Is Self Check-in the Future of Hospitality - with David Jacoby of Hostfully S7E3

Before we start today's episode, I just wanted to let you know there's been some pretty big news for Boostly recently and the Boost Hospitality podcast. We have got a show sponsor now and the reason why I'm telling you about this for this episode is because the show sponsor is going to be a guest on this podcast episode. Hostfully reached out to me a while back after I interviewed David Jacoby for this episode and and they've had a look a little bit more about Boostly.

They've had a little bit of look.

About what I'm trying to do and obviously I'm a big fan of theirs and they wanted to work together and they wanted to sponsor the show. Not only do they want to sponsor the show, but they want to help hospitality owners all over the world increase their direct bookings and their guest experience. And I'm going to talk to you in this episode today about what they do and how they are doing this. But right now you can go to hostfully.com you can get a free digital guidebook, one free digital guidebook for your property and you can go and create a free one today if you want to upgrade. So if you've got more properties or more rooms you want to create more, then what Hostfully have done just for Boostly members is you get two months free of their premium product. So all you need to do head to hostly.com if you upgrade, put in the promo code Boostly so B O O s t l y 2m and you'll be able to get two months free of the premium product. So I'll tell you a bit more about Hostfully over this episode and obviously over the course of the next weeks and months you'll hear me talking about them a lot more. But I just want to say thank you very much for Hostfully for sponsoring this show and let's get on with it.

I welcome to the Boostly Podcast. We're in season seven, episode three and today we are talking about the future of hospitality and is self checking going to be essential or not? Now joining me on this episode we have David Jacoby of Host Fleet and what we are going to be discussing in detail is a little bit more about what self checking is and how we as hospitality businesses can potentially get get sorted for what could be coming. So without further ado, welcome David to the podcast. David, if you could please introduce firstly yourself, introduce Hostfully and just let us know all about you, all about the company and then we will get started.

All right, Mark, my man, thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it. Big fan of what you're up to and love the hospitality community. And getting connected earlier this year was real exciting. So excited to be on this podcast so hostfully. We are a platform for hosts, for property managers to help them run their business from tip to tail. So I'll get into some of those details later. But essentially we have two separate platforms. One is a full service property management software that helps you list your properties on multiple channels like Airbnb and vrbo, and your own website and automate emails to the guests and have a central reservation system calendar so you don't get double bookings. Owner portal so you can tell the owners about how often the place is being booked and how much they're making if you're renting it out on behalf of owners, stuff like that. Our other platform is a guest communications platform, essentially digital guidebooks. So we take that mediocre looking three ring binder and bring it into the 21st century and make it real easy to share important information to the guests. And I think we were mentioned a few times on your Facebook group and that's how we first connected by some users that we have. So it was real exciting to, to see that. And how that started really was out of my own personal experience as both a guest and then as a host. So about nine years ago now, my wife and I, we took a one year sabbatical and we traveled around the world. We had our one year of fun before we had kids. Not that this isn't fun, Mark. Right. Just a different kind of fun. Different kind of fun. And we went to 27 countries and five continents and ended up staying in 38 homes during that trip. Some was through traditional vacation rentals, some through friends of friends. And also, Mark, do you know the website couchsurfing.org I do, I do.

I traveled around America using that website.

Nice. Awesome. So we did a lot of Couchsurfing. This was back in 2010 when it was a bit more popular than it was now than it is now. For those who don't know, it's kind of the Airbnb without the financial transaction. So it's literally hosts who want to meet people from other cultures and help travelers travel. And they'll host you for free. And through couch surfing specifically, we stayed for free with people in Lima, Peru, in Cairo, in Jerusalem, in Kigali, Rwanda, in Hanoi, Vietnam, some real random places. And that's when I first realized the incredible influence that the host has on the guest stay. You know, anything A host told us to do went to the top of the priority list above Lonely Planet or TripAdvisor or Yelp or any of those websites. We got the inside scoop. We got the hidden gems. So then after that trip, we moved here to San Francisco into a single family home, which has this beautiful basement space where my parents come out from Connecticut and spend three months a year with the grandkids. They don't care about me anymore. Just the grandkids. Right, Mark? That's how it works these days.

100% how it works.

