Monetizing hacks for Airbnb & STR Hosts Series- Part 4: Misc ideas for Monetizing

This is part of a series for Monetizing hacks for Airbnb & STR Hosts. You can read the introduction to this series here and read part 1,  part 2  and part 3.

This series is all about looking at ways to discover the hidden money in your hosting business. Think of it like finding money underneath your sofa cushions. The way you are presenting your listing, managing your calendar, charging for additional services or streamlining your costs could mean that you are leaving money on the table or eating into your margins. I can help you with this- if you want an audit of your listing contact me here.

This post with monetizing hacks is mainly about miscellaneous money issues. I wanted to cover as many ways that money passes through your business and how to optimize this. But these things didn’t fit in anywhere else so I have lumped them all together in this post. However, in researching these topics, there are some additional posts that I have planned to expand on some of these topics. 

Resolutions for damages

Running a short term rental is hard on your house and your furniture. Things are going to get broken and accidents will happen. So accept that this is a given so you won’t take breakages personally but you can mitigate the loss to your bottom line. I know this seems kinda obvious but there are so many hosts online who really find it a surprise and also get triggered when breakages happen. Willful damage is a different story and I will cover this in a different post.

If there are damages, you will need to get repairs – obvs right? This is a cost. Some of these you are going to have to write them off as a cost of doing business. But there are some things you really should feel comfortable in asking for a resolution.

There are many hosts that I meet in my consulting business just let things go. They see a certain amount of wear and tear is a cost of doing business. This is very true but you should decide your limits in advance and what you will ask the guest to cover. For me, a broken coffee cup or a wine glass is not something that I will charge a guest for. However, I do appreciate when guests let me know in advance that a mishap has occurred. Accidents do happen – especially when people are in a new environment. So if a guest has let me know, I thank them for their honesty and don’t start up a claim with them. I do pride myself on creating a friendly atmosphere where guests feel comfortable to be honest with me to let me know. This is something that all hosts should aim for too. 

But we have had issues from time to time with larger breakages. For example we have experienced holes in the wall from suitcases up and down the stairs, broken beds, broken windows, singed bedlinen and a broken drainpipe (don’t ask). Of course there are plenty of horror stories and I don’t find it productive to discuss these as to be honest, they are very rare in the overall running of our business. 

However, larger breakages are not a cost of doing business and I am totally fine to ensure that the correct compensation is paid by the guest and not come out of my profits. You should be too. Don’t shy away from the awkward conversation.

As a starting point, you should really have a security deposit in your booking. This is a one button click on most OTA’s and even your direct booking site. This is your first line of defense and you can call on this to take care of costly breakages. Document everything and make the claim with the OTA. If you have great guests, and we mostly do, then this is an easy conversation that doesn’t need to be awkward or confrontational. Have some pre-written templates of uncomfortable conversations so you can handle these situations with firm and yet diplomatic language.

The sort of claims that are most common for us are:

• Breakages of furniture
• Soiled bed linens (we host a lot of kids)
• Minor house repairs 
• Additional trash disposals
• Disposal of old suitcases

I make sure that I am not only covering the cost of the repairs of replacement but my time and energy as well. 

Again, this is not a monetizing hack, but more of a hack to ensure you are protecting your due profit margins. 

Insurance coverage

A note here about home insurance. Speak to your provider to make sure you are covered for short term rentals. You will have different people in and out and this is a different form of coverage no matter which country you are listed in. Insurance companies will use anything to avoid paying a claim and so make sure you are covered. This is a cost of doing business as the premiums are higher than a regular home policy and it will be a tax deduction (see post 3). But it will make sure you are covered for injuries or fatalities inside your listing. These event are rare but they do happen and you need to be covered. This is just good sense.

Affiliate with local vendors of goods and services

This can be a nice little side hustle for your business. You can capture some of the spending that a guest is planning to make while in your area anyway but also provide guests with some wonderful memories and service.

You know your area and your guests the best so you are the best person to identify experiences or services that will be the best fit. Think local tours, cooking classes, kids classes, flower arranging, mediation or yoga personal training – the sky is the limit. The more unique and local the better.

This does require some hustle and ninja level negotiations but it is well worth the effort.

How does this work? You will need to contact the service provider and ask them if they have an affiliate program. Larger companies usually have this set up and you will simply need to sign up to their program and get the code or special link.

Then in your guest book, website or welcome materials where you introduce the product, you use this unique link. In the interest of full disclosure, you will need to state that these are affiliate links but that you wouldn’t recommend a product or service that you don’t stand behind. 

