Vacation rental host

The collaborative economy has dissipated the reluctance to stay in strangers' homes. Didn't they tell you not to open the door to strangers?

Well, it seems that Airbnb and other tourist accommodation platforms have made us forget this recommendation. For this reason, it is so important that any vacation rental host has a good profile.

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Register as a vacation rental host

Airbnb

First things first: How to register as a host on Airbnb? Go to the Airbnb website and click on “Become a host” and then on “Host guests”. For now, ignore the “Organize experiences” button.

Airbnb will now direct you to a form to calculate how much you can earn if you enter the most basic characteristics of your apartment (type of accommodation, number of guests, and city).

The following form includes more detailed information about the accommodation you want to rent through Airbnb: number of beds, number of available rooms or type of accommodation (full dwelling, shared or private room, etc.), for example.

Just a note, to continue listing your property, you will need to create an account or use an existing one (for example, when you used it as a guest).

Booking

To register your owner profile on Booking, follow these steps:

• Visit the Booking homepage.
• Complete your profile with the data requested by the page.
• Confirm your email.

HomeAway

Registering as a host on HomeAway is very similar to the previous two:

• Visit HomeAway
• Complete your profile with the data requested by the page.
• Confirm your email.

I've already registered as a host, what's next?

It's time to choose the type of accommodation, bedrooms and other characteristics of your vacation rental.

Type of accommodation

These options are quite simple. To avoid confusion, Airbnb provides a brief description for each type of accommodation when you hover over the name. Select the option that best describes your accommodation: from a loft, a castle or a campsite.

Bedrooms

This is one of the most important distinctions, both for you and your guests, as they determine the level of privacy you can offer. Make sure you're registering your accommodation truthfully – being honest is the best advice to become Airbnb Plus–. Again, Airbnb offers you brief definitions of what the types of rooms consist of.

Type of accommodation

Before selecting “Entire Accommodation”, consider the fact that granting full access to your apartment could include access to other elements of the property, such as the pool or garage. Something similar happens with the “Private Room” option, which usually includes more things than you might expect –such as access to your living rooms, bathrooms or kitchens.

Let's start with the fun! You've completed the first part of how to register as an Airbnb host. You've filled out the forms with basic data about your accommodation. What's next? We need to start presenting our space: adding photos, optimizing descriptions, etc.

Types of vacation rental hosts

The opportunistic host type

It is the type of person who rents out their apartment (or one or several rooms) sporadically over a very specific period of time. Normally, these are individuals who do not consider tourist rental as a business to be managed at a professional level. They tend to take advantage of trade fairs and major sporting or cultural events near their home to rent it out during those days or weeks.

In general, efficiency in managing tourist apartments is not a priority for them: after all, the experience is very occasional! By the way, if you're in this case, I recommend you take a look at our post on the Tax Agency and vacation rental.

The one looking for stable extra income

In this case, the host has one or two apartments available for vacation rental and their goal is to achieve a recurring income stream by renting out these homes for tourist use. Normally, they combine the management of their own tourist apartments with full-time jobs. Therefore, they are very concerned with being as efficient as possible in managing the rental cycle. In this sense, they often rely on co-hosts or cleaning and maintenance staff by the hour.

In addition, they seek to increase their average ratings by optimizing those points that are important for the Airbnb guest: comfort of the accommodation, flexibility in check-in and checkout, honesty or an obsession with leaving ratings for the guest.

An alternative –more expensive but much more convenient– is to leave the day-to-day management of the properties to professional tourist apartment managers. They take care of everything in exchange for a percentage of the income from reservations for your property.

The full-time host

It is usually the natural evolution of the second type of vacation rental host: after spending some time managing their own properties and seeing that there are possibilities to make this work profitable, they start managing third-party apartments. Now things get serious for real: the full-time Airbnb host has to maximize management efficiency to save the maximum profitability of the commercial margin they obtain without sacrificing ratings.

In this sense, providing guests with a 24-hour check-in option is key and this is where check-in automation through locks for tourist apartments is a priority.

Three tips to shine with your vacation rental host profile

Once we've registered on the OTA (Airbnb, Booking, HomeAway), we can apply these tips to dazzle with your vacation rental host profile.

Use a personal photo

Yes, some hosts succeed even without showing their face. But they are the exception that confirms the rule. Being able to put a face to the hosts makes it easier for a potential guest to trust you and book your accommodation. A photo in which you appear smiling means that 'I am a friendly person who has nothing to hide'.

If you manage tourist apartments, you may be torn between using a corporate logo or your personal photo. It is recommended that you use a personal photo on your Airbnb host profile. It makes you human. And people trust humans.

Respond to your guests

Potential guests make last-minute bookings and expect ultra-fast communication with hosts. Reduced response times give these potential guests confidence that contacting the host will be simple and they won't have to waste much time waiting for responses.

Respond to your guests within a few hours or minutes. In no case take more than a day.

Are you feeling overwhelmed answering potential guests?? You can use these Airbnb automated response tools to reduce the time you spend on this task.

Finally, keep in mind that reducing response time to your guests improves positioning in the face of the Airbnb algorithm.

Get good reviews

A good vacation rental host has to have evaluations. Also as a guest. The words of another Airbnb user are, by far, the best way to establish a trusting relationship with potential guests. Now that you have 'social proof'; your potential guests will see that you are capable of offering them memorable experiences.