And then the other nine months, we started putting that up on Airbnb and that was such a good experience that the main two floors of the house where we live, we have an extra guest room and we opened that up on Airbnb as well. So that's the traditional Airbnb model of sharing your kitchen and sharing your living space. Put it up on couch surfing as well, pay the good karma back. So sometimes we'll have two reservations at the same time in our house, one in our guest room and one in our more private basement in law unit. And we've had well over 300 guests now in our home. And I've been an Airbnb super host for over four years. And I realized firsthand the pain point of being in constant communication with guest after guests and answering all the questions that they have before their trip and then their separate set of questions while they're staying with me, while also realizing the pleasure of hearing from them that they went to my favorite coffee shop and they went to my favorite brunch spot and sure, they went to Fisherman's Wharf and Alcatraz and did all the touristy things. But it was saying in my neighborhood that that got me, that gave them the original unique experience and got me the five star reviews that then let me charge more for my place. And in looking into the industry, I realized there's a big focus on getting the reservation. But after that reservation was made, there weren't a lot of tools to help the host be a better host. And in speaking with more hosts, I realized that everyone had some form of three ring binder, mediocre looking guidebook. And I did that myself one night. So I spent hours on Microsoft Word making this real ugly looking document, trying to have it be all cool looking, kind of banging my head against the wall thinking there's got to be a better way to do this. So that's kind of the high level overview, genesis of my background and how I got into this space. And after banging My head against the wall thinking there's got to be a better way to do it. I, I kind of started hostfully that gives hosts the ability to make a beautiful looking digital guidebook. There's also a print version so you can print it out and have it look really nice instead of that mediocre one in the listing. But there's also a lot of benefits of being able to send it to the guests in advance and a lot of that is around self check in. So it's timely that we're talking about this. And then we started integrating. Just to finish the story on hostfully, we started integrating with some property management softwares out there. One was a startup here in San Francisco originally called Orbi Rental. And long story short on that, one thing led to another. It's kind of like dating. We had a loose integration at first and then a deeper integration. And we really like the CEO of Orbi Rental. We're two startups here in San Francisco. Our skill sets were complementary, our products were complementary, and we meet up and talk shop, have coffee, have lunch and we're like, hey, why don't we take things more seriously? What do you mean by that? And we went from being two very, very small scrappy startups to being one very small scrappy startup. And we merged and we've grown a lot since then, which is exciting. So again, you can have our two products, they're separate platforms and we're doing a lot more integration between the two. So the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

I like that. Really good story. Thank you so much for sharing. And we are going to delve deeper into Hostfully as this goes on because like I say, it's a platform that I am fascinated by and I know many of us are, like I say, good friend of both of ours, Danny from Optimize Airbnb has told me about it and I know that you're good friends with Danny as well. So tonight we're going to talk about self checking and what does this hold for the hospitality world? Now I say, I read your blog on it. It piqued my interest. It got me investigating into it further. I know there'll be a lot of people who tune into this and whether it's on video or on the audio, and they'll be going, well, I already do self checking, but there are so many that don't and there's reasons for and why they do this. But I just wanted to go right to the very beginning and the first question that I'd like you to elaborate on, in simple terms is what does self check in mean to you? How, how does it work? And like say, simplest way. What is a self check in?

Sure. So at a high level, it's having it so the guests can check in on their own without anyone there to greet them. So whenever they arrive, their flight's delayed, you don't, as an Airbnb host, you don't need to be waiting and waiting, wondering when they're going to come. So essentially there's either, I guess, two buckets, one both similar, one having an old school lockbox that has a key, so you enter in a little code, open it up, get the key and you can check in. Or having varying degrees of newer, smarter locks that either have PIN codes on it or are connected to your phone with an app that automatically unlocks it. So there's different ways, but essentially you don't need to be there for them to check in.

Awesome. There are a lot of people watching or listening to this and they will fall under B and B. Guest house hotel owner on my right hand side here and on my left hand side will have the rental owner. Now, like we say when it comes to rental, specifically when you don't live on site, the self checking will be something that you are more commonly known for. Like you say the key or the padlock. Like we have the key combination, but there's obviously pitfalls to that. Now could you just sort of elaborate for people who don't know some potential pitfalls when it comes to having a self checking system?

