Optimize your tourist accommodation

Today we bring you a series of tips so you can optimize your tourist accommodation. That is, make it more profitable – spend less time managing it to maintain the same or higher level of income. This post will give you some tips to optimize your Airbnb and save time in its management.

Where are you most inefficient?

If you want to optimize your Airbnb, you must first be able to answer this question: What do you spend the most time on? That is, where is there more room to optimize your tourist apartment? Here is a list with the main categories of tasks related to the daily management of your accommodation. Write down the hours you dedicate to each one every week:

• Communication with guests (before and after booking)
• Cleaning
• Check-ins, key handovers and checkouts
• Write guest reviews
• Purchase of supplies
• Maintenance of tourist accommodation
• Update ads and calendar

Do you want to know what your net hourly income is? Very easy!

1. Multiply the hours you have previously noted by 4 –to get the monthly hours–.
2. Make an average of the accommodation's income per month. Try to include a whole year – so you can balance high and low season.
3. Divide the average monthly income by the hours you dedicate to the month. There you have the income per hour worked!

🔢 Do you want to go deeper into the finances of your tourist accommodation? Download the Airbnb financial calculator for free.

Once you have this overview of how you invest your time, we can put these host tips into practice to optimize your tourist accommodation.

Communications with guests

If you've already been running your tourist apartment for a while, you'll have realized that guests tend to ask the same things over and over again:

• How far is your Airbnb from the airport/station/whatever?
• How many people can your accommodation accommodate?
• Do you accept pets?

If you're just starting out or just managing a flat, try saving a document with frequently asked questions. Once you've done so, simply copy and paste those answers. It's a good way to optimize your tourist flat. However, if you need a more professional tool, because, for example, you manage several tourist apartments, then take a look at these Airbnb automated response software.

Cleaning of tourist apartments

Instead of having one or two sets of sheets and bath towels, keep 4 or 5 ready to use. This way, you won't have to rush to wash, dry, and put away the laundry before the next guest arrives. This system will allow you to optimize your tourist accommodation with little effort. This tourist apartment cleaning checklist can serve as a basis.Cleaning your Airbnb on your own can be exhausting. If that's how you feel, consider hiring an Airbnb cleaning service.

Check-in and checkout of Airbnb guests

The arrival and departure of guests is one of the areas where there is more room to optimize your tourist accommodation. In fact, according to the Vacation Rental Survey by Cohosting, changes in check-in and checkout are the most common requests among Spanish hosts.

Instead of making your guests wait to hand over the keys, you can opt for one of these locks for tourist flats. Depending on your budget, you can use digital locks, combine the Raixer's smart lock for the portal and a key safe. For check-out, simply tell your guests to leave the keys in the key safe or inside the accommodation. The unattended check-in will save you a lot of time –and money– and you'll be able to optimize your tourist accommodation. In addition, you'll be more flexible with your guests, making it easier to offer early check-in and late check-out without leaving home.

Write Airbnb reviews

Writing Airbnb reviews used to be a black hole of time - a drawback when it comes to optimizing your tourist accommodation. The reason? You have to customize each of the reviews you leave for your guests. In addition, you have to do it quickly. This way you ensure that the stay in your accommodation is recent and thus you can write it faster.

🤬Have you received a bad review on Airbnb? Take a look at the post where we tell you how you can respond to it and learn from it.

If you want to take a step further in optimizing your tourist flat, you can take a look at this compilation of the best technology for tourist flats. There is a section on streamlining the writing of reviews.

Purchase of supplies for Airbnb

There are certain things about your tourist apartment –such as toilet paper, coffee, tea, welcome gifts, etc. that you should buy on a recurring basis. Don't make these purchases weekly: most of these products are non-perishable, so you can buy them in bulk on a monthly basis.As for administrative management, try to separate the tickets and invoices from your personal life from those related to the tourist apartment. This way you can optimize your Airbnb and save time on tax issues.Need help with taxes? Download the Airbnb tax guide for free.

Maintenance of your tourist apartment

To optimize your tourist accommodation, you must pay special attention to maintenance. Your guests will use your Airbnb more like a hotel than a home. It's normal for guests to be less careful in your apartment than in their own homes. That's why maintenance is essential... Prevention is better than cure! You can optimize your tourist apartment in maintenance by making a list of elements to inspect on a regular basis. For example:

• Check window, blind and curtain closures.
• Check that the drains are working properly.
• The oven works well.

Update Airbnb listing and calendar

The listing for your tourist apartment should be up-to-date with the services you actually offer. As you learn what your guests value most about your Airbnb, make a note of it. Set aside some time each week to update the title and description of your Airbnb listing.To keep your Airbnb calendar synced, there are two fundamental methods.On the one hand, update it manually to take advantage of special events and increase the price accordingly. In the post about Airbnb events and pricing, you'll find a spreadsheet to systematically track these increases.

Use automation tools to optimize your tourist accommodation

The other option is to try some of the pricing tools for Airbnb. This way you can set dynamic prices for your tourist accommodation - something similar to smart prices, but with more control options. There are other vacation rental software that, in addition to prices, include other features that allow you to fully automate the management of your Airbnb. In this way, you will be able to optimize your tourist accommodation at a professional level.

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