Not only is a dirty vacation rental a big letdown for a guest; it is also one of the most common causes of complaints and negative reviews. Since travelers use reviews as a deciding factor when booking a vacation rental, one or more negative reviews could hurt your business. Conversely, a perfectly clean vacation rental will translate into positive reviews—and that means more bookings.

Things like dust on the furniture and a stain on the carpet may seem unimportant. However, they’re clear indicators that a vacation rental hasn’t been cleaned properly after the last guest left. This thought can freak out your current guests and ruin their dream vacation.

Considering that most guests expect vacation rentals to be sparkling clean, keeping the properties you manage clean is an essential step in running a successful vacation rental management business. But that’s easier said than done, particularly if you’re a busy vacation rental manager.

Because implementing a few cleaning and disinfection measures may not be enough to meet expectations, here are some important aspects you should take into account in order to boost the overall guest experience.

Vacation Rental Cleaning is Different from Regular House Cleaning

Regular house cleaning typically refers to a few light cleaning tasks that focus on maintaining cleanliness at home. Vacation rental cleaning, on the other hand, involves common cleaning tasks as well as additional services that have been specifically developed for making a space look more inviting and “on brand”.

To clear up any confusion, let’s look at an example. In general, cleaning a home would mean dusting the furniture, vacuuming the carpets, mopping the floors, and scrubbing the sinks and toilets. Some cleaners also perform occasional tasks, such as removing limescale from glass shower doors, wiping down all visible surfaces, and washing the windows.

Vacation rental cleaning basically means making a vacation rental guest-ready. In addition to the aforementioned tasks that need to be performed before a new guest checks in, vacation rental cleaning involves disinfecting all surfaces, washing dishes, replacing towels, changing bed linens, doing laundry, making beds, replenishing supplies, organizing drawers and cabinets, and arranging items so that each room looks like it’s straight out of a luxury real estate magazine. What’s more, the cleaners should check for missing items and potential problems, such as malfunctioning appliances, burnt-out light bulbs, and plumbing issues. 

Vacation Rentals Require Professional Cleaning Services

Cleaning vacation rentals yourself or hiring inexperienced cleaners is an easy way to cut business costs and increase profitability. But as tempting as it may be, you should weigh all the pros and cons carefully before making a decision. To begin with, vacation rentals typically need to be thoroughly cleaned between guests in order to offer the experience your guests expect. Will you be able to clean every single vacation rental to perfection? What about during the high season, when same-day reservations and back-to-back bookings may require you to leave your other responsibilities aside in order to get vacation rentals ready for last-minute guests?

To ensure that the properties you manage will always be guest-ready before the guests arrive and look as sharp as they do in the listing photos, it’s best to hire a team of professional cleaners who not only are able to complete more tasks within a shorter time frame but can also meet the highest standards in the industry.

The Cleaners Should Provide the Right Services for Each Property

Running a successful vacation rental management business requires a lot of commitment and hard work. In addition to the fact that you’ll need to manage multiple properties for different clients, not all vacation rentals are created equal. Even though you can develop various cleaning schedules and checklists for each property, the cleaners you intend to hire should have enough experience in order to plan and execute different cleaning tasks efficiently, according to the specifics of each vacation rental, while also considering the unique requirements of your business.

As you’re weighing your options, another aspect to take into account before hiring a cleaning service is the lodging management software solution you could use to streamline your business operations. When running a full-service vacation rental management business, it’s imperative to provide a high level of expertise to every facet of property management, including housekeeping. A comprehensive lodging management software solution can help you with that.

Allowing you to automate different areas of your business, our PMS solution can help you keep the vacation rentals you manage in tip-top shape while saving you a lot of time and optimizing efficiency. How does JANIIS do that? Simple, we have integrated with vendors that provide housekeeping software that works seamlessly with our software to make your job that much easier. For more information about the PMS solution we make available, feel free to book a free personal demo with our experts, who are ready to walk you through the main features of JANIIS!