Showcase Showdown

⚖ Airbnb vs. VRBO

🥤 Coke or Pepsi? (it's Coke).

🥞 Pancakes or Waffles? (it's pancakes)

⚽ Messi or Ronaldo? (Let's be honest, Messi secured 🐐 status with the World Cup)

It's time. We're prepping our VRBO listing this week to go live at the end of the month. We're also looking back at why we chose to start on Airbnb over VRBO in the first place. For us, it was the ease of use, reach, and support of the platform. As we enter this new era, we wanted to share some resources for anyone doing some online travel agent (OTA) soul searching of their own.

Also, has the massive ad dollars spent by VRBO convinced you to say verb-o instead of V-R-B-O? We're still not sold.

🎧 Listen

This week's Listen comes from the Vacation Rental Machine Podcast, Best Alternatives to Airbnb (Airbnb vs VRBO and More). (10 minute podcast episode)

This and other podcasts touch on the magic property management system (PMS) software can unlock. One of the biggest challenges to hosting on multiple platforms is handling all the actions needed across them. A PMS or channel manager can make that a whole lot easier.

The hosts do a quick rundown of Airbnb against VRBO, Furnished Finder, and a few others. They touch on the great job Airbnb does in eliminating spam, the ease of payouts on Airbnb, and the user experience.

One interesting note the hosts hit on is the niche hosting platforms that offer unique experiences. The episode came out in November 2020. It looks like Airbnb was taking note of that trend as well and many of their major updates of late have been focused on unique stays and experiences. 

📽 Watch

This week's Watch comes from No-Nonsense Tips for Airbnb Hosts on YouTube. (12 minute video)

The delivery of this video is refreshing - no world on fire thumbnail, no unrelated cutaways, just information delivered by a clear, concise speaker. Chef's kiss to this tutorial video.

Here are the key points he breaks down:

• Types of property you can list on each platform

• Navigation on the platforms

• Instant book options

• Cancellations and cancellation policies

• Insurance and damage deposits

• Listing features (including number of photos)

• Fees

• Distribution of your listing

• Cleaning fee options

• Pet fee options

• Payment options

• Terms and conditions.

One that hit home for us was the damages issues. We had a guest stay last summer and do around $500 in damage to the property. Fixing the issues ourselves was the most time and cost effective way to get things back in order. Because of that, Airbnb would only cover the receipts for the materials used...not ideal. If that had been a VRBO, we could have just kept the cost of the repairs from the security deposit and kept things moving. Lesson learned.

📖 Read

This week's Read comes from Amar Hussain at UpgradedPoints. (10 minute read)

Compare and contrast - everyone's least favorite five paragraph essay assignment. The author skips the grade school format and opts for a much more useful breakdown of Airbnb and VRBO side-by-side, covering aspects from both the guest and host sides.

The article gives the hosting edge to Airbnb in most every category including the superhost program, user experience, and communication features. One place VRBO can win hosts over is through its annual flat fee commission option. Hosts are given the option to either pay VRBO fees at a) 5% commission rate plus 3% card processing fee or b) an annual flat fee of $499. The math starts working for the annual fee when you know you'll have $10,000+ in VRBO bookings for the year.

☘ Potluck

What's going on in your own backyard?

We have some guests coming in February for a kayak fishing tournament on Lake Murray. I had no idea the event was even taking place. This got us thinking about other events that may be happening in the area. We found another fishing tournament happening next month as well. 🎣

Your area may have an active tourism board or group that you're not following. Ours did.

We're working on ways to get in front of guests coming into town for events and keeping up with the tourism board's activity is going to help us do that. 

That's it. Whether this is hitting your inbox on the original publication date or you stumbled upon it days, months, or years later, you're now part of STR Recap history.

Thank you for letting us share the STR journey with you. Please let us know if there is anything you would like to learn more about from this edition or anything you would like to see in the next edition. Until then, keep moving forward.

p.s. If you have someone in your life that has a short-term rental, is interested in short-term rentals, or you think could just use some extra homework, please forward this email their way. That is the best thank you we can ask for.