LeisureLink is the first technology partner to complete integration with Airbnb’s new vacation rental platform—giving our partner property management companies (PMC’s) instant access to Airbnb’s 32 million monthly visitors. Airbnb travelers are highly engaged, and they want exactly what vacation rentals have to offer: local, spacious, affordable accommodations. In short, vacation rentals should be clamoring for this exposure.
However, for PMC’s without an intelligent distribution strategy, Airbnb adds yet another level of complexity to the formidable task of managing disparate inventory, often in different geographies, with volatility in demand and rates between seasons, and variable owner availability. For many PMC’s even limited distribution can consume one to two full-time staff, taking them away from core operations and profitable enterprises to, effectively, handle data entry.
A determination of what level investment a PMC is willing to make in distribution must be decided with the following in mind. Increases in vacation rental interest among travelers is not due to exponentially increased demand in the travel marketplace; the increases are primarily rooted in a shift in market share away from hotels and toward vacation rentals. As an AH&LA/STR report on distribution channel analysis specific to the hotel industry notes:
“As demand growth in the mature U.S. lodging industry typically only varies in a narrow range from year to year, incremental demand brought by any channel partner will be marginal. However, each channel can be viewed for its potential to ‘share shift’ from another hotel in its market, which is the primary method a hotel can use to gain an advantage. OTA’s are particularly adept at helping a hotel shift-share either from one period to another or from one hotel to another.”
Visibility across the OTAs is essential for vacation rentals to capture this market and access to the major players like Airbnb’s, HomeAway’s, Expedia’s—and the 80 million diverse travelers who use them all—will determine how much business a PMC can shift for a destination and its properties.
When handled manually, every channel requires—at a minimum—contract negotiations, loading content, rates, and inventory, managing pre-booking inquiries, managing pre-stay changes, and monthly reconciliation. To be effective, PMC’s must be visible across as many channels as possible, which requires the regular provisioning of content, such as promotions and images, to maintain rankings. Once a channel is fulfilled, it must be maintained.
A profitable PMC demands holistic operational efficiency; successful relationship management with owners; guest acquisition and repeat guest promotions; and revenue and yield management. Intelligent distribution technology can impact virtually every aspect of core vacation rental operations. Certainly the volume of bookings increases, however, when distribution is paired with automated revenue management tools set to shift as market demand and occupancy levels change, revenue increases exponentially.
Perhaps harder to quantify are the widespread operational efficiencies that are essential to PMC profitability. Inventory automation results in fewer manual missteps, more infrequent overbookings, and better rankings in the OTAs when inventory is pooled. Merchant of Record services and payment upon check-in through FastPay results in streamlined accounting and increased cash flow. Content syndication updates property details, rates, and promotions in front of all 80 million travelers with just one click of a button.
With two-thirds of the vacation rental market still projected as For Rent by Owner, many of whom will take advantage of only one or two intermediaries, if any, PMC’s are in a prime position to harness the complexity of distribution and build strong branding with travelers across the intermediary spectrum (Skift).
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