LUXURY BNB MAGAZINE || LUXURYBNBMAG.COM
AGENCY OR SELF MANAGED? Traditional agencies: • A traditional agency (e.g. https://www.bramleyandteal.co.uk/) is a smaller team where you'd have personal & direct contact with them. • Reach can be smaller than an OTA but then the management process is often more personal. • If you feel you need a hand, talk to at least one agency. They often have extensive knowledge of the local area and holiday rentals. Get a list from other owners nearby, either directly or through a search engine
JOBS AND
RESPONSIBILITIES This section will introduce you to the tasks and responsibilities you should assign to people working for you, from gardening to accounts.
SKILLS: Jobs are often split into soft and hard skills. Soft Skills Examples: Interior design and marketing.
Hard Skills Examples:
OTA (Online Travel Agents): • An OTA, like Booking.com, or AirBnB is a website with a much larger reach • The holiday maker has little or no personal contact with the agency. This DIY approach is carried across to the property owners. • Won't insist on an exclusivity deal, so it's possible to have a mix of solutions / agencies to market your property. Traditional
OTA
Fees
20-30%
3-20%
Personal Contact
It depends on the size of the agency but is generally higher.
Email only. Contact via a team.
Marketing Reach
Variable but as a whole tends to be more local
Some OTA’s are worth billions and this is reflected in their marketing spend.
Risk
Agency going out of business.
They set the rules for us to follow. For example, Booking. com started at a 5% commission and now charge 20%.
Maintenance and tax returns
Table of Jobs: For each job, you need to define who is responsible for it and who is going to be carrying it out: You, Partner, Outside staff (Name) or a company or agency. Here are some examples of the jobs you should be considering and how you should plan out assigning them: •
Renovation, maintenance and gardening
•
Marketing (split this into sections)
•
Customer Support / Bookings
•
Cleaning and washing
•
Check in / Check out
•
Accounts / Book Keeping
•
Legal, Admin & Tax
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Biased treatment of other clients, smaller reach. Some agencies focus on selling the easy dates but don’t have a strategy for the more difficult periods of rental.
An over-reliance on one particular OTA is a large risk as they will be setting the terms of your business.
Options: • You do everything from marketing, customer service through to tax returns. • You do everything operational and but use a combo of advertising and OTAs to market your property. • You hand over everything to an agency.
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