Choosing a Holiday Rental Booking Software
At first glance, the wide range of holiday rental booking software solutions available on the market can seem overwhelming.
While sustained growth in any holiday rental business is indeed welcome, property managers can be left feeling time-poor and thus seeking technology solutions which will unlock improved efficiencies so that they can maximise revenue for their property owners.
As holiday rental property manager, there are a wide range considerations to make when considering holiday rental booking software solutions including guest and property management, pricing, availability, channel management for OTAs such as Booking.com, Vrbo and Airbnb, task management and marketing. We delve into the finer details of each of these areas below.
What is a Holiday Rental?
Here in Australia, a ‘holiday rental’ is generally recognised as a furnished house or apartment rented out on a short term basis to holiday-makers, usually offered as an alternative to a hotel. The term holiday rental is mainly used in Australia, with other terms used including ‘holiday home’ or, in the US, ‘vacation rental’.
Holiday Rental Management
Holiday rental management can be approached in several ways. For owners with sufficient time onhand, listing directly on holiday rental websites such as Airbnb and Booking.com can be the first logical avenue for gaining exposure and bookings.
For medium to large holiday rentals portfolios managed by property managers with a trust account, the ability to achieve increased revenue and booking volumes at scale is vital, which is when holiday rental management software solutions such Homhero should be considered. Homhero can centralise availability and bookings information across a portfolio of properties, offer online guest registration, an owners portal, the ability to control rates, offer cleaning and maintenance management, provide a direct booking channel including customised website, offer the ability to communicate with guests and more, all the while integrating with all of the major holiday rental platforms.
Holiday Rental Platforms
The leading specialty holiday rental platforms Australian consumers tend to gravitate towards, often referred to as Online Travel Agents or OTAs are Airbnb and VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner), formerly known as Stayz in Australia.
In recent years, Booking.com has also broadened its offering to include holiday rentals.
A channel management tool such as Homhero’s can assist in centralising and distributing your property across a variety of holiday rental platforms.
Holiday Rental Websites Australia
Here at Homhero, we integrate with all of the leading holiday rental websites in Australia. These include:
For owners and property managed, your marketing and distribution strategy, business plan and commercial agreements will determine which sites you choose to list on.
Depending on the number of platforms and properties in your portfolio a Channel Management system, such as the one developed by the Homhero team, can assist greatly in centralising and distributing your property listings from a simple and convenient portal.
Holiday Rental Experts
In Australia’s rapidly evolving short-term rental accommodation sector, there are only a handful of organisations and individuals that have the industry knowledge to call themselves holiday rental experts.
Homhero was founded in 2016 by a team of subject matter experts across the software development, property management and trust accounting space, whose knowledge has culminated in one of Australia’s leading full-service guest management software solutions. Homhero’s founders continue to play an active role within the industry, recognised as market leaders for both innovation and thought leadership within the holiday rental industry.
Homhero’s industry expertise translates into a robust software solution for medium to large holiday rental property managers which includes the following functionality:
Manage availability & rates
Centralised guest & booking information across portfolio of properties
Ability to communicate with guests
Online guest registration
Owners portal
Cleaning and maintenance management
Direct booking channel
Customised website including booking engine
Channel management
Your One-Stop Holiday Rental Software Solution for Australia
As the leading independent developer of property management systems and channel managers for holiday rentals in Australia, Homhero offers a comprehensive guest, cleaning and maintenance management solution for a holiday rental portfolio while also seamlessly integrating with virtually all of the major software providers and platforms within the category.
Homhero has been developed by our Queensland-based team, utilised by thousands of holiday rental properties across the country, and is supported right here in Australia to suit the specific needs of medium to large short term rental accommodation property managers.
Ask us how we can assist in taking your holiday rental business to the next level today!
