Marketing and Billing a STR

[Julia Ferris]

I am house hacking by living in a converted carport apartment in my house and STR the main house. It has been going very well. However, I am increasingly worrying that since most of my bookings come through AirBNB, my business is at that platforms mercy. I believe that they are increasingly enacting policies that are not in hosts best interest. Since I only have one property, and want to manage myself, I have been reluctant to take direct bookings. Booking through platforms offers liability protection, as well as, credit card processing, not to mention marketing. Does anyone out there run a short term rental business with low overhead, but not relaying on AirBNB, VRBO, etc.? Have any credit card processing, technology, or marketing tips?

[Boris Mordkovich]

Hey Julia,

So, there are two parts to your question and I wanted to address them both:

1. There's no escaping the fact that Airbnb is an enormous marketing engine that will drive the majority of your business. So while direct bookings are valuable and have a place, it's important to set the expectation that they are unlikely to truly replace Airbnb. That said, the best way to approach is would be through a combination of Airbnb, VRBO/HomeAway, Booking.com AND Direct Bookings. Airbnb will still likely drive 50-70% of your business, but at least you'll be more diversified.

2. We've tried a ton of different options over the years and the one we personally use (and like the most) is Uplisting. This tool is neat because not only it allows you to manage your listings across multiple channels (like VRBO and Booking.com), but it also automatically creates a really pretty direct booking website that will connect with Stripe and allow you to process direct bookings. 

I think it's probably one of the easiest ways to get going with direct bookings, looks great, doesn't cost much and works really well as far as managing all channels in a single calendar.

Hope it helps!

Boris