Vacation rentals are becoming immensely popular with people who want to earn an extra revenue stream while investing for the future in real estate. While it all sounds fun from the outside looking in, vacation rentals can be tough. They can be demanding in maintenance, customer communication, scheduling cleanings, last minute bookings, taxes, local laws and so much more. That’s not to scare you aware, as they can be very rewarding and a great way to purchase real estate without having to pay a mortgage.
Today, we’re going to introduce you to digital guidebooks, sometimes also known as digital welcome guides, and see how they can help you manage your vacation rental.
Reduce Repetitive Questions From Guests
One of the biggest burdens on vacation rental owners or vacation rental management companies is addressing guest questions. There can be a lot of them and in most cases, the guest is not to blame. After all, they’re in a new house trying to work new equipment in a city (sometimes a country) they’ve never been to. As we started to run our vacation rentals, we began to notice that 80% of our questions were typically on the same topics:
- I’m having trouble working the smart lock?
- I can’t figure out how to work the thermostat?
- Where can I park additional cars?
- Where’s the best restaurant for a romantic dinner?
- Where’s the best restaurant for a family dinner?
- What’s the best craft brewery in town?
- What are the best nearby attractions?
- Where is the closest beach parking?
What we realized is if we could make the answers to these questions easily accessible and organized so the guest could find it, we would reduce their dependance on us by 80% or more. Wow, that would save us a lot of time and sanity. Enter in the digital welcome book from goGuidebook. Our digital guide lets us organize all of this content and more into categories. Topics can have images, videos, PDFs, and more to clearly explain to guests how to get acclimated with our vacation rental quickly. We also bundle in guest recommendations that are placed neatly on a Google map for their viewing.
If we ever need to change anything on the guide, no problem! A few clicks on a computer from wherever we are and it automatically updates. No need to run by the house to swap out the printed pages.
Improve Vacation Rental Guest Experience
Your guests are on a short timeline and many have a lot on their ‘to do’ list whether it be attractions, eating out, events, etc.. They don’t want to wait on you to answer their questions and they’d prefer not to be planning their vacation when they arrive. That’s where the digital guide comes in. One of the best parts about the digital guides is we can send it to guests BEFORE they arrive. That way, they can make their dinner reservations, plan out their days prior to arrival.
We’ve found this feature alone makes the guest experience more pleasant and they will feel like they were able to enjoy their vacation to the fullest. It also reduces their questions as they’ve already had the ability to read through the guide before they arrive. Once they’re at the vacation rental, they are simply referencing the guide for answers to questions they already know exist within it.
Get More 5-Star Reviews
Overall, when guests are more satisfied with their vacation rental experience, you get better reviews. Once we implemented the digital guide for our vacation rental, we received at least two reviews that I can remember within the first month that specifically mentioned the guide as something that improved their experience. That’s pretty incredible.
As we all know, reviews on platform such as AirBNB & VRBO are the lifeline to keeping your calendar full. If something as simple, low cost, and easy to set up as a digital guide can improve those it seems like a no-brainer. On top of that, when it can streamline your processes & reduce the amount of time you spend on your vacation rental communication, it’s a no-brainer.
How To Setup A Vacation Rental Digital Guide
So you’ve decided it’s time to implement a digital guide for your vacation rental. Where do you start? Here at GoGuidebook we offer a 14-day free trial so you can begin setting up your guide risk-free. Our vacation rental template can be automatically inserted for you which gives you a jump start on guide creation and helps with initial formatting. Most of our customers say it takes less than a few hours to set up their initial guide and then only minor maintenance thereafter. Ready to get started, sign-up for your trial today.
