Tech Stack Recommendations for a Vacation Rental Business

 

Like every other industry, technology has helped businesses like property management and vacation rental business to reach newer heights of success. 

There are various technological solutions today which can help vacation rental businesses in moving forward. 

While technology is a significant factor in the growth and comprehensive management of vacation rental businesses, it isn’t the only factor. 

Half the solution lies in understanding your business. 

Choosing the right tech stack for your vacation rental business requires you to ask yourself about the needs of your business. 

Here are some factors that you need to take care of before choosing the perfect tech stack for your vacation rental business.

How to Choose a Tech Stack for Vacation Rental Business

Let’s dive deeper and find out what makes a perfect tech stack for vacation rental businesses.

Does it Serve the Core Function of your Business?

It all starts with you understanding the core functions of your business. 

For example, if you rent your property on a regular basis, maintaining it would be a basic business need. 

Hence, you’ll need some software to help you maintain your property and keep it in top condition.

Does it Serve the Specific Needs of your Business?

Every industry has different needs. Similarly, each business in an industry has unique needs. 

And, you must determine whether your tech stack looks out for your business specific needs. 

Say, you are running a vacation rental business on a beach front property where you are also offering paid boat rides. Along with that, you also take your guests out for fishing as well.

Since not all vacation rental businesses offer these services therefore, these are unique to your business. 

And, you may need to choose a tech stack, which takes into account all your unique and business specific needs comprehensively.

Is it Scalable?

Ask yourself, will your tech stack be able to keep pace with your business, if you start renting 100 rooms instead of 10. 

So, choose wisely and ensure that whatever you are choosing is scalable.

Will You Get Help When You Need It?

What if you are facing problems in using software in your tech stack? Can you get help easily? 

Yes, you need to have a reliable support team that’s always ready to help you solve your tech stack related problems.

Best Tech Stack for a Vacation Rental Business

Let’s learn more about the best tech stack for a vacation rental business.

Channel Management Software

A channel management software is a cloud-based tool that enables you to manage your vacation rental properties. You can manage reservations, inventory, and bookings on various portals such as Airbnb, VRBO, Expedia, and many others simultaneously.

This software can also help you in syncing your calendars, reservations, messages, and prices between separate booking portals. This software syncs everything automatically in real-time. This allows everything to stay updated across all booking portals and this helps in avoiding problems such as double bookings, over-bookings, and waste of time.

Since it’s a cloud-based tool. When a guest makes a reservation on any booking portal. The option for booking the same accommodation is automatically blocked from all the other booking portals for the booked period.

Furthermore, if a guest on one platform wants to inquire about something, they can directly ask through the booking portal they booked the accommodation. You will be able to receive these messages through your channel manager and reply to them quickly. You do not need to separately log in to all your booking portals to communicate with your guests.     

In addition, if you update or change your pricing and/or minimum stay information on one booking portal, it changes across all other booking portals as well. However, in case of price changes, you must only enter your base price. Usually each booking portal has a different commission percentage that they charge.

So, if you own a vacation rental business. And if you want to improve your occupancy rates & turnovers, resulting in higher profits. Then having a channel management software is a must.

Property Management Software 

PMS (property management software) brings together all the key functions you need to run a vacation rental property business smoothly. It combines functions such as accounting, maintenance, communication, reporting, and inspection in one program.   

For example, using a PMS can help you keep a record of your accounts and finances to help you provide an error-free income-trail to the tax authorities. It also enables you to schedule regular property inspections for maintenance purposes. Your tenants no longer need to call you to find out when the next property inspection or maintenance visit is because the software notifies the tenants automatically. 

PMS can also help you collect your rent online by integrating multiple payment methods into your software. Another great aspect of using a PMS is that you can use it to find guests with a good reputation. It can screen all the applications and bookings coming in by cross-checking them against their previous records and by screening the property owner reviews automatically.

There are two types of property management software; cloud-based and server-based.

A server-based software is installed on your system/computer and all your data is stored on an onsite server. Normally, you need IT professionals to maintain these servers and you will be required to be onsite to access your data.

However, cloud-based software does not require installation. You can login through your devices remotely using a browser. All the data is stored in the cloud and is accessible from anywhere in the world.

A PMS usually comes integrated with specialized channel management software, which allows you to manage your property’s day-to-day operations along with managing your bookings as well.

Using a PMS can help you pay attention to things that matter such as bringing in more clients, increasing revenues, and delivering a better level of service to your guests.

Customer Management Software

Knowing your customers is a key factor in growing your business. 

A CRM is a tool that enables you to store information about your guests such as contact details and preferences. It enables you to develop marketing and sales strategies for both new and old clients. This software also offers you useful insights that are highly effective in enhancing your ability to build better customer relationships.  

This software also helps in keeping your previous guests engaged and attracts them to book again by offering them customized coupons and delivering guests with a much more personalized experience.

CRM allows you to manage all your marketing activities. It enables you to create, manage and automate your social media marketing posts to help you reach a larger volume of potential customers/guests. It also allows to create email sequences, put up online ads, manage your blog content, develop and manage your website, and help you take care of your SEO and SEM.

In other words, CRM resolves marketing problems and helps in increasing revenues by allowing you to know more about your customer preferences, allowing you to target your customer pain points in a much better way. 

Revenue Management Software 

It is a performance-optimization tool that is divided into two categories: dynamic pricing and market data linked with profit maximization.

Revenue management systems help in forecasting market demand, making smart price decisions, and optimizing revenues by utilizing analytics and available data.

The software can help you optimize your revenue by renting the right property for the best price to the right consumer at the right time. This can help you to get a competitive advantage over your competitors.

You don’t need to manually change the prices, provide discounts and run special promotional offers manually. Revenue management software automates everything and regularly updates the prices as needed in each season.   

Accounting Software 

Keeping a track of your profits or daily expenses can be quite challenging. Especially when you’re running a vacation rental business, where you have to deal with large sums of money daily. 

Accounting software is a tool that can easily help you keep a track of all your transactions. It can help you keep a record for further reporting. You can send invoices to guests, track your expenses and monitor your revenues regularly. 

You can have one-click access to profit & loss and other financial statements. With this software, managing your books can be much easier and more efficient with accounting software. 

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