OTAs like Airbnb, Booking.com, HomeAway, TripAdvisor Rentals, Agoda and more offer vacation rental property managers an easy way to reach millions of travelers and potential guests. These platforms require hosts to provide specific information regarding the properties they list in order to give site browsers a better idea of what they’ll get should they decide to book.

Here Are the Main Elements Your Vacation Rental Listing Profile Should Include:

Visual Aids: Photos and video tours of your vacations rentals are the closest things guests have to seeing your properties in person. Since your accommodations are where they’ll be spending a good portion of their holiday, they’ll want to see what they’re paying for before booking a reservation. For this reason, the more photos you can provide, the better, but it isn’t just about quantity. Photos should be well-lit and as professional as possible, preferably taken with a high-resolution camera.

A Description of Your Listing: In your listing description, you should include all of your property’s selling points, many of which cannot be relayed through photos. Here, you can mention the proximity of your rental to the airport, local attractions or dining venues, as well as an in-depth description of the entire property, including appealing features and the number of beds, bedrooms and bathrooms. You should also use this space to address practical concerns like where guests can park, how they can access the property and whether or not the property is child-friendly.

House Rules: To protect your rentals and ensure your guests are aware of your expectations, you should include your house rules on your listing profile. These should specify your stance on pets, parties, smoking and any other policies you can think of that guests should know about prior to booking.

Amenities: Though you may have mentioned some of these in your description, many vacation rental booking platforms will feature a section just for amenities so that travelers can quickly view what features they’ll be getting when they book a specific listing. In this section, you should select all of the amenities relevant to your listing. These may include WiFi, air conditioning, heating, washer/dryer, iron, TV, kitchen, toiletries or safety devices like a smoke or carbon monoxide detector.

Pricing: Of course, in order for travelers to decide whether or not they’d like to book your property, they’ll need to know how much it costs. When listing your vacation rental, you need to set a nightly price. If you want to optimize your revenue, you should also set custom prices for specific days, like weekends or holidays, or seasons, like July and August, when you can probably get away with charging a bit more due to spike in demand.

Minimum Night Rules: In addition to determining how much to charge per night, you need to establish your minimum night rules, which means how many nights travelers need to book in your vacation rentals in order for you to accept the booking. Some hosts are flexible and allow guests to stay for as little as one night, while others want to encourage longer stays and set their minimums a bit higher.

Read more about Vacation Rental Management Software

What Is An OTA?
The Most Popular OTAs for Short-Term and Vacation Rentals
How to List and Manage Rentals on Multiple OTAs