How To Use ChatGPT for Your Vacation Rental Business

That snappy intro took all of 30 seconds to produce, and it grabbed your attention, right? To get it, we simply put in the prompt “Hey ChatGPT, write a 50-word introduction for an article about using ChatGPT for a vacation rental business” and hit refresh two or three times. 

Though this copy could definitely be a touch less generic, it’s promising. And when you’re facing increased competition, staffing challenges, and a never-ending stream of guest communications, an easy way to automate your content creation is too exciting to ignore.

But how do you get started with ChatGPT and how do you extract the responses you need? And are there any risks associated with using the content it generates? These are the questions we explore in this article, as we share real-life prompts and replies so you can take the manual labor out of your marketing while boosting your guest relationships. 

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence tool that generates content when given a text prompt. It uses natural language processing. This means it was fed vast amounts of information during its development and now utilizes algorithms and techniques to recognize data patterns and understand language in a human-like way.

This allows ChatGPT to recognize and interpret prompts almost instantly. Then, using data from its internal knowledge base (which includes the websites, books, and articles it was fed) it can complete tasks like answering questions, generating content, and translating text. It also remembers information you’ve provided to deliver more accurate results. 

The ChatGPT tool is part of a family of software created by OpenAPI, and the free version uses GPT-3 architecture with data sets from September 2021. As a result, aspects of the information it provides may be outdated.

If you’re concerned about this, for $20 a month, you can access ChatGPT Plus which uses GPT–4 and is based on more up-to-date information. You can also use this subscription-based service 24 hours a day, whereas the public model of ChatGPT is sometimes unavailable during peak times. 

Despite these limitations, even the basic features of ChatGPT could offer exciting benefits to your business. In the next section, we look at how it can help you boost your guest relationships and marketing. 

What are the benefits of using ChatGPT for vacation rental content creation?

When you’re scaling your vacation rental business, and trying to promote and manage several properties, any tool that saves you time is worth serious consideration. 

By taking on manual work such as managing review responses and editing your listings, ChatGPT could allow you to focus more on other aspects of your job, like ensuring a great guest experience.  

Here, we look at the marketing and guest communication functions that ChatGPT can help you with. And then we look at how you can use the software to complete these tasks efficiently and effectively. 

Creating blog content 

You can use ChatGPT to regularly create content that promotes your properties and builds your brand without having to spend hours thinking of ideas or writing. 

Because the software has consumed so many different types of information, it can produce in-depth, human-sounding content very quickly. You can even ask it to create content in a certain style. For example, you can use elevated and luxurious-sounding content to set your brand apart.

Boosting your social media presence

You can get more eyes on your blogs, listings, and direct bookings site through social media. But thinking of posts, writing captions, and researching hashtags is a lot of work. By using ChatGPT to automate these tasks, you can create content that’s tailored to your target audience and ready to upload. 

Making your listings more engaging

Unless you’re a natural wordsmith, you can lose hours trying to convey the magic of your short-term rentals in OTA listings. Alternatively, you can avoid writer’s block, and use ChatGPT for inspiration.

The following prompts generated this concise listing, focused on a specified target audience, that highlights the top reasons to stay at a vacation rental at randomly selected location:

• Create an engaging listing description designed to stand out on Airbnb for a vacation rental in Vermont

• Make it shorter and aimed at digital nomads

• It’s a bit too generic

Note: We look at another exciting way to create listing descriptions later in this article, using your guests’ reviews as inspiration

Writing messages to guests

From the moment your guests make a booking to when they check out, you need to provide attentive service to ensure no issues go unnoticed.

You can use ChatGPT alongside a dedicated guest messaging solution to create a bank of message templates for every stage of the guest journey. In the next section, we outline the best approach for this and look at how you can automate the process of sending messages to save even more time. 

Creating review templates

Requesting reviews and creating reviews of every guest you host is a lot of work, but it’s crucial to boosting how you rank in OTAs. You can reduce the work involved by using ChatGPT to draft review requests. And if you send input a few specific details about a stay, it can also write your reviews for you. 

Creating itineraries

By creating digital guidebooks which include information about Wi-Fi, parking, amenities, local services, and more, you can give guests an easier and more enjoyable stay.

If you want to really wow your guests, you can include personalized recommendations using ChatGPT. All you’ll need to do is input details about the people who are visiting and ask the AI tool to give you an itinerary.

How to leverage ChatGPT with example prompts you can use yourself

When you’re using ChatGPT, you need to be specific with the prompts you provide. If you include yes/no questions, jargon, or messages with a lot of sub-points, you might not get the best results. 

