In addition to handling the daily operations of the properties they oversee and trying to offer guests the best experience possible, vacation rental managers must also develop an effective marketing plan that could help them attract a higher number of travelers to the vacation rentals they manage. Given that nearly half of all Google searches are for local companies, geo-targeting is incredibly important for any company operating within the hospitality industry.

Since geo-targeting can help people find specific businesses in certain geographic locations, it’s easy to understand why most lodging companies have put a lot of effort into targeting their ads to specific locations. However, finding a way not only to attract the right traffic but also to convert it into more bookings and revenue has become more important, especially if we consider the increasing competition that currently affects the vacation rental market. While getting more bookings may seem harder than it’s ever been, the good news is that booking automation can help you bridge the gap between your geo-targeted marketing campaigns and your revenue goals. 

How Can an Automated Booking System Help You Increase Your Revenue?

Nowadays, the vacation rental property managers who don’t use an advanced lodging management system can spend a lot of time to check booking calendars manually, update availability across different OTAs, adjust nightly rates, and complete many other tasks. Besides making you waste a lot of time and increasing your operating costs, repetitive manual tasks can lead to mistakes and inaccuracies that may negatively affect a guest’s experience and lower your revenue. All these could lead to a perpetual cycle of frustration, dissatisfaction, and reduced productivity. Although we’ve seen this problem with many lodging companies, it doesn’t have to be this way.

When the right reservation software solution is part of the lodging management system you use, you can expect the following benefits, with a direct positive effect on your revenue and profit margins.

  • A better guest experience – An automated reservation system makes it easy for potential guests to book your vacation rentals on the spot. What’s more, since all of your OTA accounts will be in sync, guests won’t need to contact you in order to check availability or confirm reservations. The best booking systems are also integrated with dynamic pricing, which offers guests the best price possible for each piece of property at the time of booking. An automated booking system will also connect to different system tools to track guest preferences and behaviors. You can use this information to offer a series of customizations and amenities that your guests will appreciate more. Offering guests the best rates and being able to provide a superior overall experience can lead to increased guest satisfaction, a higher number of positive reviews, and repeat business. All these will offer you new opportunities to increase your revenue and profits.
  • Greater accuracy – When booking properties manually, even the most diligent and meticulous vacation rental managers can make mistakes. Double bookings are the worst of them. Imagine a guest arriving at one of your properties, longing to check in and relax, but finding the property already occupied by another guest. Not only can this ruin everyone’s vacation, but it could also tarnish your business reputation. Double bookings as well as other booking errors can be easily avoided with an automated reservation system, which keeps track of each vacation rental’s occupancy status in real time.
  • Greater scalability – When you choose a powerful lodging management software solution that includes an automated reservation tool, you don’t need to worry about the number of operations the system can complete. No matter what size your business is and how many vacation rentals you manage, an advanced system will be able to accommodate both smaller and bigger reservation volumes, even when bookings are made in a short time span during seasonal spikes.
  • Better communication – If you’re running a large vacation rental management company, keeping everyone up-to-date can be a huge challenge. But when automated booking is part of a centralized system, you can easily share important information with your team when you can receive quick snapshots when you first login and see what the team is to expect for the day.

If you choose a lodging management system with an automated booking solution that checks all the “boxes” described above, you can improve your revenue and profit dramatically because:

  • You’ll be able to automate multiple areas of your business. This will free up time and resources for more valuable tasks. 
  • Your nightly rates will be adjusted automatically and also more accurately, more frequently, and more intelligently based on supply and demand, your competitors’ rates, and market conditions using one of our approved partners.
  • Your offers will be more consistent across all the listing sites you use, resulting in more bookings and a potentially higher rank on every channel.

If you’re ready to automate your bookings as well as many other operations and increase your revenue, don’t wait any longer! You can manage your entire operation with an easy-to-use lodging management software solution, which may become one of the most valuable assets to your business. Start today with a free demo!