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90% Occupancy rate with multi-channel distribution
How a vacation rental entrepreneur achieves high occupancy rates with 0 double bookings and little manual work.
Karthik Kumar is an experience short-term rental business owner and Airbnb arbitrage coach. Karthik operates a blended portfolio, ranging from owned properties, and arbitraged rentals. Karthik has enjoyed skyrocketing growth, starting with 1 property in late-2021 to 10 by early-2023.
As a computer engineer, Karthik constantly looks for ways to make processes more efficient and at cheaper costs. When he focused his attention on marketing and revenue management, Karthik realized that the key to success was multi-channel distribution. Here’s how he used Hostfully to achieve results.
Overview
Before
• Overemphasis in arbitrage groups on listing on Airbnb
• No clear way to easily sync multiple properties on one calendar
After
• 10 properties synced on Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com
• Ability to easily sync offline reservations to central calendar
• Dynamic pricing optimizes rates automatically
Impact
• 90% occupancy rate
• More long-term reservations
• 0 double-bookings
“Hostfully makes distributing my listings across the major sites so easy. Just set it up once, and the software takes care of the rest.”
Karthik Kumar
Before
Limited mindset on distribution for an ambitious entrepreneur
In 2021, Karthik ventured into the vacation rental industry after learning about its potential for strong earnings. His interests aligned with the arbitrage model, rather than the traditional property management one. Rather than diving in blindly, Karthik sought education through coaching and mastermind groups. During his involvement in these groups, the focus was primarily on listing properties on Airbnb. However, Karthik recognized the limitations of relying solely on Airbnb and conducted research to discover alternative platforms like Vrbo and Booking.com that catered to different types of travelers. To optimize occupancy rates and reduce risk, he decided to expand distribution on these channels. Nevertheless, he also realized that managing this distribution expansion manually would be unfeasible.
After
Enhanced multi-channel distribution a few clicks away
Karthik sought to maximize his earning potential and expand his portfolio. He understood that software would play a key role in managing properties, and discovered Hostfully. From his research, he learnt Hostfully’s channel manager has a reputation for reliability (and additional features such as automating guest messaging).
After signing up with Hostfully, he created profiles on Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com. Karthik easily synced them into Hostfully, which was a quick and easy setup. He was then able to populate all three sites simultaneously by creating a listing on Hostfully and pushing that information out.
By listing on all three sites, Karthik observed a trend in which his Airbnb reservations filled up quickly, while Vrbo and Booking.com helped him to fill gaps in vacancies. With the multi-channel distribution enabled, Karthik achieved an impressive 80-90% occupancy rate, depending on seasonality. Due to the strength and reliability of Hostfully’s connection to the listing sites, Karthik has also never encountered double bookings.
Bonus
When automation isn’t possible, manual work made easy
Karthik sought to increase his long-term bookings and found success by signing up to insurance companies’ temporary housing portals. Unfortunately, these niche portals don’t integrate to the major property management platforms, including Hostfully. Nevertheless, when Karthik receives a reservation through these portals, he can easily block off his calendar on Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com with just a few clicks using the Hostfully channel manager.
As an added bonus, the integration between Hostfully and Wheelhouse has enabled Karthik to maximize his earnings for each reservation. Karthik is able to adjust his pricing strategy based on his business goals, and update his calendar across all the platforms instantaneously. Once he has a new pricing strategy in place, Wheelhouse sends the data to Hostfully. Hostfully then sends that information to the listing sites immediately.
