Hello, I'm 2 mo into using ownerez and have primarily had my property on Airbnb, which itself is a pretty well oiled machine. Now I want to have an option for direct booking that I can guide my family n friends to, if they ask. Is there an article on step by step directions on how to go about direct booking? What all agreements and coverage i need to have in place? Also, how do I market my property thru ownerez website? Where do I post it??
Would appreciate insights. Thank you
Simplest way: Quotes> Create quote > add your recipient's email > send. They can book using that emailed quote. Keep in mind that if you want them to pay through that quote, you need to have at least 1 payment method established within OR.
Here is an article - easy to find in the support center by searching "direct bookings" https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/overview-setting-up-direct-bookings-from-start-to-finish-video
We created our own web site (Antietamdome.com) & used the “widget” to create a booking window.
This is the best option for all of us- direct bookings spare us AND our guests the cash scrapes, horrible customer service & billing (looking at you, VRBO, who we fired).
Then get on your socials!
Put up pictures, stories, “reels” have fun with it.
We are a work in progress, have made some nice connections in the area via Facebook.
Hello, I'm 2 mo into using ownerez and have primarily had my property on Airbnb, which itself is a pretty well oiled machine. Now I want to have an option for direct booking that I can guide my family n friends to, if they ask. Is there an article on step by step directions on how to go about direct booking?
There are lots of articles available online if you simply search for "Direct Booking for my Vacation Rental" on Google or any other search engine, but here are the basics.
As suggested, you don't even need a website to do bookings directly with guests. Any decent Property Management System like OwnerRez will allow you to provide a quote directly to a guest via email, which they can then go online and book from. The PMS provides a page online where the guest can see, and complete the booking form.
Once the guest completes the booking form provided by the PMS, they can mail you a cheque/check to pay for the booking. In a quick nutshell, that's the simplest route. However, if you want to make things easiest for your guests and yourself, a few additional steps will smooth the process for both you and your guests.
1) Find and get set up with an online Payment Processor. This is a bank that allows you to accept credit card payments. Some allow regular 'store-front' card processing where you have the guest's card physically in front of you, some allow only online processing, and some allow both. There are a number of online specific processors. A couple that have become very large in the last two decades include PayPal and Stripe, which you may have heard of. There are also some that claim to be dedicated to the vacation rental space, and that they know and can serve our industry best, but I have never understood how they can possibly offer anything better than any large, quality CC processing company. This topic can get very confusing, so do your research and be prepared to be patient and ask lots of questions. The charges for Credit Card processing vary tremendously and because it is essentially a percentage of the amount being charged (usually in the range of 2-3%) it is a flat off-the-top expense that can affect your bottom-line dramatically. You want to pay the minimum that you possibly can, and still have good quality service, because this is one expense of yours that for the most part won't affect your guest's experience one bit. It's just simply a significant cost to you.
Online listing sites like VRBO and AirBnB charge the hosts for their credit card processing fees, so don't think of this as an added expense because you are booking guests directly. You are paying those charges to the listing sites anyway, often more than you would be paying if the guest booked directly with you, because not only do the listing sites charge you, the host, for credit card processing for the money they send you, but they also make you pay for the processing fees for the money they keep! When you think about it, it's kind of an outrageous thing to do. Not many businesses get to force others to pay for their operating expenses!
What all agreements and coverage i need to have in place?
2) You need to establish and have a complete, comprehensive set of Terms and Conditions for renting your place out. These are basically the rules that govern the agreement between yourself and the guest to rent and stay in your property. Again, if you search for a Vacation Rental Terms and Conditions Template online, you will find some generic ones that are an excellent place to start in developing your own set. Every vacation rental needs their own comprehensive set of Terms and Conditions that govern their rental. Ultimately, if you really want to do things right, you should have a lawyer create it suitable for your jurisdiction/location, or at least review what you come up with for legal compliance and enforceability. Once you have have your Terms and Conditions of Rental ready to go, have them available in a text file on your computer ready to copy to various places where you need to share them, and also in a PDF (Portable Document Format) file which can be easily sent or downloaded.
Basically, your PMS will provide a booking format and process which commits the guest to renting your place under your Terms and Conditions, and the guest usually would receive a copy of them as part of the process. Good Terms and Conditions protect both you and your guest, and define what happens in case there is a dispute, damages, etc. It's kind of like insurance, you only really need them when things go wrong, but when things go wrong you'll be really glad you have them, and they are properly done.
Even if you book through websites like VRBO or AirBnB you should still have your own Terms and Conditions in place which every renter agrees to, because the Terms and Conditions of those websites are completely irrelevant and useless to your bookings. This has been tested in court many times. The first thing a judge will say in court regarding a dispute created by a rental situation is "Let's see the agreement between the parties..." You MUST have one.
