Tips to running your holiday let as a small business

The ultimate goal in marketing your holiday rental is to increase its potential for profitability. You place your home on a site like Airbnb to get in front of thousands of interested travelers, and then start making money with lots of bookings – right? Not completely. In order for your listing to work, you have to run your holiday home like a small business owner would run a successful shopfront. Your home and the customer service that accompanies it must provide the things your guests want and need in order for you to reach the highest level of profitability through renting. Here are a few tips to run your vacation rental home. 

Evaluate and Understand Potential Risks

Outlining and covering your potential risks as a holiday home owner is the first step in successfully managing your rental. Small business owners take time to understand possible causes for profit loss, and find practical solutions to cover each. List your concerns first then cover each with a measure of prevention including contract modifications, additional security, or specialty insurance, take time to research your options and find those with the highest potential for reducing risks.

Invest in Security

Ensuring the safety of your customers will be critical. This holds true in every industry, however, it is especially important for consumers within the hospitality industry. Many home owners fail to see the importance of a home security system or inadequate online security measures. Your guests need to feel confident that they will be safe and that their order is guarenteed but it is also your business. Investing in a security system will help you provide the reassurance your guests need to enjoy a comfortable and safe stay. It will also help you protect your profits from break-ins and potentially dishonest guests.

Think of the Consumers’ Needs Before They Do

Successful business owners are constantly thinking of ways they can further improve their product/service to better meet their consumers’ unique needs. Think like your consumer to get a better idea of what they will want and need during their stay at your rental. Think of the things you appreciate having during an out of town stay, and make these available to guests of your rental. Also understand your area and provide information and materials that stand to benefit visitors. Examples of this could include providing bottled water for vacation rentals located in warm climates or offering hot chocolate for winter travelers.

Consider a Third-Party Cleaning Service

A clean environment is essential to the success of any business. As a business owner in the hospitality industry, it is your responsibility to provide a clean home. Unfortunately, you may not have the time or live close enough to clean your home to meet the hospitality industry’s standards after each guest. This is where a third party cleaning service can help. Find a service that works for you, then schedule regular cleaning appointments in between stays to ensure each guest is welcomed with a spotless vacation home. Read more about pit-falls in finding perfect housekeeping in an earlier post.

Listen to Consumer Reviews

An important part of continuously meeting your consumers’ needs is to actually listen to their reviews following a stay. Smart entrepreneurs pay attention to both positive and negative reviews and do their best to understand reviewers’ comments from the consumer’s perspective. If you’d like additional feedback from renters who didn’t leave a review, try sending a quick follow up email or sms after their stay to say thank you for choosing your listing and ask if there were any additional amenities/services they would have found useful during their stay. Also for those who prefer to be analogue rather than digital, leave a quality visitors book and pen for them to leave comments during their stay. You can always upload photos or retype the text to your own website later.

Keep up on Market Trends

An integral part of managing your rental like a successful small business is staying competitive. Small business owners are constantly watching market trends and making improvements to keep up in competitive markets. Look at successful listings in your area to see what they’re offering. Check out their reviews to see what travelers are saying about their stays. Are you currently doing these things? What could you do to generate the same raving reviews? Additionally, you should keep up on what’s trending in the promotion of successful listings.
Keep tabs on what events and offers are available to your guests throughout the year and make sure you publish those on your website or add to personal email messages before they arrive.

Perfect Housekeeping

You will have no problem finding people willing to be your cleaner, and some willing to take on your property as a caretaker-manager. However, what you will find difficult is sorting through these ads and applications for a person who can really do what they offer, week in, week out, to the standards you set and that they agree upon at the beginning.

If you are not living close by to check on the quality of this service, then it can be fraught with problems if you rush into employing someone and are then unable to run regular quality checks, especially at busy times. If possible take them on for a trial period, if they are as good as they say they will have no issue with that. Extend this trial period through the summer months if you still feel unsure, and if after that you are happy then offer them continuous work. You may prefer to offer this permanent basis on condition that their standards remain. Don't try to go for lowest hourly rate, and don't go over your budget if you feel they are asking too much. We pay a fixed change-over fee, plus any extra one-off cleaning fees, laundry fees and costs of materials and welcome packs.

Make the change-overs yourself

At least at first make the change-over yourself. You will then have an understanding of how long it takes to prepare the home ready for the next guest. Our check-in, check-out times allow a 5 hour turnaround, otherwise called a change-over. It is a two bedroom cottage with one large bathroom so it is possible to make the change-over in 4 hours. This leaves a buffer in case the departing guests leave late or an extra deep clean is required.

During our first months of letting our property, we had fantastic comments and feedback, after all it was effectively brand new, "like a show home". At that time living in another country we had to find someone to manage the change-over days and any maintenance that may need attention. In the middle of the high season we noticed 'suggestions' in our feedback forms. I should have acted immediately and visited to understand why this was so, but I put it down to overly fussy guests. This was my first and biggest mistake.

We did visit at the end of the high season for our own holiday and contacted the manager-cleaner to let him know when we'd be arriving.

Whilst I cannot say the house was filthy, it was far from the high standards we expected and believed we were providing to our guests. It was only then that we read through the cottage suggestions book to read things like "hairs in the bed and fridge" and "freezer solid with ice". I went around the cottage armed with my camera and found 30 issues which needed attention such as a broken glass bedside lamp - how could anyone miss that if they'd just cleaned the room?

What we found astonishing was the fact that he knew we were coming to stay, giving him the opportunity to make the place perfect for our arrival. After discussing this with him it became clear that he had not done the cleaning himself but sub-contracted someone else to do it. He insisted that he had checked it personally, especially on this occasion because he knew we were coming. He was either not telling the truth or has very low standards, you could not have missed the broken lamp. His overall response was quite aggressive, not a nice experience at all. His denial says everything about his attention to detail and customer care. After checking the inventory we found several items missing including more than a full set of bedding and towels, something he also denied knowledge of. There was also no record of any inventory check since he began.

Seek recommendations for your staff

Although he was recommended by an online holiday cottage website, I should have asked for recommendations and perhaps tried to speak with his existing clients. So I tried harder to find a replacement with this fresh in my mind, but again this was rushed through since we were there only a week and had new guests arriving after our departure. I found someone who had two of his own holiday apartments about an hour away from ours, he said he now cleaned his properties himself as he had had similar experiences to us. This time it was better but still we found too many issues during that second year, he too then sub-contracted the cleaning, and his arrogance and reluctance to speak with guests during their stay, unacceptable.

For the third and subsequent years we have been blessed with a fantastic cleaner who also part manages with me, this time recommended by word-of-mouth. She does not wish to have lots of properties to clean as she realizes that her standards might inevitably slip. Her friends joke that she has OCD for cleaning. We repeatedly get comments from guests complimenting her and thanking her for such a clean house and smiling welcome. We know that she does an enormous amount towards our repeat bookings and recommendations.

I take time to listen to her if she has any concerns with bookings or her responsibilities, she also has valuable advice on improving guest experience and cost reductions. She also informs me on each check out if any guests have caused damage or an issue which needs more of her time to resolve. This gives me time to evaluate as to whether any damage deposit should be withheld or absorbed into overheads.

It is worth considering, when interviewing potential cleaner caretakers, to ask if there is anything they would prefer not be responsible for, or anything that concerns them about your property. For example, we used to keep all our spare linen and consumables in dry storage, in the loft space, however not all people are happy with going into attics, some even have a phobia of them.