You need to ensure that any goods or services that you are putting in front of your guests will enhance their experience with you and not just putting ads in front of your guests while they are trying to relax. The guests will not feel like you are thinking of them but are just trying to squeeze them for extra cash. 

In my own business in Japan I have the following affiliate relationships. 

Tickets

• Theme park tickets (Disney etc)
• Comedy shows
• Museums and galleries
• Gigs
• Cultural experiences

Tours and transport

• Airport transfers
• Food tours
• Guided tours
• Walking tours
• Train passes
• Rechargeable transit cards

Other

• WiFi hotspot rentals
• SIM cards 
• Bike rentals
• Cooking lessons
• Flower arranging classes
  

My guests are families coming into my city from overseas for sightseeing and tourism purposes. I know my target guest intimately and I know the most popular bucket list items. So all of my affiliates are items that many of my guests are likely to buy anyway. So when they buy through me, I get a small introduction fee. The vendor lets me know when a booking has been made and they send me money once a month for simply letting guests know about goods and services that are available. 

For some of my clients in other countries and other types of short term rentals, I have seen excellent arrangements with local tour companies, farm experiences, cooking classes, private trainers for sport or yoga, horseback riding – you name it. 

The lovely thing about working with local vendors is that you are a small local business helping another small local business. You are capturing revenue that guests are likely to be spending anyway and keeping them in your orbit with vendors that you know, like and trust already.

You get paid for doing nothing other than introducing your guests to things they are likely to buy anyway.  Too easy!

There’s an app for that…

Recently, I have been doing some research into some of the companies that provide a digital solution to these introductions. I will do a complete review of the features and benefits of some of these options. But from the outset, here are some companies which I think are providing some benefit to hosts in digitizing the additional revenue streams for their listings. 

AtList – a micro review

ATLIST this is a new service that allows hosts to create a shoppable web page for not only add-on services provided by the host (e.g. linens, personal shopping – see Part 2 of this series) but also experiences provided by preferred vendors. 

The platform manages and streamlines the whole transaction with the guest – from the payments and confirmation emails to the booking calendars.I was given a quick tour of this product from Tiffany at ATLIST and it looks really great. From the hosts’ perspective, it is user-friendly to onboard and create a professional and custom branded catalog just for your property’s unique add-on’s. But the real benefit here is that they manage the affiliate relationship with any third-party vendor. They collect the payment from the guest through their integration with Stripe, so that you don’t need to faff about with external credit card management, fees, taxes, commissions, and invoicing between all of the stakeholders.

From the guests’ perspective, they get to independently peruse a visually appealing, branded catalog of goods and services with a price list and an easy payment and scheduling system. This makes your add ons shine and makes it convenient for guests to purchase.  

ATLIST has a wonderful customer service team that personally walks you through the on-boarding process and shows you how you can create a page that’s customized for you, your guests, your area, and your preferred vendors. This is only available in the US at the moment but they are looking at other markets right now too. At first glance, this is a really interesting opportunity for hosts to capture additional revenue. You will look way more professional than a printed off price list of your extra services. 

Better yet, ATLIST is offering a special deal for Tracey Northcott Consulting readers. Use the exclusive code TRACEYN to get 50% off the independent or professional plans on their site.

Furniture Sales Commissions

How many times have you had guests ask about your furniture or decorations? To be honest, this has happened to us a few times. It took me by surprise. But if you have some furniture or decor items that guests fall in love with and want to buy for themselves, woudn’t it be great to earn a commission? Great right?

There are a few new apps that do just this. I have just started investigating them and I will dive deeper into them soon. Here are my initial thoughts though.

Showplace: This is a matching service between pre-vetted hosts and vendors for goods. This is a double opt in system. Hosts need to apply and then if you are chosen by particular vendors, then you get free products to use in your listing. In exchange for this, you will need to display a QR code or a sign to highlight to guests that these items are on sale.

Nice right? Free furniture for your listing – let’s face it, you need to replace this often to keep your listing fresh.

After speaking with the company, they are looking at rolling out in 2021 a commission split for any guest purchases. This is a US based service only right now.

SpacePlace: A super new service that seems to be offering hosts a unique way to get paid for product sales. This service allows you to showcase items you already have in your listing: furniture, decor items, appliances. Go around your listing and add items that you love and that you think your guests will also love too.

The system will add this to a very professional digital guest catalog where they can shop from inside your listing.

Again, this is only in the US right now but if things go well, they are looking at expanding to other markets and working with other furniture suppliers.