The Terms and Conditions of third party websites like VRBO and AirBnB are of no value, and legally of no consequence. Go look them up on those sites. The very first thing they say is "This website is NOT a party to any agreement between a host and renter..." And they're not. Those websites are in reality advertising venues only. They pass themselves off as having Terms and Conditions and offering protections and systems that guide and determine relationships between hosts and guests, but truthfully they're completely useless with regard to anything between the host and guest. They present the appearance of having control and influence only in order to justify their involvement in guest transactions, in order to collect their fees. It is how they make money, and they work very hard to protect that image, but legally they have no standing to enforce anything between a host and guest.
Anyone running a vacation rental business would be foolish in my opinion to rely on the Terms and Conditions of a third party that has no legal standing in the agreement between themselves and their guests. Yet millions get sucked into this false sense of security and allow these websites to determine how they run their businesses, or book and patronize private accommodations businesses online through them thinking it somehow protects them. It doesn't.
Vacation rental hosts need to understand that these third-party websites can have all kinds of Terms and Conditions which determine how the website is used, and they do, but what those Terms and Conditions govern is the relationship between the host and the website, or the guest and the website only. The websites cover themselves off by stating If you use this website you agree to our Terms and Conditions... and the host or guest does agree to the site's Terms and Conditions, but only because they use the site and the users allow themselves to be governed by them. They don't have to. Those Terms and Conditions have no enforceability between the host and the guest, and the sites are well aware of it. They just don't broadcast or promote it because their entire business model is based on the concept of providing a 'safe' venue for hosts and guests to conduct business. If the majority of the website users knew the truth about what the websites actually provide and do not, I believe it would significantly affect the website's business.
Most of the 'protection' for guests provided by online listing websites come from the protections provided by the Credit Card Issuing Bank, and in fact, many guests who have problems are told by the websites when the guest calls upon them for help; Call your credit card company! Well, the guests don't need the websites for that 'protection,' and have it any time they use their credit card, so they are just as safe dealing directly with the host when they pay by credit card, as they are when they use their credit card on an online vacation rental listing website.
You may even want to ask if any of the OwnerRez users on these forums would be willing to share their own Terms and Conditions with you to use as a reference in creating your own. Some generous souls may even be willing to do so, however a quality set of Terms and Conditions is a precious business asset, which costs a significant amount of time and money to develop, especially when one properly hires a lawyer to develop or review them, so one shouldn't expect to be able to take and copy a set for free.
Good Terms and Conditions should be a 'living document' in that they should be reviewed, developed and updated each year as business situations and conditions evolve and new circumstances need to be accounted for. For example, the Covid-19 Pandemic caught a lot of vacation rental owners by surprise, with many not having anything in their Terms that governed what happens when a pandemic affects a guest's rental of the property.
A smart vacation rental owner/host 'keeps their ear to the ground' and pays attention to and learns from industry developments so they can adjust and augment their Terms and Conditions as needed.
Also, how do I market my property thru ownerez website?
This is a bit of strange question. You don't market your business through OwnerRez's website. It may be that what you have asked here is not actually what you mean, so please bear with me.
OwnerRez is a supplier of Property Management Software, offered through an online website. This is called SAAS... Software As A Service. Not all software is offered online. Much of it has been traditionally something that you purchase a copy of in a box from a store, supplied on a disk or CD, that you install locally in your own computer. For SAAS, the software is stored in the provider's website, and you can just access it anywhere you can get online to the internet, with your account user name and password.
So OwnerRez's website, or more correctly websiteS, are their own. They are not there for you to use to promote your business. One OwnerRez site promotes OwnerRez to new users, one provides the software that we all use and access as OwnerRez customer/users, and another provides help and support, and these forums.
As part of their service, OwnerRez optionally makes available to their customers the ability to create, use and offer a Promotional Website for their own vacation rental. If you want to have a website to promote your vacation rental, and also provide a place online where your guests may view and book it, this can be done by paying OwnerRez an additional monthly fee, and you will then have a reasonably easy to setup and use website for your own vacation rental.
That is one way of having your own website. Another way is to pay a hosting provider to host a website for you which makes it accessible and available on the internet.
How the website gets created is a separate matter. You can hire a website developer, or you can use a paid or free website development service online to create your website. Many website hosting companies, which you can find online with a simple Google search, offer free do-it-yourself website creation software as an online service in conjunction with their hosting plans. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of providers like this.
You can also use free do-it-yourself website building software that is available online independently. There are a number of these available, the biggest and most common of which is called Wordpress. While originally created to be something that a user can build their own website with, WordPress has grown into an incredible behemoth, so big and complex that many professional website developers work exclusively for others using it, and just about anything one wants to be done can be created in WordPress. It is said to power at least a third of the websites available on the internet. Every hosting provider offers free installation of WordPress on their systems, it is that ubiquitous.
