Holiday Rental Host

The collaborative economy has dispelled the misgivings about staying in strangers' homes. Weren't you told not to open the door to strangers?

Well, it seems that Airbnb and other tourist accommodation platforms have made us forget this recommendation. This is why it is so important for any holiday rental host to have a good profile.

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Registering as a holiday 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 “Host guests”. For now, ignore the “Host an experience” button.

Airbnb will now direct you to a form to calculate how much you can earn if you enter the most basic features 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 (entire home, shared or private room, etc.), for example.

Just a note, to continue listing your property you will first need to create an account or use an existing one (for example, from 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 details requested on 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 details requested on the page.
• Confirm your email.

I've already registered as a host, now what?

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

Type of accommodation

These options are quite straightforward. To avoid confusion, Airbnb adds a brief description to each accommodation type when you hover over the name. Select the option that best describes your accommodation: from a loft, a castle, or a tent.

Bedrooms

This is one of the most important distinctions, both for you and your guests, as it determines the level of privacy you can offer. Make sure you are registering your accommodation accurately – being honest is the best advice to become an Airbnb Plus –. Again, Airbnb offers you brief definitions of what each room type entails.

Type of accommodation

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

Let's get to the fun part! You have completed the first part of how to register as an Airbnb host. You have filled in the forms with basic information about your accommodation. What now? We need to start presenting our space: adding photos, optimising descriptions, etc.

Types of holiday rental hosts

The opportunistic host

This is the type of person who sporadically rents out their apartment (or one or more rooms) for a very specific period. Typically, these are individuals who do not view tourist rentals as a business to be managed professionally. They usually 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 this is your case, I recommend you take a look at our post on the Tax Agency and holiday rentals.

The one looking for stable extra income

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

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

An alternative – at a higher price but with much more convenience – is to leave the day-to-day management of these hosts' properties in the hands of professional tourist apartment managers. They take care of everything in exchange for a percentage of the income from reservations of your property.

The full-time host

This is usually the natural evolution of the second type of holiday rental host: after a while managing their own properties and seeing that there are possibilities to make this work profitable, they start managing properties for third parties. Now things get really serious: the full-time Airbnb host has to maximise management efficiency to save as much profitability as possible from 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 automated check-in through locks for tourist apartments is a priority.

Three tips to make your holiday rental host profile shine

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

Use a personal photo

Yes, some hosts succeed even without showing their face. But they are the exception that proves 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 where you are smiling means that "I am a friendly person who has nothing to hide".

If you manage tourist apartments, you may hesitate between using a corporate logo or your personal photo. It is advisable to 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 easy and they won't have to waste much time waiting for replies.

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

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

Finally, note that reducing your response time to guests improves your positioning for the Airbnb algorithm.

Get good reviews

A good holiday rental host must have reviews. 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.