Sure. So let's riff on that together. There's a few pitfalls and then solutions to the pitfalls. So I'd say three big buckets would be just the technology failing. The guest experience standpoint, having a decreased quality on that and then some safety measures when you don't have a, a person there greeting them. So taking each of those one at a time, the technology failing, that's obvious. I heard about some, I forgot which system it was and I don't want to bad mouth it anyways, but one smart lock, there was some system update that just automatically happened and they got bricked and they just literally didn't work. Unless you had to physically go and do a factory reset of those smart locks. So imagine if it's a vacation home and you're not near there and the guest goes in and they can't, it's broken and they can't get in. You know, having an old school key, you're kind of wishing for that at that time. So you need to make sure you have some kind of backup, especially if it's not your home and you're not there. So some of the smart locks you kind of just put right on top of the lock itself. So a key will still work, but then in other cases, whether it's a back door or you're hiding a key somewhere else or some other entrance in case that, in case you've completely replaced the lock and the technology fails, you really need to have a backup. Yeah, so I'd say that's one area. The other, from the guest experience standpoint, it is maybe a little less personal that you're not greeting someone right away. But on the flip side, that's not necessarily the time a guest wants to talk with the host because they just arrived and they're tired. Maybe they're not in the best of moods. Well, so in general related to self check in, but just things to think about when having. When wanting to make it personal, there's ways to do it without you actually being there. Right. So you can have automated emails and texts that get sent to the guests before they arrive as well as after they've arrived the next day, send them a text, whether you're personally doing it or through your property management software. Just checking in, making sure everything's okay. Also, of course, our guidebook, we really help in that area because it both makes you look more professional and gives you a personal experience in general to that guest. But you can also share check in details very clearly so you can have photos, you can have, even have a video of where you should walk to go and where the basement door is or stuff like that. You can have a welcome video in general. So just so you could have one video about check in and another video that's just a general welcome video, you know, hey, so glad you're staying at my place. Let me know if you have any questions. Other things on the technology side that you can do, you can have smart home technology in terms of like Alexa and Google Home too. So when they walk in having a message from the Alexa, say, hey Mark, I'm so glad that you're staying here. Let us know if you have any questions. That's been getting popular virtual concierge service. They're kind of leading the industry in that area and we've done an integration with them. So all the information you enter in the guidebook now goes over to Alexa and then at some point later on, check in with them. So it's self check in. They've done it on their own. And then if you want to give them a call the next day or later that day and see how things are going, that'll add a personal touch if you have the time, time for that. So that's one thing from the guest experience side. And then the final thing we talked about is safety. So your question being one of the pitfalls, if you're personally checking in someone, you can kind of get that feel of oh wait, maybe this is going to be a troubled guest or not. And you can make sure that it is the guest who you think it is and not someone else altogether. So again, technology can help with that. You can have a video camera, so not just a smart lock, but there's some systems like and Nest and just other separate ones that have the video site as well. So you can see when they're checking in, you can get an alert that someone's opened the door and you can see a video of who it is and make sure it's what the reservation says. There's also other technology like Noise Aware and Party Squasher which can tell if the parties are going on. So Noise Aware tells the decibel level. Party Squasher can tell how many wifi, how many mobile devices are like trying to get a WI fi connection. And then also before the guest days you can have pre arrival forms that they fill out to get some more information about the guests or do background checks or even I know some clients of ours have a whole separate agreement independent of the guests agreeing to the house rules on VRBO or Airbnb, but there's a whole separate agreement that they need to sign.

