Owning a holiday rental or holiday rental property management business, there are many aspects of the job that require a significant amount of attention and time. One of the simplest ways to improve efficiency, save time, and increase bookings and exposure for your holiday rental properties is to list on Search and Stay and use the add-on Search and Stay channel manager.
When you own a holiday rental or holiday rental property management business, you’ll find there are many aspects of the job that require a significant amount of attention and time. One of the simplest ways to improve efficiency, inc and exposure for your holiday rental or holiday property management business is to use a channel manager.
Here’s some information explaining Channel Managers and the benefits for managing your holiday rental.
· What is a Channel Manager?
· Does Your Listing/s Need a Channel Manager?
· How Many Holiday Rental Property Listings Do You Manage?
· Do You Need To Have Different Listings on Different OTAs and Holiday Rental Listing Sites?
· Do You Have a Specific Guest Audience? What are they looking for?
· Is it Possible to List on Too Many Holiday Rental Channels?
· Upload Your Holiday Rental Listing on Search and Stay and Distribute Via the Channel Manager
· How to Stand Out from the Competition
· The Benefits of Using Search and Stay Channel Manager
What is a Channel Manager?
Channel management is the process of organising the various Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), booking channels and websites where you can list and promote your holiday rental properties.
You can do this manually by adding all your listings to the channels of your choice and regularly updating each listing on each channel individually.
However, it you manage all your listings, rates and seasons from your Search and Stay account then obviously using a channel manager will make your life easier and eliminate risk of human error.
A channel manager is a tool that allows property managers to publish and update all their listings across multiple channels (booking sites) from a central dashboard. Using a Channel Manager lets you continuously manage and increase business by as much exposure as possible.
The primary benefit of a channel manager is the ability to automatically push all of your listings to as many OTAs and listing sites as you want. Instead of relying on one website to promote a given listing, you can gain exposure to millions of people across multiple platforms without the massive, time-consuming jobs of managing each site and listing separately.
A channel manager also significantly reduces your risk of double bookings when listing on multiple channels as the tool reflects bookings made on one channel on the calendars of all the other channels. For example, if your property is booked through Airbnb, those dates will be blocked on the calendar for Booking.com, HomeAway and any other channels you may be using.
A central dashboard on Search and Stay syncs all your listings on all your channels allowing quick changes to pricing or description changes and letting you update your seasons from one spot.
Does Your Listing/s Need a Channel Manager?
A channel manager is the easiest way to simplify managing your holiday property listing across a number of different platforms and OTA, but it’s important to understand whether you need one for your business.
How Many Holiday Rental Property Listings Do You Manage?
A channel manager has been a tool of the trade for larger holiday property management companies that promote their multiple listings across multiple channels. In the past, it has been designed and costed only to suit large agencies and often if you have less than 20 properties you are not able to use a Channel Manager system.
With Search and Stay Channel Manager, we have made this time-saving tool available to anyone, whether you have 1 or 1000 holiday properties. There are very few property management systems (PMS) or Channel Managers that will allow access for just one property. Using the Search and Stay holiday rental listing platform you can access our Channel Manager for a minimal monthly fee, approximately $10/property/month, which is just $120 per year!
You still need to assess whether listing on multiple channels will bring in more revenue from more exposure and whether you can afford the commission charged by each specific channels. While Search and Stay charge no owner fees or commission. The commission percentage on other OTAs and holiday rental platforms vary greatly.
Do You Need To Have Different Listings on Different OTAs and Holiday Rental Listing Sites?
Some Channel Management companies or PMS systems might say that a channel manager is only necessary for property management companies that promote multiple listings across multiple channels, this is generally because they are unable to offer a Channel Manager system to individual owners or those with less than five holiday rental properties. This is not the case with Search and Stay Channel Manager which is available to any individual holiday property owner with just one holiday rental.
It is important to ask if you want to have different information, details, description and rates for each individual holiday rental booking site, if this is the case you will need to manage each site uniquely and a Channel Manager won’t suit you. However, we have discovered that this is rarely the case, as most information about your property will need to be duplicated across multiple Holiday home listing platforms for the benefit of your guests.
Do You Have a Specific Guest Audience? What are they looking for?
