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450. Hosting Hotline

 [00:00:00] [00:01:00]

Welcome to the Hosting Hotline

Sarah Karakaian: Hi, I’m Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant, and together we are Thanks for Visiting,

Sarah Karakaian: and this is the Hosting Hotline. If you want to get your hosting questions answered here on the Hosting Hotline, just go to hostinghotline. com, ask your questions, and we’ll answer it here on the podcast. And you are going to help so many other hosts face this challenge with confidence because we discussed it here on the podcast.

Listener Question: PMS Systems

Sarah Karakaian: And today we have a question from Leslie.

Hosting Hotline Caller: Hey there. I have a question about PMS systems. So I have a, the PMS that I’m using is HostAway and I feel like there is a difference between if I’m going on Airbnb The different things that you can do within Airbnb that it seems like are not available if it is attached to a property management system.

So I’m just wondering, how do you get around [00:02:00] using a property management system when there are things that. It doesn’t seem to align with within Airbnb, like, um, doing a last minute promotion type of thing, or I can’t seem to figure out how to get my listing to show up in like the, I forget what it’s called at the top, but where it’s like a cabin or a tree house or a farm stay, it doesn’t seem to allow that to be.

In the listing, um, so anyway, just wondering if that’s a topic that you’ve covered in any of the podcasts. Um, again, how to get around utilizing the property management software, but also all the features that Airbnb has within it.

Sarah Karakaian: Leslie, thank you so much for calling into the hotline.

Annette Grant: We are going to talk about your two specific questions, and thank you so much for giving us those specifics.

Navigating Property Management Systems

Annette Grant: Before we [00:03:00] dig in, I want to share with everyone, we kind of say this very often, but I think it needs to be reiterated, that whatever property management system that you choose, they really are there for you. They are not against you. They’re not trying to, um, not help you build your business, utilize their customer support. If you ever, like we have, we talked to like. Um, we have very close relationships with so many of them. And again, they’re in the hospitality business, just the way that you are. And I’m telling you, most of them have open office hours. They have 24 hour chat. They have so many sessions that you can attend to, to help yourself, but please reach out to them. If you ever have, um, any questions at all, I want to share with everyone.

Tips for Effective Communication with PMS Support

Annette Grant: I am someone that will openly let anybody know at any point in time. If I do not understand something, if I can’t find something, I mean, I am on chat probably weekly with some sort of support somewhere because I want to get the answers. [00:04:00] Even if sometimes I’ve done my general search and maybe that search doesn’t give me the answer I want. I go deeper. Is it always the most fun? No, but guess what? Those are for the people that quit, the quitters won’t go that next step. So if I can’t find the answer that I want, or I’m not getting the answer that I want, I will go to that chat, I will pick up the phone, I will do what it takes to make sure that I am getting the answer that I want. So I just want to encourage everyone, there are answers out there, and they might not always be what we want, but I’ve been one too. Get the same answer from two or three people, but I just need to know that that really is the answer, but I do want to encourage everyone. Any sort of, um, anyone that you do business with, I know that at their true heart is they really do want to help you. And I just want to, um, all host. Carve out that time to make sure you’re giving yourselves ample amount of time to sit down and reach out and get your answers.

Sarah Karakaian: A little hot tip. Um, I know [00:05:00] Hostfully for sure and Pricelabs, they have recurring office hours where you can hop into a Zoom room and get your questions answered. And I know Hostaway, we actually just did a big merger with from going from Properties to Hostfully to Hostaway for a certain Business situation.

Annette Grant: Still with Hostfully though.

Sarah Karakaian: Still with Hostfully. Yeah, I know. So I was trying to like make that some properties have not for bad reason, it’s just that’s some properties have. Yeah. But we had to, it was great. ’cause Host Away has a line that you can call and actually talk to them. Mm-hmm . But I, a little hot tip is I have hostfully office hours on my calendar, pricelabs office hours on my calendar. So for example, with, with Pricelabs every Thursday at three o’clock Eastern, it’s on my calendar.

If I need, if I have, I was like, Oh, you know what? I’m in a meeting to ask how to use, pacing reports, I’m like, I’m going to hop in there. It’s like that reminder of like, do you have a question for them?

Annette Grant: Of course, go to the host hosting hotline. com. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. There are so many solutions out there that if [00:06:00] we slow down to speed up and trust me, the reason I’m sharing this is because it’s like a message to myself is I have a to do list of companies I need to reach out to and get some clarification. It’s not fun, but man, when I get the answer and it moves me forward, I’m super pumped about it and it does take us to that next level.. So let’s talk about promos and property type or Leslie’s two specific questions about her property management system.

Running Promotions on Airbnb

Sarah Karakaian: Leslie, here’s the good news. You can still run promos via Airbnb, even though you’re connected to HostAway, and we actually encourage you to whenever you want to run a promo, to run it via Airbnb. If Airbnb is your biggest lead generator, you We love doing it that way because being bumped up in their algorithm or having them send our listing out to their email list. Now, how to do it, I’m just going to empower you to reach out to Hostaway to show you. But you can, and I know that from recent personal experience.

Um, and anyone out there, you can do it if you’re [00:07:00] on Hostfully, if you’re on Hospitable. There might be a PMS out there that blocks you from that feature, but I would doubt it. I’m assuming that if an Airbnb allows you to do it with that API connection with that. Uh, PMS, it’ll allow it for all, for all the others, but that’s the good news there, Leslie, is that you can still do it, you just gotta figure it out.

And that’ll be awesome for you when you want to and need to run those promos. That’s right, and actually, Leslie, uh, you, you could reach out to HostAway, but you could also reach out to Airbnb Support Chat when you’re on that listing and they can navigate you to where to do that and run that, but you should have No problem running a promotion, even though you’re connected to a PMS.

Understanding Airbnb Categories

Sarah Karakaian: And the other news about the categories that you’re talking about, like the tree houses, the OMG, we’re going to put a link to where I’m referencing this information in the show note. Um, but that is not a cat. The categories are not something that we can put ourselves in. So Airbnb puts millions of homes, um, there, they evaluate them using machine learning to analyze [00:08:00] titles, descriptions, photo captions, and guest reviews to then put you in those categories.

Because if you think about it, you might think your property is OMG, but Airbnb may not think your property is OMG. So they are the last say on that. You can hop in a chat and ask Airbnb, like, Hey, I have a tree house here’s, you know, if you can see those pictures of it, but that might also encourage you to get more quote unquote SEO or search engine optimization, Airbnb, SEO, make sure in your listing description or in your photos or your title, um, that you are. Speaking to that category that you want to be a part of. But at the end of the day, that’s not something that we have control over as the user. Yeah, here’s what I will say. The property management softwares, they do block some capabilities. Uh, within Airbnb and every time I’ve experienced it, it will tell you like, Hey, you have to go to your PMS to do this.

And then when I go to my PMS, I usually hop in the chat [00:09:00] and ask them, Hey, how do I get around this? How do I do this? I don’t know that I’ve ever been limited to a feature just because I have to do it through the property management side and not directly in Airbnb. Anything else Annette??

Annette Grant: You got this Leslie.

Final Thoughts and Encouragement

Annette Grant: I just don’t want anybody to get frustrated with their PMS system because they feel like it’s blocking them from being able to do things with inside the OTAs. So again, they are, the property management systems are there to, to help you. Yes.

Sarah Karakaian: All right. But thank you for the question, Leslie. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant. And together we are, thanks for visiting. [00:10:00]