I think the main takeaway from this is that technology now is so, so crazy that there is literally an app or a solution to pretty much everything. And you're right in the home of IT in San Francisco, you know, Silicon Valley and all that. Well, literally the startup world is just booming and you know, like they say, there's so much software and app out there that technology now just makes it phenomenally easy, even if you're on the other side of the world to make sure that A, the guest can find you okay, B, the guests can get in, but once they're in, there's no mad party going on. You know who's coming in, they say over here and you, like you say you can get all of the documentation, all of the agreements signed even before they, they arrive. Some of the pitfalls that we've had with having self checking and we have literally got the, the old Age keypad combination you've got with your little flip on the finger. So in the winter, by having the self check in, by relying on this when it gets really cold and the dial doesn't move because it's literally ice shut, we've had that, you know, literally. And it always happens at the worst possible time, you know, Christmas being one or, you know, it happens on just literally the worst possible time. And you've also got where a case of self checking and for whatever reason the guest that has checked out has forgot to put the key back in and it's not there. So a guest tries to get in and then obviously your best bet, it always happens when you least expect it. Just being a holiday weekend over in the States without our bank holiday here in the uk always somewhat happens on a bank holiday. So these are some of the old age pitchforks that can happen. But obviously technology can help solve this and things do happen. But I believe that self check in is going to become more popular in the guest house world. So one of the big pain points that I have of running a guest house is you've got set check in times and you'll say check in is any time between say 1 or 1pm to say 6pm and the problem with a B and B is that you find that you're having to be in the house between 1pm and 6pm now, could we sort of just delve into a little bit here how potentially a guest house owner or a small hotel owner, motel owner, however you want to describe it, how could self check in with the technology that you've described? How do you feel in your opinion? I know I've got my opinion, but how do you feel in your opinion that guest house owners can adopt the self in checking processes specifically of all the technology that's now available?

Yeah, it depends on their specific house. There's many ways of doing it. So the hardest might be if it's actually apartment in a big downtown building where there's, you know, you need to have that key so you can't use a smart lock. But there's still been technology that's helped that out. For example, Key Cafe is a business where you can go to a local cafe and get the key there to go in. And I'd say it depends on your comfort level as to exactly how much you want to install. So I hear what you're saying about having the issues with someone not putting a key back or it being cold and the button's not working. So I think having that redundancy is the best. Just knowing you have the backup. For example, what we have, we use August lock and that just goes right over the lock. So you can still use a regular key for that. And it's got a keypad. So we have a keypad and we have a lockbox with a backup key. So if the keypad doesn't work, they can use the lockbox. If someone used the lockbox and didn't put the key back, we can tell our guests to use the keypad. So just having that redundancy I think is key. Yeah.

So there's like the best, the best of both worlds. I mean with my opinion with Guest House and there's a reason why I wanted to do this episode and like you've got a small B and B, you know, four or five rooms. I think the way that I see that self checking becoming important is that number one for a big pain point, it would just mean that you don't always have to be on site. You don't have to hire or employ somebody to be on site. If you've got the systems and structure in place and like you're using hostfully in the guidebook, you could have the pre check in instructions to the guests sent and they can follow that to a T with the video and they could arrive that when they arrive, if you're not in for whatever reason, you've got documented this. What happens if we're not in? This is your code. You put in the code, the door will open and then we will leave you instructions on how you can get to, you know, your room, whether you're staying in 1, 2, 3 or 4, you know, and then again on the actual door there could be again a little smart lock, little keypad and then your key will be waiting for you in there. And again it's all about communication and moving on for the future of hospitality. And doesn't matter whether you've got a rental or you've got a small hotel or a guest house. By looking at these sort of methods and technologies that are in place. Amazon ring and the other ones for the doorbell one so you can see the people that are coming in. You can get a notification when somebody enters and unlocks your property. All these things that you can do in place. That means you don't always have to be on site, which again is a big pain point. We're just coming to the end of silly season in the northern hemisphere. We've got a very busy summer. It literally feels like sometimes that you haven't actually seen outside for the best part of three months when you're really at it every single day. And to have these sort of small little windows of opportunities where you can bring self checking, I think that's really cool. And like I said, I think everybody should be looking to try and adopt it some way, shape or form. Now want to move on to automation. You mentioned email triggers. How are you using email triggers with hostfully and the PMS that you've got to make sure that when the guest books to the point of arrival, everything goes as smooth as clockwork and getting people into the guidebook and whatnot. That'd be really cool to find out what you're doing.

