Your vacation property is unique, your guests are satisfied with your offering, but a few more bookings wouldn’t hurt, right? Then use a channel manager for your vacation rentals. With the right channel manager, you not only increase your reach but also simplify the process.
What is a channel manager for vacation rentals?
Ever experienced this? You’ve just received a booking for your vacation property, but before you’ve updated your calendar, another request has come in for the same period. And perhaps you’ve even hired a vacation rental agency that books a third guest for the corresponding period? The result: chaos, stress, dissatisfied guests, and an extremely frustrated vacation home owner. To prevent precisely this scenario, there’s the channel manager for vacation properties. Don’t have one integrated yet? It’s high time.
A channel manager is a software tool that can be used as a secret weapon against chaos and workload. This software synchronizes your calendar, prices, and bookings/messages with all other involved parties, automatically and in real-time, ensuring you’re always up to date. No double bookings, no overbookings, no panic!
Essential for private landlords
Channel managers were originally developed for the hotel industry, where sometimes hundreds of rooms had to be organized in real time. Now, Channel Managers like Dibooq or Smoobu are also available for private providers managing just one, two, or three accommodations. Such a channel manager helps you avoid human or all-too-human errors. It doesn’t mix up dates, forgets nothing, and remains vigilant. With its interfaces to major rental platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com, the Channel-Manager allows you to advertise simultaneously on multiple portals, significantly increasing your reach. That gives a delightful feeling of independence.
End double bookings!
The nightmare of every landlord: double bookings. Having two angry parties on the phone simultaneously, both rightfully claiming your vacation property. But you can spare yourself the beads of sweat on your forehead and the desperate attempts at mediation in the future. Your channel manager prevents double bookings reliably and in real-time. Moreover, unlike you, your channel manager is always on duty. Whether it’s midnight or four in the morning, your channel manager is at work, even when you’re peacefully catching up on your well-deserved sleep. This software also saves you a significant amount of time – an average of 3 hours per week, around 13 hours per month, or, in other words, with the right channel manager, you can take an additional day off each month. Doesn’t sound bad, does it?
Your interface to all major rental platforms
The channel managers from Dibooq, Smoobu, or Lodgify offer interfaces to all major rental platforms, both international and regional. Being automatically present where everyone is searching for vacation properties, it makes sense for you to work with a channel manager. Security, stress prevention, time savings, and better utilization of a vacation property are just a few compelling arguments in favor of a channel manager.
But not all channel managers are the same
While all channel managers are primarily a great relief and your interface to rental platforms, DiBooq’s channel manager has a unique advantage: it connects you with the most powerful vacation rental agencies in your region.
The benefits for you as an owner are evident: If you don’t want to handle the marketing of your vacation property entirely or only partially, you gladly turn to one or more agencies for marketing. These agencies take care of the entire process and preparation, including communication, professional images, texts, and videos, as well as services such as check-in or cleaning. So, as an owner, you either don’t have to worry about anything anymore or only serve your regular guests or bookings through your website. Through DiBooq, you connect with the most efficient agencies in your region, a service only DiBooq provides. And remember: these agencies are real professionals who actively choose and market your vacation property. You certainly won’t get lost in the crowd of offerings.
Here’s a quick overview: The key benefits of a channel manager for property owners.
As the owner of a vacation property, what do you gain from using a channel manager?
Time savings:
You automate your rental business, saving valuable time that you can better invest, for example, in improving your guests’ holiday experience.
More bookings:
You always know who is staying in your vacation property and when. No need to postpone anyone to check dates. Double bookings are avoided, and rejections due to delayed responses are a thing of the past.
Expanded reach:
When you use a channel manager, you can be present on multiple platforms simultaneously and offer your guests instant booking. The handling is significantly simplified. As a result, you will be better positioned on these platforms compared to competitors who do not offer instant booking. The platform booking.com even requires instant booking from its partners. You see, a channel manager is a must-have for anyone looking to efficiently market their vacation property.
Effective pricing:
With a good channel manager, you can flexibly adjust your prices to market demands, designing prices based on season and demand to maximize your earnings. You centrally change the prices in your channel manager, and they are automatically adjusted in all your booking platforms without the need for separate logins.
How to choose the right channel manager?
You should consider a few things beforehand when choosing a channel manager.
Define your requirements:
Do you need the channel manager only to handle bookings professionally and stress-free? Or do you want to optimize the marketing of your vacation property simultaneously? What functions do you need, and which ones can you do without? What does it cost?
What does it all cost:
In general, channel managers in the basic version cost between €20 and €30 monthly for the first vacation property. If you have two or more vacation properties, the costs usually become more favorable with each additional property. At DiBooq, they even offer you a free channel manager if you exclusively connect with vacation rental agencies. Before deciding on a channel manager solution, compare the services and fees of the respective providers.
Try before you buy – use trial versions:
Many channel managers offer free trial versions, including DiBooq, Smoobu, or Lodgify. So, try out the trial versions, compare the services, and then make your decision.
Easy integration and user-friendly operation are essential
Your channel manager must be easy to integrate into your system. In other words, you should be able to integrate your channel manager into your workflow without significant time and effort. This is the case with DiBooq, for example. The app is intuitively designed and extremely easy to use for everyone. Make sure that your channel manager receives all the information it needs.
What does the future hold for channel managers?
None of us has a crystal ball to predict the future, but the growing numbers in the vacation property market suggest that it’s almost impossible to do without channel managers. For those who want enough visibility and, at the same time, want to market their vacation property as efficiently as possible, the channel manager is now a necessity. Therefore, we see a promising growth market in this sector.
Conclusion
If you have one or more vacation properties to manage and want to do so efficiently, you can’t avoid using a channel manager. Now, the only decision led is which option to choose. We recommend DiBooq because it not only makes managing your vacation property easier but also provides a unique advantage in marketing: a direct connection to international and local vacation rental agencies. This way, you achieve additional reach and increase your chances of getting more bookings.