With the year-end festive season just a short while away, you may be wondering how you as a short term letting host can prepare for the influx of travellers. Being a short term rental host is never as easy as it seems. Many new hosts find themselves making mistakes that don’t only affect their guests, but also their future bookings.
How do you make sure that you are ready for peak season? For starters, you can be sure that you avoid making these common mistakes.
Avoid These Short Term Letting Host Mistakes
Some of the top short term letting host mistakes to avoid this festive season include the following:
- Trying to manage your bookings yourself. You may think that you can handle your own bookings, but as the season gets into full swing, you will quickly start to struggle. In Cape Town, which celebrates the festive season over the long, hot summer, the year-end is by far the busiest time. Trying to keep control of your bookings without expert help can end up putting you at risk of double bookings. It quickly gets stressful as well.
- Trying to do everything else yourself, too. On that note, you may also battle if you are trying to be housekeeper, bookings manager, guest concierge and everything else to your guests, all at once. Rather than stressing during the holidays, you could consider working with an experienced short term rental manager that provides bespoke solutions such as day to day management, guest concierge, bookings management and marketing. This will leave you free to enjoy your time off, without the added hassle of running around after guests.
- Decorating your property without thinking. Although many people celebrate Christmas over the festive season, others do not. Be very careful about going full throttle with your decorating. Instead, you could politely ask guests if they are celebrating, or you could keep it safe and avoid decorations altogether. If your guests do want to celebrate, they can decorate their rental on their own.
- Failing to offer value added services. It is also not a good idea to forget about add-on services that you can offer your guests. This could include anything from tours to car hire for the duration of their stay. As much guests travelling this time of year are focused on enjoying their getaway, this is a good time to add value in a way that genuinely helps guests. Once again, this is where a manager can be so effective in helping you create tailored holiday rental packages for your guests.
- Not offering additional sleeping space. Many people travelling during this time are doing so with kids or relatives or even friends. When booking large groups, make sure that you offer spare beds, sleeper couches, mattresses and other space that can be used for bigger groups. For more tips on how to accommodate a large number of guests, read our guide to holiday letting for large groups.
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To learn more about short term rental management, the Totalstay way, simply get in touch with our team today. We will help you be the best short term letting host you can be over the busy festive season.