Absolutely. So there's a few triggers that I personally have in place and that we recommend to our users and just what I've seen from other clients of ours doing. Of course, right when the reservation is confirmed, having an email getting sent, whether it's having the same email get sent, no matter whether it's coming from Airbnb or vrbo, it adds this consistency to it. So you can confirm. Hey, so glad that you're interested in staying in my place. I just want to reach out and confirm that reservation is made. Even though they might have gotten that confirmation from Airbnb, that email, getting one from the host is essential. And in that initial email you can say here's everything you need to. I'll be in touch as it gets closer to your arrival. But in the meantime, here's everything you need to know about your trip. And you have a link to the guidebook right there. So you're making this awesome first impression like wow, this host knows what he's doing and it's got all the local recommendations that all your favorite stuff. So now they can look around and see if there's a restaurant they want to make a reservation for, buy tickets to some activity in advance. And also their comfort level, they see that there's some check in details. You might not have your lockbox code in this right away in case they cancel. So it's more kind of general directions and stuff like that. We have some clients that only send recommendations right away. So we have a recommendations only version of the guidebook. And then five days before the guest arrives is when they send the full guidebook that has the check in details and the house manual. So number one is that email right away when the reservation is confirmed. And then anywhere from five to 10 days we kind of see a range sending that welcome email to the guest. And the goal of that welcome email you actually want to keep that as short as possible. I've seen these crazy long welcome emails that have all the information in the world about how to turn the TV on and what to do at checkout. And oh, by the way, if you want to use the laundry, which only, you know, maybe 10% of the guests are going to, and by making that email so long, by kind of just throwing up everything, no one, no one reads any of the essential information. So you want that email to be short that says, here is a link to my guidebook that's got all the details in a very digestible manner. And then maybe if you want to say my lockbox code is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or whatever and any other highlights and you just keep that in the email itself. So keep that email short. And then finally, one day before the guest arrives, send one final email just saying, hey, either one day or some people do it that morning. Hey, just a reminder, here, you come tomorrow. Here's all the information that you need.

I totally get that with the email triggers. And you want to be making it as automated as possible. Don't like, literally, like you say, throw up on an email. You don't want to do that because when you overwhelm somebody, then they will just not do it. They will not pay attention to it. I mean, it's really, really great. Little tip there. Because a lot of people in this, watching this or listening to this will have some form of email automation, email triggers going out at certain points and what to put in those emails. People struggle with like coming up with the content or what to send. And when they are a bit confused on what to send, they just send everything. And I've, like you, I've seen every form of different type of email from just one or two lines, like, what's the point in sending it to an essay? So the trick is to be clear, concise, speak to your target audience, speak to the ideal people you want to see coming through the door and, you know, utilize what you do have. Keep it short, sharp, sweet, and get to the point. Bullet points is always a good way to go. But have links where they can go to if they want to find out more information. Like send them to maybe a YouTube video that you've created or, you know, send them elsewhere. Now let's move on to hostful event. We've teased people enough, we've mentioned about the guidebook, and I really do want to focus on the guidebook a little bit more for this, like, final bit of the interview. How does the Guidebook actually work? When does the guest get hold of it? Like, how do the user, as in the host, put the information in? Like, can you just sort of share a little bit more about that, please?

Absolutely. So it's a simple URL. So it's not an app that you're forcing the guests to download and install, you know, a temporary app for the three days that they're on vacation, but rather it's a URL and it looks beautiful on any device. And we see a lot of guests viewing the guidebook on desktop because they're getting that welcome email before their trip. So they're at work on their computer, they get that email and they want to click on the link and it comes up and it looks great on a computer. And it's also. Our design was mobile first, so it kind of looks and feels like an app. It's super mobile friendly, but again, you're not downloading anything, so that's how you share it. And it works for platforms like Airbnb. They'll block a URL before the reservation is made because they're afraid you're trying to take them offline to complete the booking. But after the reservation is made, you can send URLs. So you can have your email templates in Airbnb or through your property management software, it will include the URL. So you just add it to your email templates essentially, and then the guest gets it. So that's on the guest side. On the making side, as you asked, it's online as well. So it's software as a service platform. You go online, you create an account, and we make it super easy to make the guidebook. So you enter in your address, you enter in, check in information, what the WI fi code is, certain directions, and then any house manual information. So house rules, or how to turn the TV on, or how to use the laundry, and then any recommendations that you want. It's integrated with Google Places, so you just start typing in the name of a place and all the details appear. So you're not kind of copying and pasting the address of each restaurant and finding a picture and finding the website. We make it real easy to make beautiful recommendations. And you can have a pretty cool looking guidebook up and running in say 20 minutes or so, or you can get really into it and start making all sorts of videos on how to use your laundry machine and how to turn the TV on and all sorts of stuff. And then it'll take anywhere from one to two hours as you scale one more Thing mark as you scale and you have multiple listings, it's real easy to make each additional guidebook because everything is real modular. So you can make one recommendation card and add it to 50 guidebooks in one second, or you can take your house rules and add it to all of your guidebooks. So you might need to change the WI fi code, you might need to change directions, but everything else, once you have one guidebook, you just copy it over, make a couple tweaks and you have a new guidebook in minutes.