Furniture brands love this option as it means that customers can buy after interacting in the real world rather than a shop. But also for furniture brands to really disrupt the traditional advertising model to bridge the gap between real world shops and on-line shopping experiences.

From the guest perspective, falling in love with a furniture piece or discovering your perfect mattress and being able to easily buy for yourself is really convenient. The current problem with furniture shopping on-line as you can’t feel the fabric or see the colours in different light so it is hard to really picture living with it.

4 way relationships

These apps are navigating a 4 way relationship so I am keen to see how well they satisfy all partners – the host, the guest, the vendors and themselves as the app creator.

Plus it will be interesting to see how the guests respond – will they appreciate the opportunity to shop while they stay or will they feel that the advertising while they sleep a little overbearing?

This is an area where I think I want to really dig in further and do a full review of these products to see the benefits for hosts. The app creators tell me they are working very hard to make user friendly apps that make it easy for hosts to earn some side hustle money. They are also needing to satisfy some pretty demanding brands in the furniture space. A fine needle to thread.

The apps I have listed above, are really just the start. I’d love to hear in the comments of any other apps or services that do something similar. It would be great to do a full independent review and see how they stack up against each other.

Diversify uses- day use for photography/events

This follows along from my suggestion in Part 2 of this series on ways to fill in orphan days in your calendar. For many hosts, mid week days are quiet but this is when companies are filming, photographing or running events. So this seems to be a no brainer to be earning revenue for your property that costs you money whether it is empty or occupied. 

The nice thing is that the day rate for event usage can be much higher than a nightly rate for overnight guests. 

There are sites that specialize in day use. Take a look at peerspace.com or similar options. These sites specialize in parties, off sites, retreats, co-working or photoshoot locations. In Japan we use Spacee.jp Which is more for meetings and co-working. Plus we have standing arrangements with local photographers whom we know personally. I also am listed on a local website that TV companies and photographers use when they are hunting for locations. But you might often get inquiries from people looking for spaces that connect with you on the usual OTAs. 

Drop me a note in the comments for sites that you know and I will check them out and write a review. 

If this is something you are open to, I suggest that you have a standard package prepared with a set of rules that the booker will agree to in advance. You have to decide if you are comfortable with people moving your furniture or for a limit on how many people can be in the space at any given time. How you feel about the use of your electricity for lighting etc. 

Make sure you document all of your rules carefully and ensure that there is a signed agreement in place with penalties for damage.

This can be quite a lucrative option for you – do some research and charge top dollar for this. But be aware that with a TV show etc, the directors are more interested in the quality of their filming rather than the safety of your furniture or if your floors don’t get scratched. 

Repeat bookings using email marketing

Humans do love familiarity – especially when it comes to the places they sleep. We all love travel but then there is something so wonderful about coming “home” and sleeping in your own bed. But you can be the second home to many others who will have that same feeling of “home” in your place. 

Getting a repeat booking is often much easier than continually being on the merry go round of the big OTAs. When you meet your ideal guest, ask them for their email address and stay in touch. 

For my business, I have been collecting email addresses for years and I have many thousands on my mailing list. I don’t send them weekly emails as that would be super annoying. But I do send out seasonal emails with personal notes about myself and my family plus information about my local area, festivals, events. I also use this as a way to offer coupons for discounts or bonus upgrades (breakfast baskets for example) if they book again on my direct booking platform on Lodgify. Or I encourage guests to send these coupons to their friends to use. 

You don’t need to have a private website to stay in touch. One of my consulting clients has all of the mailing addresses of her past guests. She sends seasonal snail mail to a random selection of past guests using seasonal stationary. Imagine the delight that guests feel when they open their mailbox to a cute letter. This is genius marketing as of course this guest is going to really feel the love that the host has for them and will be a raving fan that will never think about staying anywhere else. They will also tell all their friends about this. 

Of course not everybody has the time or inclination for this. As a host, you do you. Work out what your hospitality standards are and do your best to surprise and delight your guests in a unique way. 

Interested in upping your guest communication game? I’ve got all of my own personal workflow messages that I use for guest communications. I have made it easy for you to swipe and use in your own business. Take the guess work out and save your time. Stop Typing, Start Swiping!

This is the last post in the monetizing hacks for Airbnb & STR Hosts for now but we may add more in the future. Please let me know your thoughts.

_{disclaimer: We may receive a small introduction fee from the vendor. This will not affect any prices that you are charged. But I will only recommend vendors that I know and love and ones that I have used for myself as a customer.}