As a dedicated and detail-oriented vacation rental host, you understand the importance of delivering exceptional experiences to your guests. So much so, that a huge part of your success with getting bookings via online travel agencies (OTAs) comes down to what guests are saying in your reviews. Consequently, making guests happy to bring in those great reviews is a big driving force – and sometimes a challenge. Even the consistent, 5-star Superhost can sometimes be faced with a bad guest, and end up, fairly or not, getting a poor review to taint their listing.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could eliminate the stress around reviews and attract the right, high-quality guests you want for your vacation rental? Enter Plum Guide, the vacation rental OTA that changes the way you connect with guests.
What is Plum Guide?
Founded in the U.K. in 2016, Plum Guide is one of the newer additions to the online travel agency world, but with a mission unlike any other. Their goal? To eliminate traveler disappointment by curating a collection of the world’s best vacation rental homes and guaranteeing a high-quality stay.
How do they do this?
They call it the Plum Award. The experts at Plum Guide have created a set of meticulous standards by which they vet every available rental and host. They evaluate hosts and homes on 10 criteria, including:
- Thoughtful design with something remarkable
- Impeccable cleanliness and well-maintained spaces
- Hosts that are attentive and responsive
- A full, detailed home manual
- Quality beds and bedding
- Good shower pressure and reliable hot water
- Ample crockery and functional kitchens
- Well-stocked homes: basic kitchen supplies and well-presented toiletries
- Connecting and size-appropriate living space
- Strong WiFi
Properties that meet the criteria will be deemed “Plum” – an award designated to only 3% of rentals on the market. Like the Michelin Guide, but for homes, this award enters you into an exclusive club of vacation rentals that discerning travelers will seek out confidently, knowing it provides a guarantee of a high-level experience. In other words, if you are accepted into Plum Guide, it not only means that you are part of a select collection of vacation home rentals, but it means that they will also direct a select type of guest to your property.
At present, Plum Guide has listings in 500+ locations across 29 different countries, offering selections at multiple price points.
Who are Plum Guide users?
Plum Guide users have a very specific (and impressive) profile – the kind of guests you want to stay at your property. They tend to be serious and selective travelers who don’t typically use mainstream OTAs like Airbnb, Booking.com, or VRBO. On average, they tend to be more mature (with an average age of 45), and they seek wisdom from experts rather than crowd-sourced advice. They have high standards, demanding quality service and they want to book a vacation without the guesswork and surprises – they want to know exactly what to expect.
Quick booking behavior stats of Plum Guide guests:
- Stays are on average 2.1x longer than on other popular OTAs
- Over 50% of bookings occur outside of high season
- Average cancellation rate is <0.5%
As you can see, the booking behaviors of Plum Guide users are a step above those coming from other channels, showing that the intent and confidence of these travelers are on a different level. Plum Guide guests are the kind of guests who are more likely to respect your properties and less likely to throw a party. Plus they come in knowing exactly what to expect so there is much less likelihood of disappointment and conflict.
How do you become a Plum Guide host?
Plum Guide’s collection consists of exclusive vacation rental properties that are considered to be one of the best in their location. Therefore, each and every home goes through an extensive vetting process that assesses the quality of both the property and the host.
Each time a new destination is launched, the Plum Guide team systematically reviews each home available to rent and shortlists only those properties that present exceptional design, superior reviews, and ideal locations. That shortlist is then passed on to a team of experts that continue with the next stage of assessments which includes additional rounds of quality checks.
This team visits and meticulously evaluates every home, applying strict standards to assess quality, design, and service in order to determine if they are “Plum”. The three rounds of evaluations are based on criteria that they have deemed to contribute to the optimal guest stay. These criteria are based on interviews conducted with psychologists, designers, hoteliers, architects, and regular travelers. The quality checks are performed with the goal of being able to ensure that every home accepted is one that will guarantee guests will have the best possible stay and include:
- Reliable, responsive, and attentive hosts
- Spotlessly clean and well-maintained homes
- Listing photos that ensure a true reflection of the home
Not only are these quality checks done in the initial acceptance stage but each home is continuously monitored by the central quality team to ensure that the quality is upheld based on guest feedback, host reliability, and maintenance of home standards.
Learn more about the Plum Test. Any host who would like to become a host on Plum Guide can apply to begin the review process.
Listing on Plum Guide
Once a property is accepted to the collection, Plum Guide professionals step in to ensure they have high-quality, professional photos to use and help to create the listing pages. The listing pages on Plum Guide are unique because they are all verified and created by their experts, following a defined and consistent process to procure unbiased and accurate information. They aim to create a luxurious depiction and include every essential piece of information pertaining to the property to create an honest representation of the home.
