The Lazy Bear Lakehouse—Saving Time for Family with Hospitable

Lazy Bear Hospitable case
By The Hospitable Team

Welcome to Hospitable.com’s series of host case studies, where we take a deep dive into the unique experiences of our valued hosts. Through these inspiring success stories, we aim to showcase tips to help you succeed with your short-term rental business and better leverage your Hospitable subscription.

Who?
Ryan Johnson, Follow on Instagram

Where?
Lakefield, Ontario, Canada 🇨🇦

Properties managed?
1 property owned and managed

Favorite Hospitable feature?
Guest communication—"Just once a reservation happens, from there on, it kind of just takes care of itself. Hospitable ensures no one slips through the cracks. Or if they book at some absurd hour in the day, they will still get the same messaging as anyone else."

Meet Ryan

Ryan lives in Toronto, Canada, and hosts a newly updated family- and pet-friendly cottage on Buckhorn Lake’s shore. Hidden at the end of a tree-lined driveway, the property boasts a beautiful waterfront and a new private dock and attracts families seeking a lakeside getaway.

Ryan rents out their family-owned cottage short-term to cover the costs “that come with owning a second property and maintaining it.” He points out that as a family, they use this place to take care of it, invest in it, and “constantly are getting new things.”

Ryan says running a short-term rental requires more time and energy to manage everything than operating a long-term rental. But it’s also a rewarding experience, especially when guests come back next time and give them great feedback. “This is why we do this. We love to share this space with others,” he underlines.

Ryan uses Hospitable to automate his hosting routine because he can’t commit much time to property management. Watch the video to learn how Hospitable helps Ryan manage repetitive tasks he doesn’t want to deal with himself, saving him time to focus on more important aspects of hosting.

Task Automation

Ryan says that they started using Hospitable to help them automate guest messaging so they could provide their guests with necessary information at the right time. Since the cottage is in a rural area, they want to ensure their messaging is clear so their guests can easily find the place.

“One of the big things we try to do is ensure that our messaging is clear. We send directions and imagery, so with the challenges, Hospitable has helped with the automated messaging,” Ryan points out.

He says they have a few automated messages, including one with detailed explanations of how to get to their property. It is automatically sent to guests “around the time they’re about to hit the road,” so they don’t have to look around as they’re coming out there. “Hospitable has helped us automate that time. And that happens without us even having to think about it.”

Hospitable allows users to automate messages at all customer journey stages, from booking inquiry to check-out. You need to create a list of message templates, personalize them with shortcodes, and set up your messaging rules.

Have conversations with your guests even when you sleep

We will detect and answer questions on your behalf, send fully custom messages triggered by events, and much more!

Ryan has installed smart locks at their cottage to offer guests a self-check-in. He uses Hospitable to automate the creation and communication of door codes based on check-in and check-out dates. Ryan likes that Hospitable “takes care of automating the creation of that code based on something the user will recognize, like their phone number. It takes care of adding it to the lock and removing it from the lock when they check out. So again, just one less thing I have to worry about.”

Why Hospitable?

“For me, Hospitable is all about being able to automate all the kinds of tasks that I don’t want to have to deal with myself and then leaving me to pay attention to the bigger things that need a human touch,” Ryan explains.

Another aspect that is important for Ryan is the transparency. He likes Hospitable Town Halls, where the Hospitable team talks about company and product updates and answers hosts’ questions. “They seem pretty transparent on communicating what’s coming up feature-wise, listening to what features people want. I enjoy the transparency, especially coming from a software background, so being able to see what they’re working on, providing feedback, and getting responses, and seeing it’s being heard.”

Ryan says he has already recommended Hospitable to his family member who runs a short-term rental in Florida, US.