71% occupancy increase with access to international travel market
On the remote African shores of Lake Naivasha in Kenya, couple Felix and Muhabi Erskine run their short-term rental company, Sanctuary Farm.
Overview
Before
- Payment glitches
- Lost bookings
- Unreliable international market
After
- International market growth with occupancy and revenue expansion
- Smooth payments
- Captured bookings
Impact
- Financial and brand growth: Revenue increase of 928%
- RevPAR (Revenue per Available Room) increase
- Occupancy rate increase from 42% to 72%
- Positive booking and guest experience
- Game-changing timesaver
“Hostfully’s property management platform just changed my life really. To have everything automated, invoices going out automatically, not having to really worry. Just literally watching the money coming in and the guests happy.”
Felix Erskine, Sanctuary Farm
Before
Cancelled transactions and clunky payments
Nestled among the flora and fauna of Lake Naivasha, just north of Nairobi, Sanctuary Farm, a wildlife short-term rental business, can be found. It’s here that Felix Erskine and his wife, Muhabi, took over his family’s business which currently boasts twelve bedrooms across five cottages, not to mention a restaurant, camping sites, tours, and rentals.
And yet, when Felix took over the operations, he managed his payments through on arrival cash and wire transfers, and kept track of bookings and payments with spreadsheets. The process was a mess; Felix found himself jumping through hoops to ensure payments went through, trying to contact guests about payments, fearful that financial requests from his Kenyan-based business might be instantly dismissed as phishing scams. Between currency conversions and credit card dysfunction, Sanctuary Farm was losing out on bookings and frustrating travelers in the process.
Felix recalls, shaking his head, “Payments was a nightmare. Especially international bank transfers. When a guest would book the house, you’d have to give them a Kenyan bank account. Which was sketchy for people. And I was living in fear of double bookings. Sometimes it would happen.” After someone showed up at his remote sanctuary, luggage in hand, expecting to stay based on an unaccounted for booking, he vowed to find a solution.
After
Saved by successful, secure, automated payments.
Though migrating all his operations from manual to digital was “a bit of a steep learning curve,” Felix says, “all the resources were there.” Felix worked his way through Hostfully University videos, and soon enough, he was sharing his learnings with his 50 employees and downloading apps on his cleaning team’s phones.
With his Hostfully onboarding representative, Felix switched his currency from Kenyan shillings to US dollars, and together they determined that Paypal was Sanctuary Farm’s most viable payment processor, allowing for seamless transfers.
The accounting capabilities and international payment integrations that led Felix to seek out Hostfully, “Just changed my life really. To have everything automated, invoices going out automatically, not having to really worry. Just literally watching the money coming in, and the guests happy.”
Felix expanded upon his experience with Hostfully’s property management platform: ”I love the calendar, channel manager. It keeps all dates and properties in one place.” Besides Hostfully’s property management platform, Felix has embraced Hostfully’s other products and features, from building out his direct booking site with a third party vendor to utilizing Hostfully’s Digital Guidebooks.
From expanding their booking channels to establishing smooth payment methods,. Felix has seen Sanctuary Farm’s occupancy rate nearly double since implementing Hostfully, averaging an increase of 72% compared to 42% from the previous year, Rental revenue also jumped an impressive 928% with quarterly growth trending upwards, and RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Room) increased 978.8%.
With such business growth and operations optimization, Felix is dreaming even bigger. He’s in the process of building a new property, and aims to add an additional, custom-built cottage every two years or so. Meanwhile, he’s enjoying the newfound space he’s carved out: more time for family, creative pursuits, and enjoying life among hippos and conservation trails. Felix advises other hosts: “If you don’t have a PMS—even if you just have one house—get it. It makes the whole business a more pleasant experience.—it’s a beautiful thing.” He adds, “It’s what saved me.”