Here, we look at how you can get the most out of ChatGPT with examples of chains of prompts. We also consider how you could integrate the content ChatGPT provides into your wider marketing and guest communications processes to save time and consistently deliver a great guest experience. 

Prompts for creating blog content 

You can use ChatGPT to generate relevant blog ideas as well as write specific posts. Be sure to make clear that this content is to attract guests rather than other short-term rental owners otherwise the software could produce the wrong type of content. Here are some example prompts you could use:

• Give me 5 blog ideas to attract short-term rental guests to a property in [LOCATION]

• Give me 5 blog ideas about short-term rentals for guests

• Give me 5 blog ideas that will attract [DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION- e.g. family of five] to a short-term rental in [LOCATION]

From here, you can ask the tool to write content of any length on the topic you choose. You should also specify what tone you’d like it to be in so you have a consistent voice across your blog. For luxury properties, for example, you can ask it to write in an “elevated” tone like in the example below.

Prompts for generating social media captions

You can use ChatGPT to think of general social media ideas, create captions and find relevant hashtags.

Here are some prompts to use:

• Give me 5 social media post ideas for a short-term rental in [LOCATION]

• Write an Instagram caption for a short-term rental property with [FEATURE]

• Give me a list of hashtags for a short-term rental property in [LOCATION] with [FEATURE]

It’s best not to include too much information in one prompt. Instead, you can use follow-ups to tailor ChatGPT’s responses toward your target audience. If it sends you a caption, for example, then you can then ask the tool to make it more specific to a particular demographic of travelers.  

Prompts to improve your listing descriptions

To help ChatGPT create engaging listing descriptions, input your best reviews as well as some basic property details. This will ensure that the content draws attention to features your existing guests love, and should help you find more like-minded visitors. 

Prompts for creating messages

You can instantly create messages for every stage of the guest journey using the following prompts:

• Write a booking confirmation message for [PROPERTY NAME] for [NUMBER OF GUESTS] for [DATES]. Include that they can check in at [TIME]

• Write a message welcoming [GUEST NAME] to a short-term rental in [LOCATION]. Include this information [e.g. house rules]

• Write a message for  [GUEST NAME] asking how everything is going with their stay at [PROPERTY NAME]

• Write a message for [GUEST NAME] thanking them for their stay at [PROPERTY NAME] and asking them to [CHECKOUT INSTRUCTIONS]

Alternatively, you can make the process of sending personalized messages even faster with messaging automation software like Hostfully. You can add ‘variables’ to your custom templates and our tool will automatically send personalized messages throughout the guest’s stay. 

Prompts for creating reviews and review requests

To create review requests and reviews inside ChatGPT, use the following prompts:

• Create a [POSITIVE/NEGATIVE]  review of under 1,000 characters for a short-term rental guest. Mention [DETAILS OF STAY]

• Write a message asking [GUEST NAME] to review their stay at [PROPERTY NAME] 

If you don’t like the idea of using ChatGPT every time a guest checks out, you can create personalized, automated reviews with Hostfully’s host review templates. Our software will pull through guest names from your project management system and add them to messages you’ve pre-approved before automatically sending them when your guest leaves.

Prompts for creating itineraries

You can use the prompt “Write a [NUMBER OF DAYS] itinerary for [GUEST DETAILS] in [LOCATION]” to create tailored itineraries inside ChatGPT.

However, it’s important to be aware that these are not always filled with appropriate recommendations. For example, the software can suggest places that are currently closed because it doesn’t have access to the internet to check opening times. For this reason, you should be sure to read over your itineraries before including them in your digital guidebooks. 

Use automation tools as you scale 

Even in its infancy, ChatGPT is bringing a lot to the vacation rental industry. 

With the right prompts, it can give you insights that can improve your marketing. And, by sending personalized details, you can boost your guest communications at scale. 

However, your ChatGPT content could be repurposed without copyright protection, and, if used as part of an SEO strategy, could have a negative effect on how you perform in search engine results.

Here’s a recap of the tasks you can look to automate with the tool:

• Blog content creation

• Social media strategies 

• Listing optimization

• Automated messaging drafts

• Review template creation

• Itinerary creation 

You only have so many hours in the day to complete tasks like writing reviews and sending messages. As you scale your short-term rental business, automation is key to ensuring you can deliver a great guest experience without being overwhelmed by manual tasks, like guest messaging and scheduling cleans.

So, while you do need to make sure to skim over the content it generates, ChatGPT is a great way to save time and stress. And by incorporating it into an arsenal of automated tools, you can take a huge step back from the day-to-day admin of your business, safe in the knowledge that your guests are happy with a communicative and personalized service.