100% increase in portfolio management & 200% growth in aparthotel inventory: How Guesty helped enable BookToStay to flourish amid COVID-19
Creating An End-To-End Property Management Company
With a combined experience of over 40 years in the real estate industry, BookToStay’s founding team understands the pain points property managers face — from revenue management and financial reporting, to automated messaging and guest services.
BookToStay was established to give landlords, property owners and potential buyers personalized service coupled with top-notch property management. Today the company manages over 40 listings, predominantly serviced aparthotels, along Australia’s Gold Coast.
The Challenge
BookToStay had worked with other property management software (PMS) companies in the past. However, after realizing they weren’t reaching their full potential, they began looking for an alternative. And, with the outbreak of COVID-19, the need for a reliable PMS became even more apparent.
After doing some research, BookToStay landed on Guesty in April 2020. “Most existing PMS systems offered some of the features we saw as essential to our operational needs and growth strategy, but none had as comprehensive of an offering as Guesty,” says Tim O’Shea, BookToStay’s General Manager.
The Solution
BookToStay started working with Guesty at the same time that COVID-19 resulted in lockdowns across Australia, putting a pause on the holiday accommodation industry. Yet, BookToStay was still able to maintain business stability amid such uncertainty. “The efficiency of Guesty, and being able to manage more tasks in less time gave us the very important ability to ‘run lean’ since March 2020, and this has been critical to the ongoing strength of our business,” adds Tim.
The company also revamped operations amid COVID-19 – constantly revising pricing, discounts, and minimum night requirements, and have relaxed their cancellation policies significantly. The entire team has also completed QLD Health COVID training courses, and have upped their cleaning procedures for all properties.
The Results
Despite COVID-19, BookToStay has grown its management portfolio by over 100% in just 6 months and will continue to do so at the same pace for the foreseeable future. In fact, since May, BookToStay’s total sold rooms and revenue numbers have been the best in the market and they have expanded their strong presence in the Gold Coast region, increasing the number of aparthotel buildings they operate by 200%.
On average, Tim estimates that Guesty saves the team approximately one hour of productivity per property, per week. Not only that, but the Unified Inbox and Automated Communication tools mean that they can see and respond to messages faster than before, significantly improving the overall guest experience.
“If you want to do the best job for your landlords and guests, then you need the best tools, and Guesty is comfortably the best in class. Great platform, great team and great results,” says Tim.
“Guesty is clearly a more modern, user-focused and scalable solution to our property manager’s needs. The fact that there are many features and integrations available gives us confidence that even if our business needs change over time, Guesty will still be the right solution for us. Guesty is clearly proactive when it comes to features and innovation, whilst many of the other solutions available seem to be reactive, and incomplete.”