Plum Guide reviews
One thing you will not see on Plum Guide’s listing pages is guest reviews. This is because their vetting process is based on the belief that user reviews are difficult to trust, sometimes biased, and often misleading. Travelers who browse and book through the collection come with the confidence and understanding that each and every home has been hand-picked by industry experts and that the information on the listing page accurately represents the property.
Home Truths and Highlights
Plum Guide builds trust through integrity, and the “Home Truths” section of the listing is the cherry on top. In an effort to prevent unwanted surprises and increase transparency, the Home Truths section includes any information that the guest might benefit from knowing about the house- which may include something that is lacking about the property. These sometimes derogatory facts are shared so the guest will be able to make a decision based on the true reality of the home they are looking at.
Additionally, the “Highlights” section of each listing presents key features to showcase about the home, including stand-out amenities, nearby attractions, and more.
The nitty-gritty of listing on Plum Guide
Like any OTA, Plum Guide takes a commission on bookings that are made through their site. They also charge an onboarding fee which covers merchandising – including a listing that is professionally edited by industry experienced designers and copywriters – and access to local matchmaking sales agents that promote your homes to relevant guests.
As each OTA has its own policies, terms, and conditions, here are some of Plum Guide’s policies that are important to know about prior to listing your homes:
- Cancellation policy: Plum Guide’s cancellation policy has 7 tiers of flexibility – relaxed to SuperFirm60 – giving hosts a lot of options to choose from when deciding which policy works best for them and their target audience. Learn more about their cancellation policies.
- Host cancellation penalty: Hosts who cancel a reservation are charged a 20% penalty fee and guests are assisted in finding a new, upgraded stay.
Instant book: Instant Book on Plum Guide is available in 58% of homes.
The benefits of listing on Plum Guide
The benefits for travelers booking on Plum Guide are pretty clear – they get peace of mind about their decision to book, knowing that the property and service will meet their expectations – but what are the benefits for the hosts?
Among other benefits, as a host, a Plum Guide stamp of approval gives you an elite status and expands your audience to bring in more satisfied guests.
Here are some of the additional benefits hosts get by listing with Plum Guide:
- Enhanced credibility: Plum Guide is a platform known for its credibility and exceptional offerings, so associating your home with those qualities enhances your own reputation as a trusted, service-oriented host.
- More visibility: Listing on Plum Guide gives your property the enhanced visibility and exposure that comes with their global reach along with their significant marketing efforts. Since the majority of their guests don’t use other OTAs, your property will be put on the radar of a broader audience that you likely wouldn’t reach otherwise.
- Expert support: Once accepted into their collection, the Plum Guide staff offers you a host of individualized support, recommendations, resources, and guidance in helping you to optimize your listing and guest experience to attract the right guests.
- High-quality guest profile: Guests who choose Plum Guide are not typical guests looking for a place to stay – they are seeking a specific and unique experience. With your listing, you attract a guest profile consisting of travelers who will value and respect the exceptional service you offer.
- Distinction and exclusivity: Being included in Plum Guide’s carefully curated collection of homes brings with it a sense of exclusivity and prestige that will increase demand and allow you to demand premium rates and be more selective with your guests.
As mentioned above, in addition to the high quality of the guests and bookings you get with Plum Guide reservations, you also benefit from an expert support team that intimately knows the industry and provides various services for hosts that most other vacation rental websites wouldn’t even think of.
- Firstly, they employ a unique team of dedicated account managers and onboarding teams for hosts and property management companies, to ensure that each client gets the right level of support catered to their hosting type and business structure.
- Secondly, they bring in their expert merchandising team to create professional property listings and offer a virtual concierge service.
- They also have a team of matchmakers that proactively search for a home that matches a customer’s criteria and preferences to help each host find the right guests for their rental and reduce issues over mismatched expectations that can otherwise lead to conflict.
Listing on Plum Guide can benefit hosts by keeping their vacation rentals booked with ideal guests and supporting them in keeping those guests satisfied.
The benefits of a multi-channel approach
Incorporating your listings into the Plum Guide collection can be part of a strategic, multi-channel approach to boost visibility and bookings for your rental. Adding booking channels is a clear path to increasing exposure and expanding your business. It also allows you to target different audiences and demographics based on the type of traveler each site attracts. Finally, it allows you to reduce your risk by diversifying your source of revenue rather than being tied to a limited number of sites.
The one major downside to multi-channel distribution is the management, which becomes more complex and time-consuming with each new site. This is where a good channel manager becomes a necessity. A channel manager will consolidate your listing and booking management into one platform that will automatically update calendars, pricing, and listing information as well as guest communications, and much more. This will enable you to add on additional channels without adding on additional work so you can scale your business and increase your revenue.
With Guesty’s new integration with Plum Guide, users now have access to yet another channel that they can seamlessly add to their channel distribution strategy.
Learn more about Guesty’s channel manager.