Scale Airbnb Business: Effective Strategies
Scale Airbnb business: learn about effective strategies that will help you overcome challenges of growth and set your business for success.
Scaling a vacation rental business looks very different than running one or two Airbnb properties. Managing multiple properties means juggling many day-to-day tasks, such as guest communication, cleaning schedules, maintenance, pricing, and more. As your Airbnb business grows, manual processes become less sustainable.
If you're looking to grow your STR business, it's not just about adding more properties to your portfolio—it requires a well-planned strategy, predictable systems, and the right tools that will help you save time. In this article, we’ll cover how to scale the Airbnb business the smart way and ensure long-term success.
Scale Airbnb Business the Smart Way
Scaling an Airbnb business requires systems that reduce manual workload and enable you to maintain an excellent guest experience across all your properties. You can’t do everything yourself, so you need to build a reliable team (cleaners, maintenance people, VAs) and standardize your operations to ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Create a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for check-in, checkout, cleaning, guest communication, and emergency protocols that your team members must follow to ensure consistency across all your listings. Then use property management automation tools to automate repetitive tasks and make SOPs even more efficient.
Streamline operations through technology
When it comes to managing multiple Airbnb properties, technology is a must-have. The right vacation rental software can save you hours of work by allowing you to manage everything from a single dashboard and automate your routine operations. Property management software like Hospitable can help you scale faster and put your Airbnb business on autopilot.
Automate guest communication with AI tools
Guests expect fast, clear communication, and as your Airbnb business grows, so does the number of guest questions and requests. So, you need to use short-term rental property management software to address this challenge, automate guest messages, and ensure timely responses.
Property management software like Hospitable includes AI-powered guest messaging automation that can save you from all the manual work and enhance the guest experience.
With Hospitable’s scheduled messages, pre-programmed answers to routine questions, and AI-powered responses to any guest questions, guest communication runs on autopilot.
You can use Inbox AI tools to draft and correct personalized replies to tricky guest questions quickly and even opt for a fully automated AI Inbox to let the AI automatically reply to guest messages without your review.
Our AI automatically scans guest messages for mentions of issues that result in bad guest experiences and will alert you when help is needed by highlighting the conversation in your Inbox.
With Hospitable, you also get Copilot, your personal AI assistant, designed to help you access insights, analyze the performance of your properties, and manage operations efficiently. You can ask Copilot questions in plain English about revenue, booking trends, reviews, operations, and more, and it will analyze your business data to generate answers that will help you understand what is working (and what is not) and make informed decisions.
Streamline cleaning and maintenance
Scaling your Airbnb business requires handling multiple properties, so you need to gather a reliable team, including cleaners, maintenance staff, co-hosts, and virtual assistants, to delegate tasks and ensure smooth operations. Then you can focus on strategic growth.
Property management systems like Hospitable make it easy to coordinate and communicate tasks with your team by syncing task management and team communication with your latest booking information. Our STR super app allows you to automate cleanings and turnovers. You need to create task rules, and our system will assign tasks to your cleaners automatically based on bookings. We will send reminders via email, SMS, or iCal feed to notify them of upcoming jobs.
Hospitable also partners with Cleanster, a platform that connects STR hosts and property managers with vetted, experienced professional cleaners. Currently, our users in the US can opt for autopilot cleanings and take advantage of Cleanster-powered cleaning services through Marketplace Cleanings.
For autopilot cleanings, Hospitable automatically creates cleaning tasks for new reservations, and our system sources cleaners for your properties through our partner's network. Professional cleaners from the Cleanster marketplace who work in your area are matched to the job.
Automate the check-in process
Automating guest access with smart locks reduces time on guest coordination and simplifies the check-in process since you or your teammates no longer have to be present at your Airbnb properties to hand off keys. Implementing smart locks also enhances security, allowing you to keep complete control over who enters your properties and when.
Most STR software systems integrate with popular smart lock systems and offer a smart lock automation feature as a paid add-on. But with Hospitable, smart lock management is included in the Professional and Mogul plans.You can connect supported smart locks in your Hospitable account, and our system will automatically create unique door codes for each booking and share them with your guests.
Optimize pricing
When you have multiple Airbnb properties, setting optimal nightly rates for each to drive occupancy and revenue is very challenging. Still, it’s absolutely fundamental to your business success. This is where dynamic pricing tools come into play, helping you get your pricing right and saving you hours of work.
Most PMS, including Hospitable, integrate with third-party pricing tools that analyze hundreds of data points in real time, such as market demand, seasonality, and competitor rates, to calculate the best price for each rental. Hospitable also has built-in Dynamic Pricing, included on Host, Professional, and Mogul subscription plans at no extra cost.