I like what you said, Devi. You can have it up and running in 20 minutes if you want a super short, sweet and simple. But if you really do delve into it and you invest a couple of hours, then you can have something that is going to really enhance your guest experience, which is key part of this. You know, we've all stayed in, in rental properties, you've traveled the world doing it and you know, we know, we all know people that are doing it. And one of the most frustrating things is when you come out of your comfort zone because we all know how our kitchen is, we all know how our TV works, But as soon as you go somewhere else and you're in a rental property and it's not yours and you're looking at the controls or you're looking at the, the oven hub and it's like, oh, what am I doing here? So to have an app or to have an online guidebook that you can go to to get all the instructions. Now the benefit of not having this on a, on an old ring binder is that number one, ring binders can go missing, the pages can get old and tatty. When it's on an app, it's literally there in front of you on your phone or your tablet or you can pull up the computer. Now, for a guest experience, this is key because like you say, all the instructions for the house is on this app. When you arrive at a property and you're in a brand new location that you've never been to, you're in, you got your bags in, you're unpacked and you're like, right, I want somewhat to eat if people aren't getting recommended. And this is like some of that you mentioned right at the very start. Live like locals. It's one of the Airbnb's original slogans. It's you go off recommendations from your host and when you don't have recommendations, you just end up going to a chain. You know, it's just, it's as you open up Google Maps, you see, oh, there's A Nando's or McDonald's or whatever, you're just going to go there because that, that is what you instantly revert to. But if you've got recommendations of listen, this place, it's on, literally, this is the map on Google. Go here, it's a two minute walk. It does the best tacos or it does the best whatever, we love it. We've been here, our guests love it. Even better, we've spoken to the owner. If you go in mention David, you get 10% or you get a free dessert. And little things like that will just mean you stand a lot better chance of getting a phenomenal review. But most importantly, that talk trigger, they will go home, they will mention about this amazing little place they stayed in San Francisco. There was an amazing taco place nearby. And what's better, you'd be like, here's the website. It's enhancing your guest experience, but you're also enhancing the chance of them talking about you further down the line. So you can do it all in the guidebook, you can do it all via hostfully and as well, you know, you've got all the things that you can delve into. But if you literally just wanted a super short, sharp and sweet 20 minutes and you're done. Now you mentioned as well that guests can actually print these off as well. So how does that work?

You press print? No, it's that easy. Now we have a print section. You can actually customize that too. So you can choose which you can change the colors to enhance. If you have certain branding, you can choose which sections you want to print. So for example, the getting here section, a lot of people will remove that because they've already got in there. This is for the listing itself. So there are some customizations to the print version as well. And then you can print it out. We also have a QR code. And I'm amazed at how QR technology has come a long way. You used to need an actual separate app to bring it up, but now you just bring up your camera, right? And you put it over a QR code. So we have a QR code and you can print that out and put, you know, put it on your refrigerator or coffee table and then people just put their phone over it and the guidebook will pop up. And also, you know, one thing that you said about the guests asking about local recommendations, having the guidebook really enhances the quality of your conversation. So on the one hand, it decreases the amount of questions you get And I'll talk more about that in a second. But you're also trying to provide that personal experience. And I'm sure all your guests have had that deer in headlights moment where a guest asks you a question like, hey, where should I go eat? And you start giving them directions and, like, they just get all scared because they're not from the area. You're just telling them, go down the street and make a left. But they really freak out. So now you can say, don't worry, all the details are in the guidebook. So three days from now, when you want to go to this steakhouse, you can look at all the details in the guidebook and let me just tell you about why I like it. And they'll really listen to you and not get concerned on the details of when it's open or how to get there. Also, we find that not only does it enhance the quality, but as I said, it'll decrease the amount of questions you get. You're still going to get some questions. So a guest is still going to ask you, what's parking like? Or where should I go eat? And if you receive to that first question with a link to the specific section in the guidebook. So because this is a responsive design web application, each section has its own URL. So you just take that URL and you respond saying, here's everything you need to know about parking. Then they're not going to ask you a second question because they realize, oh, okay, all the details really are in this guidebook.

