While many landlords are very familiar with advertising for long term tenants; Self Catering and holiday apartments attract a different set of requirements. The Self Catering Landlord need not worry about Deposit Tenancy Schemes or landlord licensing; however they do need to become familiar with advertising and marketing your accommodation; and how to allow entry and exit. Guest can require accommodation from anything from a few days to a few months – all situations need to be catered for.
Self Catering – 10 steps to guest management
Here is a set of steps that a self catering landlord should follow to help ease the workload involved.
- Advertise (this will be a blog in its own right; and important for the success of your investment
- Pricing the self catering accommodation
- Guests Book Accommodation
- Organise to meet Guest for their arrival
- Guest Arrives – Meet & Greet
- Take Damages Deposit
- Guest sign Ts & Cs
- Guest Departs
- Prepare apartment for next set of guests
- Refund Damages Deposit
As I noted I will discuss forms advertising in a blog on its own, however, suffice to say that you may have the most wonderful self catering apartment, but if no one can find it you won’t get any bookings. As a self catering landlord it is important to ensure that your property is advertised and its photos help make the final sale.
Pricing your accommodation is a very important task. Firstly you should compare the market, find other similar holiday/self catering apartments in your area. See how they are priced, and see how well they are booked. If you have an apartment in London you should be aiming for 70% capacity. For self catering letting, the overheads for running the apartment and changing over between guests is high – so you will need to consider this cost when setting prices. Most landlords have a minimum stay period – as a changeover is expensive, so there is no point in letting a property for 1 night – as you would probably not take home any profit from a 1 night stay. Most self catering properties have a min. of a 3-4 nights stay, while it is not uncommon to ask for a 1 week stay. Again, I will discuss pricing in another blog, as there are several more points to consider.
Once a guest decides to book your property, you will need to have a process in hand to document this booking. You will need to take a deposit (non-refundable); and schedule in the arrival and departure. As it gets busy, you need to ensure that you don’t miss meeting a guest on their arrival, and also to ensure that you don’t do any ‘double bookings’ If you only have one property, you should easily be able to manage this with a simple spreadsheet. But if you own more than a few, it may get a bit more complicated, and you may want something a little more sophisticated.
Meeting and greeting guests is a nice personal touch – which is not always necessary. You do need to consider how the guests are going to receive the key for the property. If you are going to meet and greet the guest at the property – don’t forget to advertise this as one of your features. Damages Deposit (again a subject for another blog); but don’t forget to take one. In essence, the guests tend to take more care in your property when they know you are holding a damages deposit for them.
Terms and Conditions are a necessary component of Guest Registration in self catering. You may refer to a version or our terms and conditions which will give you some guidance as to what the guest is agreeing to. I would suggest that you modify them as per your requirements. The final 3 steps all involve letting the guest leave the self catering apartment, getting the apartment ready for the next set of guests, and the refund of the damages deposit.
To summarise, this is a brief set of guidelines on how to manage your guests. Please feel free to contact either Lenore or Janet at self-catering-online.com where we would be more than happy to help with any further advice you may need on these matters.
