper planning prevents poor performance,” said Cafferty.

In order to answer the question How many guests is too many?, they encourage vacation rental operators to ask themselves and their communities.

What is your community doing about housing for employees?

• “Hospitality can’t be automated. People deliver hospitality,” said Bradford. 
• Get involved in workforce housing discussions in your community, and support workforce housing projects.
• Offer incentives to vacation rental owners to switch to long-term rentals.

What can you do to make sure you are a good steward of the community?

• Create a guide for guests on how to be a good neighbor and steward in the community that they’re visiting, and inform guests about hot button issues like noise or trash. 
• Provide reusable bags. Let guests know the tap water is good and discourage the use of plastic water bottles.
• Note the problems your community doesn’t have, and make your guests feel like they’re part of a program to keep those problems out of the community. For example, cited Cafferty, “One of the best things we have in [Outer Banks] is we don’t have [litter]. So, please, remove all of your trash when you’re at the beach and dispose of it properly.”
• Direct your guests to voluntourism opportunities that help to protect and preserve nature, the environment, or the community.

Unlock Your Impact

Rent Responsibly’s Dana Lubner and panelists Tiffany Edwards of VRMA, Scott Leggat of Inhabit, and Noah Stewart of Vrbo, discussed the ins and outs of fundraising for advocacy or legal efforts, lobbying for and against regulatory policies, and political engagement.

Sustaining Your Whole Self with Hosting Practices That Work for You

Sarah and Annette of the Thanks for Visiting Podcast talked about how to take care of yourself as much as you care for your guests by designing your hosting business to work for you.

One of their biggest pieces of advice: Know your financial numbers. Know where you are and where you want to go. 

“Understand your financials through the peak season and through the low season and always make confident decisions with your guests based on data over drama,” said Karakaian.

“I give you permission to own your business. … It is your product, it is your program, and you have every right to say, unfortunately, I can’t bend those rules,” said Karakaian. “That’s at the health of our business and our team morale.”

Other Tips:

• Automate tasks. “Automation and guest interaction don’t have to be at odds.” – Sarah Karakaian
• Guard your time. Take your special days off the calendar so you don’t have to worry about check-ins and check-outs on those days. Anticipate the time you will need to do maintenance at the property. 
• Have an inspector come into the home after cleaning is completed to evaluate for safety and functionality, like whether the remote control and WiFi are working.
• Hire a guest services person. It can be a remote position, but it relieves you from having to be on duty 24/7.
• Compile a hosting handbook and SOPs that you can leave for someone in case of a family emergency or if you want to take some time off for your mental health.
• Connect with your guests and invite good guests back as repeat customers.
• Print out great reviews to have ready to lift your spirits on bad days.

Their tips for building a sustainable brand:

• Use Cathedral Thinking, the concept of planning for the long-term future with a plan that must be carried out over multiple generations, much like cathedral building had to be done in the medieval era where the term originated. “Have one eye present on what you’re dealing with on a day-to-day basis that blocks and tackles stuff. But you need the other eye looking on the horizon and saying what’s coming next?” – Stuart Butler
• Look at everything through the lens of your customer’s experience. “When you make decisions through the lens of Is this good for my customer? a lot of other things start to fall in place.” – Stuart Butler
• Focus on your values: how you treat your guests, how you treat your staff, and your commitment to the quality of your product. Those are things that never change.
• Define and communicate your culture. “If people know why they’re coming in every day, what difference they’re making individually, and what they’re contributing to the whole, that’s when people are going to step up and give that extra 10 or 20 or 30%.” – Stuart Butler
• OTAs are your best source of new business, but your best customer is your current customer. “Technology is a conduit to what you actually offer.” – Pete DiMaio
• Nurture relationships with your customers.
• Turn your customers into your advocates who recommend your vacation rental to their social network. “When you become a power brand, people will drive farther, wait longer, and they will pay more for what you have.” – Alex Husner
• Keep a mindset of always testing what you have and looking for consistent incremental improvements.
• Survey your customers to learn what they like, what they don’t like and what they’d like to see improved in the future.

Their quick tips:

• The main goal of digital marketing is to drive traffic to your website.
• Understand your market and where your guests typically come from.
• Leverage marketing tools that are free or low cost. Examples: Set up Google Search Console, optimize your Google My Business listing, and hire a skilled website designer to design a website for your property.
• Choose quality over quantity. Focus on improving your search traffic on a few channels that offer the best chance of success.
• Understand how much it costs to get conversions.
• Social media marketing may not result in immediate conversions, but it helps to establish your brand and prompts people to think of you when they are ready to book their accommodation.
• Advertising to the market that actually wants to stay with me
• Use the calendars on OTAs like Airbnb to your advantage. Use OTAs for last-minute bookings, defined as 30 to 90 days out, but close the rest of your calendar to give travelers the opportunity to book directly with you, especially when they are booking far in advance.
• Be consistent in your email marketing even if it’s to a relatively small number of recipients. The consistency keeps you top of mind.
• Add something compelling to your emails like a discount or a blog post about the local area.
• Use Microsoft Clarity, a free behavior analytics tool, to understand how visitors are using your website and to identify opportunities for improvement. 
• On your website, blog about something a traveler might search for in your area. For instance, the best hiking trails in the Smoky Mountains. This will direct traffic to your website.