One of the greatest challenges for the international vacation and short-term rental industry today is providing a product with the level of consistency and standardization that guests increasingly expect. Meeting these rising expectations while faced with decreasing margins and a competitive industry will require fine-tuned operations and technological innovation.

The vacation and short-term rental industry is significant right now, with Booking.com reporting 5.7 million listings of "alternative accommodation" on their platform in 2018, and Airbnb claiming 6 million.

More and more travelers are converting away from hotel bookings and choosing to stay in private accommodation or serviced apartments. With Google opening up its Hotel Search to include vacation rentals, the short-term rental industry is currently booming, with no downturn in sight.

The vacation rental industry has in many ways been more progressive than the hotel industry by adopting automation at the levels of booking and guest communication. Tech supports streamlining processes - creating efficiencies and improving the guest experience along these parts of their buyer journey.

However, so far, vacation rentals have been at a disadvantage to hotels when it comes to "asset" automation. By this, I mean the ability to manage the actual guest stay within a property in an efficient and streamlined way.

Friction points

Vacation rentals typically don’t have the benefit of centralized amenities such as key distribution through a front desk, centralized cleaning or staff on hand to deal with minor discomforts. But increasingly, property managers of vacation rentals are able to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to not only improve guest stays, but to also generate efficiencies and cost savings, as well as to minimize risk to properties.

A key point of friction for short-term rentals is the ease of check-in. Enabling guests to check themselves in is liberating for both guest and property manager, but some of the methods to achieve this lack security.

Additional factors that impact guest comfort during stay, but that are often taken for granted, are noise, temperature, humidity levels and air quality.

There are many devices that deal with these vulnerable points. Property managers can install noise-monitoring devices, home-temperature controls and also occupancy sensors. Smart locks give guests (and cleaning staff) unique access codes to mitigate the hassle, limitations and security risks associated with lockboxes, non-changing keypad codes and smartphone app downloads.

Used separately, these devices work well up to a point, but used together and with software that manages their collective data, property managers are provided with real insight that has the power to transform not only guests’ comfort and experience, but also management decisions.

Transforming the experience

Take smart locks for starters. Imagine knowing exactly if a guest has checked out of a property early and then being able to ensure your cleaning staff can turn the property around quickly, and also automatically letting the next guest know that they can have an early check-in? The option of early check-in is huge in terms of guest satisfaction levels as well as potentially being an additional revenue stream.

Noise monitoring is a very useful tool for a property manager and is often used as a way of detecting parties or preventing guest complaints due to external noise. But how about combining the data from noise monitoring with the data from a smart lock?

And what about CO2 monitoring? On its own, a very accurate way of monitoring occupancy and avoiding a football team crashing on the floor of your condo. But combine it with the other inputs and a true reflection of what is going on in a property can be deduced.

For instance, if noise levels are high, but door entry is low and CO2 is as expected, perhaps high noise levels are coming from outside (important for a manager to know for the purpose of reviews).

CO2 level monitoring (which impacts air quality) has been used in corporate buildings for at least 20 years. A room can feel stuffy if the CO2 is too high. It can also feel uncomfortable if the humidity is too high (above 70%) or too low (below 30%). The human comfort range is much narrower than most people realize, but those in hospitality know how a few degrees can mean the difference between a happy guest and a negative review.

CO2 monitors also tell us (far more accurately than motion sensors) when a guest is inside but just being very quiet or still. Combined with smart lock data, this indicates when a property is empty, so the heating (or air-conditioning) can be reduced - creating savings.

Using the right devices, you don’t have to worry about privacy issues to the data. Noise monitors record decibels, not conversations, and CO2 assesses the number of occupants, not who they are, meaning that guest privacy is never in question.

There are so many devices that can increase operational efficiency and guest experience. Just make sure that they all speak to each other, in order to automate operations and provide data that is truly insightful.

When they do, it really transforms property management.