My own vacation rental website, which I have created myself, is done in Wordpress. Managing the site and everything it involves is a part-time to full-time job. I have an interest in this, and I enjoy it, however I recognize the tremendous work and time involved and do not recommend it to others. Honestly, one of the finest, most experienced vacation rental owners I know does their own wordpress site, and it is incredible and of very-high quality. She is also an OwnerRez user. Perhaps she finds it easier and less time-consuming than I do, but I don't know. No doubt, she has a special gift for vacation rental promotion and website creation.
Once you have your own website, no matter how it is created, OwnerRez provides a number of bits of website code called 'widgets' which can be used to incorporate OwnerRez functionality into that site. This allows your website to show your booking calendar, provide inquiry forms, and even display quotes that guests can create themselves by entering their dates.
If you decide to have an OwnerRez hosted website, it comes with all of the OwnerRez widgets and capabilities built in, so it really should be considered as one option for an OwnerRez user to setup and have their own website available online, in the simplest and easiest manner possible. OwnerRez has a number of sample sites available for you to check out to see what the service provides. The website produced is your own site however, and not 'on' OwnerRez's website.
Where do I post it??
You don't 'post' your website. There are no places where you can go and simply post that you have a website that will result in you generating traffic; people that come and visit your website and take the action that you want them to. People won't visit your website just because you have one. It doesn't work that way. They will come to your website if it provides something they need or want, and they can find it.
If you have a link to your website shared somewhere online; for example, you go onto Facebook and make a post telling people you have a website and giving the URL (the internet address or link to the site), then search engines like Google will eventually notice the link, and record that your website is there. Then, if someone goes online and uses a search engine to try and find your website, the search website might show your website in its results, and people can find your website that way. But getting listed by an online search engine is the smallest part of this battle. The big issues are; why would anyone go online and search for your particular website, and if they do, how do you get the search engine to actually show your particular website in their results?
How do you promote your website once it is online?
That is an entirely different subject and one on which entire books have been written. Promoting yourself online is a vast and challenging topic.
Simply having a website is not enough. Just because it is there is no reason to expect that anyone will find it, or see it. The internet is a vast and highly competitive electronic medium, and in trying to promote yourself online you are competing with the very largest and best marketers in the world, and the very worst (many of whom are amateur vacation rental hosts unfortunately!).
The size and scale of the task of online promotion does not mean you shouldn't bother having your own website. Simply having a place online where others can see and book your vacation rental directly with you is as important and fundamental to your business as having the property itself. Even if all you ever use it for is to direct your own personal contacts to it as a place to see and book your property, it is worthwhile to have.
No, you should not ever just use a VRBO or AirBnB listing for this purpose, or any other similar source. You should always have your own website. Any other location for your business to exist online is controlled by others, and subject to their whims, expenses and fees. It leaves you not in control of your business, and beholden to someone else for the very survival and existence of your Vacation Rental Accommodations business.
Every host should ask themselves 'What happens if AirBnB or VRBO shuts down my listing tomorrow and won't allow me back on the platform? Would I have a business?' If the answer is no, then you're not in business for yourself... you are a beholden serf, running a business simply for the profit of online billionaires who see you only as a source of revenue for them; expendable, and easily replaced.
Would appreciate insights. Thank you
I hope this introduction to having an 'option' for direct booking has been helpful to you, and allows you to get started in being able to book your vacation rental property directly with guests without having a third party involved.
Many people who have only been involved in vacation rentals in the last decade can't conceive of operating their rentals without using and relying on third party websites like AirBnB and VRBO, while for others like myself, who have been in this business for many years and never got into it thinking that third-party websites were what the business is all about, have survived and even thrived without them for decades.
I've hosted nearly 1000 guest parties in the last seventeen years, and if all goes well, will host my very FIRST guest booked through AirBnB in one week's time. You may call them a 'well-oiled' machine, but that's what I think of my business as. My experience with AirBnB is that it's a complicated, interfering, PITA entity that only makes the interaction with, and service of, MY guests difficult and much more challenging than it needs to be.
Which brings us to the final thing you really need in order to be able to successfully book guests directly and independently; a change in thinking. The only people that have 'an AirBnB' or 'an AirBnB business' are the owners of the AirBnB website itself. You, and all OwnerRez customers, and AirBnB and VRBO hosts, are all accommodations providers, and we need to think in terms of what's best for ourselves and our guests to make that happen. Ultimately, it isn't even accommodations that we provide – it is hospitality, and once a vacation rental owner understands that, they open up a path for themselves to true success in this industry.
I just wanted to say 300% YES & THANK YOU!
We have a Facebook account, & I just ordered a device to put my IPhone in a position to do “walk & talks” because our property is also an ecological experiment.
That’s our brand- yours could be crafting, or flowers, or quilting.. People go places to do things, & if we show them the things we have at our places, they will come to our places to “do the things”. This also helps us get the guests we want. I am using Facebook, but I will expand to Instagram soon. We do not TikTok, one of us was NatSec, so that’s a no go.
Get creative.
The world is YOUR oyster. USE the platforms, because they are using you.
Emily DG