You can enable our Dynamic Pricing engine for some or all of your properties, and it will automatically adjust your rates based on the latest market conditions every 24 hours to maximize revenue and occupancy.
Protect your properties
Not all guests treat Airbnb properties with the same care as their own homes, so you need to take measures to protect yourself from the financial risk of damage and dealing with bad guests. There are many ways to do it, such as screening guests, charging security deposits, and asking your guests to sign a short-term rental agreement.
Now, Airbnb doesn’t allow hosts to collect security deposits directly on the platform. But if you manage your listings through PMS with an official Airbnb integration like Hospitable, you can collect and manage Airbnb security deposits off-platform.
You can add the Hospitable automatic deposit to any of your properties and enter the amount you’d like to collect. We’ll automatically collect it 2 days before check-in and release it to your guests after checkout. Hospitable also includes Rental Agreements functionality, which lets you set up rental agreements and automatically send them to guests for signature as a registration task they must complete in their guest portal to finalize their booking.
Master upsells to boost your income
Implementing upsells is an effective strategy to increase revenue per booking and significantly enhance the guest experience. You can offer your guests add-ons such as early check-ins and late checkouts, unique local tours and experiences, special packages for celebrations, gourmet food baskets, bicycle or ski rentals, and more.
With Hospitable, you can offer paid upsells to your guests in their Guest Portal. Just create a catalog of your offerings and share a link to your guest portal with your guests—our system creates it automatically for each booking. When guests purchase any of your offerings, Hospitable handles payments, payouts, and taxes.
Hospitable partners with RentalGuardian, so our users can offer Trip Insurance as an automatically-enabled upsell to guests who have booked their properties and earn commission each time guests purchase it. Currently, the Trip Insurance upsell is available for US properties.
We also partner with Yhangry, a marketplace that connects people with vetted professional chefs, so our users can offer their guests a private chef experience and earn commission on every booking.
Reduce operational costs
If you’re looking to scale your Airbnb business, strategically reducing operational costs is essential for your success. It allows you to reinvest in amenities and upgrades that will give you a competitive edge and can help you increase occupancy rates. Here are some proven strategies that can help you cut costs.
Optimize property maintenance costs. When preparing your properties for short-term rental, it’s important to strike a balance between durability and creating a cozy, inviting atmosphere. Invest in durable furniture that is easy to clean and maintain. Opt for hard flooring that can handle high foot traffic and last longer than carpets, which require frequent vacuuming and deep cleaning and need to be replaced when they're old or worn out. This way, you’ll avoid exhaustive maintenance costs.
Install smart thermostats to automate temperature control at your Airbnb properties. Smart thermostats can automatically adjust temperature settings when the rental is vacant and guests are away, minimizing energy consumption while maintaining comfort. This way, you’ll be able to save money on utility bills and reduce your expenses.
Moreover, you can connect the compatible smart thermostats to Hospitable, and our system will sync them with bookings. Hospitable will automatically adjust your thermostat settings based on your guests’ reservation status to optimize energy use, saving you time and money.
Invest in an all-in-one property management system. Choose property management software that fits your business needs and offers features that matter most to your processes and workflows. You should look for a scalable solution that offers a comprehensive set of features and helps you maintain efficient operations as your STR business grows.
For example, Hospitable offers advanced features and tools essential for automating daily operations, including Smart Lock, Smart Thermostat Management, and Dynamic Pricing, as part of its subscription plans. So, Hospitable users don’t need to pay extra for additional features or third-party tools.
Watch the video to discover how Jade and Tammy, Directors of Ready Set Stay, use Hospitable to manage 140 STR properties across multiple regions without sacrificing guest experience, save time, and grow their business with confidence.
Final Thought
To effectively scale your Airbnb business, you need a well-planned strategy that carefully considers every step of this exciting but complex journey. It’s essential to build systems that can help ensure sustainable, strategic growth and implement advanced property management software to automate your key operations and tasks. Then, you’ll be able to add more Airbnb properties to your portfolio and manage them without sacrificing service quality or operational efficiency.
With the right systems and tools in place, you’ll be able to replicate the processes you already use for existing short-term rentals across your new ones. Implementing a PMS that supports your growth will simplify your operations, help you deliver consistent guest experiences across your properties, scale your business, and enable smarter decision-making.
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Table of contents
Scale Airbnb Business the Smart Way
Streamline operations through technology
Master upsells to boost your income
Reduce operational costs