Vacation rental managers are seeking to offer services currently not enabled by their software.
According to a Hostfully study, 88% of property managers either offer services outside their property management system or don’t offer them but would like to.
Local tours emerged as the top service property managers either offer outside their software or would like to followed by other concierge services and groceries on arrival.
The Hostfully study compares the results to a similar study last year to reveal tours and activities, groceries and other concierge services remain in the top three while early check-in/late check-out move from a ranking of eight to four in this years survey.
Only 9% of respondents say they offer these sorts of services within their PMS.
Further findings of the study reveal that if they could have an overnight fix, property managers would choose marketing, guest management and cleaning.
According to the report, those managing five properties or more see these among their top challenges with marketing listed as an instant fix at 28% followed by guest management at 17% and cleaning at 13%.
Staff training and automation were jointly tied at 12% as targets for an instant fix.
The study, which gauges reaction from 157 managers in 20 countries, also highlights frustrations with online travel agencies as a challenge with high fees, issues with facilitating bookings and search engine optimization all raised.
Despite their frustrations, managers say that booking conversion, including attracting repeat business, is getting easier. The report attributes this to the work done by online giants such as Airbnb and HomeAway to make it easier for property managers to work with them.
Additional areas highlighted as improving were guest communications and operations such as remote management, automation and tracking projects. Access to new inventory was also listed as getting easier.
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When it comes to the software they use to manage vacation rental, respondents mentioned 89 different solutions with two thirds of them deemed “most valuable.”
Property management software emerged as the most valuable technology according to 39% but more surprising was that Google/Microsoft technologies came second at 16% and no technology according to 14%.
This further demonstrates how fragmented the vacation rental technology sector continues to be as well as gaps in terms of what systems provide.
A final element covered by the 2018 Report on Hospitality Trends in Vacation Rentals is what tips the balance when it comes to guest satisfaction. Property managers says that digital guidebooks and automated messaging impact satisfaction the most according to 36% and 25% of survey participants respectively.
The full study is available here.