Many people start an Airbnb business as a side hustle for a more passive income. Another attraction of being an Airbnb host is that you can manage your vacation rental property from anywhere in the world.
Although there are many tasks to manage when running your Airbnb, managing it remotely is often easier and less time-consuming than you think. Of course, it’s not about sitting back and letting your STR business run itself. As a host, you must put in some work to begin with, setting up a solid business process and ensuring that proper management procedures are in place.
If you want to manage your Airbnb from a distance, this blog is for you. Here, you’ll find our top tips on how to manage Airbnb remotely with ease and provide exceptional service.
How to Run an Airbnb Remotely
Running an Airbnb remotely is commonplace. Many hosts invest in properties out of state based on their potential for profit or simply because they are located in the hosts’ favorite vacation spots.
No matter where you live—down the street or across the country, your hosting responsibilities remain the same. You must take care of your guests (and your vacation home) and ensure a pleasant guest experience.
That means you can manage your Airbnb remotely with the right business processes in place. The following tips will show you how to run Airbnb remotely seamlessly and cost-effectively, setting your business up for success.
Set an automated message flow
When you run an Airbnb remotely, all interactions with guests occur online via messaging. However, it doesn’t mean you can’t establish good relationships with your guests and demonstrate that you are an attentive and professional host.
You should focus on proactive communication with guests before, during, and after their stay to ensure they get all the necessary information at the right time and have an enjoyable stay. Then, they are more likely to give you 5-star reviews and book your property again.
If done manually, guest messaging is the most significant time drain for STR hosts. Still, you can easily set up a flawless automated message flow using short-term rental software like Hospitable. With Hospitable, you can automate 90% of your guest communication with the help of AI.
Create message templates or use ours, define your messaging rules, and set up triggers. Our system will then send messages automatically.
You can also take advantage of AI tools in your Hospitable Inbox. Use Suggest with AI to draft personalized responses to guests’ messages based on booking details, past replies, and any information you’ve added to the Knowledge Hub to educate the AI about your property and policies. Use Improve with AI to rewrite your messages, even if you just dropped a few bullet points as guidance.
When you get confident with our AI performance, you can enable Auto Inbox. In this case, we will start responding to your guests’ questions without your review. 100% autopilot!
Have conversations with your guests even when you sleep
Offer self-check-in
Many Airbnb hosts choose to welcome their guests in person when they arrive, but this is not an option when you manage an Airbnb remotely. Installing a smart lock is an effective way to address this issue and ensure a seamless check-in process in your absence.
Then, you can offer your Airbnb guests self-check-in and won’t worry about always being personally present at your vacation rental when they arrive or leave. Smart locks enable you to assign a unique digital code to each guest, which is only valid during their stay. This is simpler for you and stress-free for guests.
Hospitable integrates with popular smart lock systems and can help you automate creating unique door codes and sending them to your reserved guests shortly before check-in. You can also manage your smart locks and view codes from anywhere using your smartphone and the Device Dashboard, allowing you to fully control all entries, check-ins, and checkouts.
It's also a good idea to install smart thermostats to ensure a comfortable temperature for your guests during their stays and minimize energy use when your Airbnb rental is vacant. Hospitable supports thermostat models from top manufacturers, such as Honeywell and Ecobee, and will automatically adjust your thermostat settings based on the bookings and vacancies.
Hire professional cleaners
Airbnb guests expect hotel-standard cleanliness, and it’s a top thing that they will notice and quickly review you. Since you can’t clean your property yourself when managing it remotely, finding the right person or company to keep your vacation rental clean and guest-ready after each turnover is crucial.
Hire a local cleaning team you can trust, and ask your cleaners to follow a cleaning checklist to ensure that your vacation rental is always sparkling clean and fresh for the next guest.
Check out our article on vacation rental cleaning best practices.
Gather a team to help you with maintenance
Even if you perform regular rental property maintenance, issues may still arise at any point in time, such as leaky pipes, broken appliances, or electrical problems. And no matter what might happen, guests expect you to take action immediately.
When you run an Airbnb remotely, you can’t get there to fix the problem yourself, so you need trustworthy local maintenance and repair professionals ready to respond to any request. Vendors you should have on speed dial include a plumber, HVAC repair services, an electrician, a landscaper, and a handyman.
Set up dynamic pricing
Since you’re not in the area where your short-term rental business is located, you probably have little knowledge of the local market, including seasonality, events in the area, daily rates, and occupancies.
That makes it challenging to know how to adjust your nightly rates to ensure they are competitive. The solution is to utilize a dynamic pricing tool to help you adjust your prices in response to seasonal changes in supply and demand, thereby maximizing your income.
Hospitable comes with built-in Dynamic Pricing, and the best thing is that it’s included in the Host, Professional, and Mogul plans at no extra cost. If you enable this feature for your property, Hospitable will automatically adjust your rates based on real-time market conditions and will push recommended prices to your connected booking channels, including Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Agoda, and your Direct booking website.
Automate as much as you can
Automation allows you to create a thriving Airbnb business without being tied down to a specific location. Short-term rental software, such as Hospitable, will help you automate all your hosting routines and keep your STR business under control, even if you are traveling the world.
With Hospitable, you can stay on top of guest communication, manage reservations, sync calendars across different channels, assign tasks to your team automatically, handle direct bookings, and much more.
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Many Airbnb hosts rely on Hospitable and other automation tools to streamline their operations when they manage multiple STR properties remotely. You may want to check out the success story of Taylor Adams and her husband, who use Hospitable to manage their properties in 3 different states more efficiently and drive additional revenue.
Create a comprehensive guest book
If you provide your guests with all the essential information upon their arrival, they won’t need to contact you with any additional questions during their stay. Therefore, create a comprehensive house manual that includes all the necessary information to ensure guests have a pleasant stay. Then, they’ll have an opportunity to find the required information on their own instead of writing tons of messages.
Consider including the following details:
- House rules
- Check-in and checkout procedures
- Local attractions, restaurants, and other places to visit, and public transportation schedules
- Guides for appliances
- Troubleshooting tips and WiFi information
- Emergency contact numbers
- Smoking, pets, and other essential policies
Pro tip: Create both a digital and physical version of your guidebook. Provide access to your digital guidebook in advance—then your guests will be able to use the info when planning their vacation. Leave a printed copy of your guidebook at your property and inform guests where they can find it.
When you manage an Airbnb remotely, guests can’t meet you in person to receive your tips and instructions, so they can use your guestbook as a reference guide during their stay.
Creating a digital guidebook is easy, as numerous online tools are available. Hospitable has integrations with some of them, so you can leverage any of them to create a well-formatted digital guidebook that looks professional.
Final Thought
As you see, it’s quite possible to become an effective remote Airbnb host with the right automation tools and creativity. Use these tips on managing Airbnb remotely to streamline your process as much as possible while caring for all your guests’ needs to provide them with a memorable experience. By leveraging technology, building a reliable team, and implementing intelligent systems, you can create seamless business processes that enable you to manage your vacation rental remotely.
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