If you have a specific offering for your holiday rental for example if it’s pet-friendly, family-friendly or adults only then you may like to choose a listing site or OTAs that help to promote your listing to a specific group. Search and Stay Channel Manager will be useful in this case as there are 60 plus different sites, OTAs, platforms and meta searchers to choose from all of which can target different guest needs or holiday types.
Is it Possible to List on Too Many Channels?
It is worth considering the cost of listing on each platform before you list on too many channels. While the Search and Stay Channel Manager has one charge per property to list on multiple channel, each channel will have charges and commissions you’ll have to pay. You might want to start out with just a few of the high-profile booking channels like Airbnb, Stayz, VRBO, Expedia, Booking.com until you have a need to increase your bookings or expand out to target a different audience. It’s important to note that you will need to set up an account with each individual channel or platform to use the Search and Stay Channel Manager.
If you’re a holiday management company with multiple properties looking to scale and grow your holiday rental property management portfolio then it would be sensible to have your listings on as many booking channels as possible. While there is a lot of work involved in initially setting up the listings in the Channel Manager, it will help greatly in managing and distributing across multiple booking channels and is bound to increase rentals.
Uploading Your Holiday Rental Property Listing on Search and Stay and Distributing Via the Channel Manager
If using the Search and Stay Channel Manager is right for you then you need to decide how many channels you want to use. If you aren’t already familiar with all the 60+ channels available to you via Search and Stay you might want to check out the more boutique or specialised holiday rental platforms to decide if they are suitable for your holiday property or holiday home.
Airbnb, HomeAway, Stayz, VRBO, Booking.com, TripAdvisor and Agoda are the biggest in the holiday accommodation business and should help your listings attract countless potential guests across various regions and markets.
One of the most important channels currently is Google Travel or Google Holiday Rentals/Google Vacation Rentals. You can only access this via a channel manager that has a connection with Google Travel and fortunately the Search and Stay Channel Manager is connected. This gives you easy access to attracting visitor to your holiday rental when they simply search on google. They don't need to visit a OTA like Airbnb or wade through hundreds of ads.
Airbnb is the largest player in the market and is certainly the most well-known booking channel for short-term rentals. Booking.com, TripAdvisor and Agoda are all excellent options that often couple properties with travel experiences available nearby.
Stayz, HomeAway and VRBO are also legitimate contenders, offering millions of listings worldwide and providing a robust platform for holiday rental property managers.
Remember different sites attract different foreign markets, some international markets may not be suited to your property because of the location or the type of holiday house you’re managing. Or you may have a property that is particularly suited to the LGBTQIA market in which case you can select channel suited to this guest audience.
How to Stand Out from the Competition
You can stay ahead of competitors by offering listings to a larger and more diverse audience. With a Channel Manager you can easily adjust prices to attract guests and fill last-minute vacancies. Similarly, if there is a busy event or activity nearby and there is a lot of competition for holiday accommodation you can adjust your prices accordingly.
Using your Search and Stay Channel Manager to effortlessly update all of your listings and maintain an updated calendar will be extremely useful and booking platforms tend to reward hosts with active listings by ranking them higher in their search results.
The reduced margin for double bookings and need for cancellations will also generally result in higher placement in OTA search results.
It’s important to take time to research listings similar to yours and in similar locations to help you get an idea of how much to charge, what amenities and information to include in your listing profiles and whether your listings have a chance of attracting guests on those specific channels.
Of course, scouring various booking channels can also give you some insight as to where there are gaps in the market for you to add your listings and attract a larger market share of potential guests.
The Benefits of Using Search and Stay Channel Manager
Time-saving is the most obvious reason to use a Channel Manager with no need to jump from booking channel to booking channel in order to make necessary changes to your listings and calendars. And time is money. Whether you’re a professional holiday property manager or an individual owner listing on Search and Stay and using the add-on Channel Manager is extremely beneficial in managing your property bookings and calendars.
With channel manager software your listings across all the booking channels will be centralised in your Search and Stay account so you’ll not need to log into each individual channel to maintain them. The Channel Manager will synchronise listing details and updates to listings across all channels, so one action will be duplicated across all your chosen platform. You can add photos, edit descriptions and images, block dates and update pricing details or establish automated pricing for each or all of your listings all from Search and Stay.