EP049: Airbnb Hosting in Lake Atitlan, Guatamala, with Jeanne Mendez
Summary
This article discusses the importance of revenue management in short-term rentals, highlighting the need for scheduled pricing routines and understanding booking behaviors. It also emphasizes the shift in a CEO's focus as a business scales and how to avoid the 'hectic host' stage. Finally, it explores the complexities of STR revenue management versus hotel revenue management, and provides insight on how to optimize pricing and leverage major events like the FIFA World Cup.
Key Insights
- •STR pricing is dramatically harder than hotel pricing due to product uniqueness, booking window impacts, operational constraints, and cancellation risks.
- •Smaller markets like Kansas City, Boston, Seattle, and Philadelphia may outperform larger cities during the FIFA World Cup.
- •CEOs waste 30 to 50 percent of their time on low-value activities, which becomes more dangerous as STR businesses grow.
Action Items
- ✓Identify the biggest bottlenecks in your STR business and shift CEO focus accordingly.Effort: mediumImpact: high
- ✓Prepare for the booking surge from the FIFA World Cup by analyzing which cities and matchups are likely to have the strongest ADR lift.Effort: mediumImpact: high
- ✓Implement daily and weekly pricing routines to stay ahead of the market and analyze booking data.Effort: lowImpact: medium
Tools & Resources
- →Freewyld Foundry: Learn more about Freewyld Foundry.
Watch Out For
- ⚠Hosts often underperform not because they lack tools, but because they don't know what to look at, when to look at it, or how to interpret booking behavior.
- ⚠Trying to fix everything at once can slow growth.
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