There are more similarities between urban operators and traditional leisure market short-term rental managers than differences. But urban operators are bringing a brand new perspective to the short-term rental industry. As a result, this metropolitan segment of the market is becoming the catalyst for growth on many fronts - including technology.
"Traditional" short-term rental operators are direct booking experts and truly epitomize the essence of hospitality and have an abundance of knowledge to share with urban counterparts that seek to provide a superior guest experience. But the urban short-stay space has grown-up as the amount of money invested in metropolitan brands like MadeComfy, Lyric and Oasis, continues to increase.
MyVR is meeting these demands with two exciting new enhancements that will further blend the best of hotel and traditional short-term rental technology. It is incredibly exciting and dynamic to have both perspectives creating evolution in the industry.
Rise of the Metropolitan Rental
While urban short-term rentals like “aparthotels” are still new to the market, they are pushing the boundaries of technology expectations in a way that will benefit everyone. The push stems from the differences in inventory, marketing channels, and competition that traditional and urban operators are faced with.
Similar to their largest competitors, hotels, and unlike their traditional counterparts, urban players are managing groups of units, or unit-types (such as One Bedroom, Studio or Suite unit-types) from a building. And while multi-family buildings like apartments are more common in urban areas, the real rise in popularity came when the industry discovered that the unit-type model can be more cost-effective. By accommodating for large group bookings and business travelers, unit-type rentals and their channel listings can have significantly higher upside potential and lower operational costs.
As a result of these differences, additional technological functionality is required for urban managers to continue growing and adequately compete with hotels. Because MyVR has grown with our customers in urban markets, we are uniquely positioned to keep bringing enhanced functionality to the broader short-term rental community.
Blending the Best Elements of Vacation Rental and Hotel Industry Technology
MyVR was the first short-term rental management software to offer native integrations with all of the major channels, so when urban operators searched for property management software they found their primary needs were addressed by MyVR’s best-in-class channel management and the flexibility to innovate and scale. As a result, MyVR has become the “PMS of Choice” for urban short-term rental managers.
In Q1 of 2020, MyVR is launching two new exciting features as part of our commitment to the urban space; Unit-Type Management, and a new channel integration that allows listing and marketing rentals on the world’s largest Global Distribution Systems (GDS). With these enhancements, MyVR’s channel management offering will support short-term rentals to be marketed, and managed like their biggest competitors - hotels.
Market Like a Hotel - The Global Distribution System (GDS)
Urban operators compete with hotels more than any other segment of the vacation rental industry. Marketing properties on the GDS opens up rental inventory to over 600,000 travel agents and tour operators worldwide and targets business travelers that are key to urban destinations. The use of travel agents has steadily been rising over the last three years with 19% of consumers reporting that they plan to use a travel agent within the next 12 months to plan a vacation including to leisure destination markets.
Manage Like a Hotel - Unit-Type Management
The new support for Unit-Type Management allows short-term rental managers to map similar units to a unit-type much like hotel marketing. Unit-types can be merchandised just like individual units and then marketed across channels to optimize rankings and availability. Channels such as Booking.com, Expedia and the GDS perform better with hotel-type inventory and unit-types are much easier to manage for staff.
Instead of changing rates across dozens of individual units, rates can be changed at the unit-type property level and automatically updated across all of the individual child-units. Unit-type property availability is easily optimized. Because the guest has not committed to a specific unit at any point in the booking process, the property manager has the flexibility to move reservations amongst the mapped child units to minimize trapped nights.
MyVR- The Property Management Software of Choice for Urban Short-Term Rentals
These enhancements build on the Q4 2019 release that brought enhancements to channel management tools built to optimize rankings. Unlike third-party channel managers, MyVR’s built-in channel management software works side-by-side with a unified guest CRM and inbox that streamlines messaging and reservation sales operations into one cohesive platform.
With the constant evolution of each individual online travel agency, MyVR commits a tremendous amount of resources to keeping the integrations with each channel up-to-date. We continuously build enhancements to ensure clients (urban and traditional) can maximize the marketing of their properties with as little effort as possible.
