Tim Hubbard compares checking into an Airbnb in Northern California versus the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The Airbnb's self check-in worked flawlessly with no host contact needed. The hotel's app-based access failed one night, leaving him waiting in the lobby, suggesting STR operators can offer simpler backups than massive hotel chains.
Chapters
Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches. Quick actionable ideas to help you along your real estate investment journey, but with a specific focus on short term rentals. Welcome back to the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. Happy you are here again as always and today I wanted to give you a first hand experience that I had recently at a hotel this kind of mid Covid. But there was a little break in there and I had a couple trips planned and I went on them. So I headed out to California, visited family, hadn't seen them in coming up on a year I guess, and booked an Airbnb in a little wine country, northern California with my brother, sister in law, a couple friends. It was an awesome, awesome time and it was very smooth. Checked into an Airbnb. I never talked to anyone, I never sent them any messages from check in to check out. It was very simple. It's how we teach on this show to set up your properties because if the guest isn't messaging you, then you have very little management. Right. So this one went really well, really seamless. But I want to compare that with a trip I made the following weekend to Las Vegas. And I stayed in a hotel, big hotel by MGM grand, the Bellagio, that has hundreds of thousands of guests all the time. Now it was a little weird during COVID they made changes and one of those that we mentioned in a prior episode was that hotels are going to self check in. So here's two completely different scenarios. We have the normal Airbnb or short term rental that we think about and then we have our traditional hotel. Both had self check in, both had self checkout. I have to say my experience in the short term rental was far better and easier. And we're comparing to this one of the biggest hotels in the world. So what happened? Well, I checked in, I downloaded their mobile app. The mobile app connects to your lock in your room so you can check in before you get there. Now one of the things that we've recommended before for our short term rentals is making it as easy as possible for a guest to check in. And so downloading a mobile app is actually an extra step. So we don't do that. We don't recommend that those types of locks for our short term rentals because it's one extra step and depending on the demographic of your guest, if they're older, maybe they have a challenge with it. I'm pretty techie and so it's pretty easy for me. I downloaded it and I used it without any issues for a couple days. I just held it up to the door and it opened up. But then dun dun dun, it didn't work. I got home and it was kind of a later night. We had a late dinner and I was pretty tired and I got back to the hotel room around midnight and it just did not work. Now, had I been in a short term rental like one of ours, I could have simply opened our backup lockbox, grabbed a key and went right inside. But big hotels don't have the luxury of giving out keys for their guests and they're not going to. So the backup plan for the hotel is to go back and check in normally. So I go down to the lobby and there's a huge line there. It took me about an hour to get back into my room and the gal at the check in counter told me, yep, you know, sometimes the app hasn't been working too well. So I just wanted to tell that story just to kind of reiterate how kind of easy we have it as a short term rental operator. We can make these simple little changes that big hotels cannot make. They're not as as nimble as us. So that's my story. Comparing two rentals. Two short term stays, one in the wine country went perfectly seamless and one at one of the biggest hotels in the world that did not go so well. Now there is a bright side to this, aside from the fact that we know that we can be a little more nimble and we can accommodate changes in our environment a little easier than a big hotel can. But the bright side to this is that these big hotels are doing this so their guests coming in more and more are going to get used to having a self check in. Which means any of our target audience out there that hasn't stayed in a short term rental is going to have less barriers to try a short term rental for the first time. If they get used to checking into a hotel with self check in, well then checking into a short term rental with self check in isn't going to be a big change for them. So there is a bright side to it.
Thank you for joining me once again. And if you guys are enjoying the short term Rental Riches podcast or you're finding value in it, please subscribe and share with your friends. As you know, it helps us spread the word. And if you haven't already, check out our website, restmethods.com where you can get our free ebook on how to find the best properties that make the most sense for your short term rentals and a lot of other helpful tips. Until next time, have a wonderful day.
