Podcast episode (Boost Hospitality podcast, S7E5) hosted by Mark Simpson. The guest discusses common mistakes property owners make when listing on OTAs—chiefly rushing listings—and emphasizes investing in professional photos and staging short-stay properties by decluttering and providing necessary guest items. The conversation notes travelers (especially millennials) prioritize experiences and spend more on travel (~$5,000/year).
Chapters
All right, welcome everybody, to the Boost hospitality podcast. We are in season seven, episode five. I mean, you've been doing this for a while. I know the product is new. We've been doing this for a while, and you can see a lot of things that people are doing. What would you say from the time that you've been doing the research on this? What is the biggest mistake that you see people make when they come to list their properties on these OTAs?
I think the biggest mistake they make is that they go into it thinking, okay, I have 10 minutes. I'm going to take these 10 minutes and just get it up. As opposed to really taking the time to think about what am I actually writing, what am I actually putting. I'm finding that travelers are different now than they used to be. They're very savvy. All the research is showing that millennials spend more on travel than any age or generation. They'll spend anywhere from about $5,000 a year just on travel. And they're big on experiences. That's what they really are looking for. They're experience. I do think photos are really the crux, particularly on Airbnb. You just can't get away with amateur phone photos anymore. You really got to invest in some professional photos and it'll, it'll, it'll come back to you twofold for sure.
So. But when you talk about, in the, in the blogs that you wrote, staging, Staging your short stay properties, is this what you mean about that? If you could just delve into a little bit more. What does staging mean?
Staging is as far as like, making sure that you have everything in the property that a guest is going to want or need, but not overdoing it. I think that one of the things that we talk about in a lot of our staging blogs is to get rid of the clutter. We do it in our, in our homes. We do it everywhere. But get rid of all the stuff you just are personal to you. You don't really need. They don't want it. Too much clutter. They want more space. They want the necessities they need, but.