Yeah, definitely. And you're right. By just pointing them to the guidebook at the first point, it just eradicates unnecessary questions being being sent through. Okay, so we've teased people enough about Hostfully. Where can somebody go if we want to find out more information?

Great. So hostfully.com. so h o s t f u l l y hostfully.com and we have a special code. Do you want to say that? Should I say that?

Yeah. So we're chatting before about the guidebook before we came live, and David and the guys at Hostfully have kindly put together a little coupon. So if the guidebook is something that you think will benefit you, head over to hostfully.com, go to the guidebook, and if you use the coupon code Boostly2M. So B O O S T L Y the number 2 and M, you'll get two months free of this guidebook, which is pretty cool. So hopefully this episode you've gathered a little bit more about self checking. You've learned A little bit more about hostfully and if you want to go check it out and if you appreciative. I'm massively appreciative if you're able to get David and the guys on here because it's like I say it's something that I've been recommended by, I've seen it and I think it's great and hopefully you guys can too. Go ahead, get the two months free of the app and the guidebook and give it a good go and then most importantly, if you are going to use it, report back to me, come into the hospitality community or email market boostly, send me the links, let me know what it looks like. I love to see these sort of things live to the world and most importantly I want to know the results as in have you been able to enhance the guest experience? Have your reviews gone up? Has it even helped you get more bookings?

Direct bookings?

So yeah, please do go and check it out. David, anything else you'd like to add?

Yes, also I just want to comment that we actually have one guidebook is free so so go and kick the tires and you can make a pretty cool looking guidebook for free. We also have a premium version, so that's the code that Mark had given you for. And a lot of the features in the premium version has come from hosts that have asked for stuff. So you can private label it, add your logo to it, you can add a splash page that collects email address of not just the main point of contact but other guests that are going to be there, you can customize the URL. And we've just launched a marketplace as well so you can upsell a mid stay cleaning or extended checkout or stuff like that. So that's all part of our premium version which is pretty low, it's less than $100 a year at the first level. But we also have a beautiful guidebook. If you are a host that just has one property and you only need one guidebook, you can go for free. And so go ahead and kick the tires and. And they want a reason why not to.

Well, what I love about this interview, your story is that you're scratching your own itch, you know what I mean? It's like something that you've experienced as a guest and a host and you've gone, okay, so there's something missing here and you've gone and created it and there's so many people doing amazing things in the world of hospitality. But the reason why I keep coming back to you guys is that it's something that is so simplistically obvious that will enhance your guest experience. Better yet, the first one is free and then you've got the premium option. So everybody, if they've got one property, they can just go on right now and just give it a go, get it up and running. Share your links, share them with me, Share them in the hospitality community. If you want us all to have a look at and to go over and yeah, let's see what we can do here. So David, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your knowledge and talking about self checking and sharing host for with us. If they want to find you on Instagram or LinkedIn, are you on any of these channels? Can they find you further if they've got any questions or where's the best place to get in touch?

Yeah, Twitter. So avidjakoby and Hostfully actually. And that's all on our website as well. So just go to hostfully.com and you'll see all the links for that.

Amazing. Okay. So David, appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming and thank you everybody for tuning into Season seven, episode three of the Boostly podcast. Before you leave, can you go and rate and review on wherever you tune into this podcast on I will be back for season seven, episode four very, very soon. If you want to go and download the back catalog of all of the seasons, just go to Boostly. B o o s t-l y.co.uk podcast and all seasons and episodes are clearly on there. The first season I share with you five steps on how you can increase your direct bookings. In the second season we went through the guest booking process. In the third season we interviewed hospitality owners from all over the world and find out what they're doing to increase their direct bookings. And you know the one that's just been season six, we delved into the world of service to accommodations. There was loads for you to catch up on. I really appreciate every single one of you tuning in. I've just been checking my download report and last month we broke the record for amount of downloads. So thank you so much for doing it. Thank you so much for sharing and telling your friends and liking and rating and reviewing because it's just going slowly up the charts and that's all I'm trying to achieve with this. Get more hospitality owners to find out more about what they can do to increase the guest experience and increase their direct bookings. So thank you so much for tuning in and I'll be back very soon for for episode four very soon.