Screen Your Vacation Rental Guests for Better Experiences
Why Guest Screening is Important
Helping guests create a once-in-a-lifetime experience is one of the most fulfilling parts of being a vacation rental owner. But what about the opposite side of the coin? Booking platforms these days are rife with bad guests, scammers, and other nefarious people, and it can be difficult to sort out who has good intentions from who is planning to have a property-destroying party.
That’s why it’s so vital to screen your guests–although you’re never going to eliminate every bad apple from the bunch, doing the work to ensure that your property stays in good condition and you aren’t losing money to scammers is well-worth your time. Today, we’ll be discussing why you should screen every guest who books your property and then we will share some tips and tricks to boost your number of high-quality guests.
Why You Should Screen Your Guests
Screening Lowers the Risk of Damage To Your Property and Reputation
Bad guests can come in all shapes and sizes, from merely irritating to downright criminal. When you allow anyone and everyone to book your vacation rental, without taking the time to screen them, you’re just inviting people to damage your property and reputation. Screening guests, while not entirely foolproof, is an effective way to lower the risk of damages, theft, and other troublesome occurrences.
Most Distribution Platforms Don’t Do Enough to Screen Guests
Airbnb and Vrbo may be the most popular OTAs for short-term rental listings, but they only provide a few limited security measures and protections to vacation rental owners when it comes to bad guests. Airbnb, for instance, does implement a guest verification process and flags guest reservations if they meet certain criteria. However, it’s always possible for bad guests to fall through the cracks, which is why homeowners should think about conducting their own screening process as well.
Screening Leads to Higher-Quality Guests, Better Experiences, and Better Reviews
Guest screening can be helpful in avoiding low-quality guests and unfair reviews, but there’s also a flipside to it: screening can aid homeowners in getting higher-quality bookings that will, in turn, lead to better experiences for guests and glowing reviews. When you take steps to ensure that guests are a good fit for your property (like the ones we mention below), not only will you benefit by avoiding excess damages and bad reviews, you will also be able to provide a more personalized and customized experience for your guests.
Tips and Tricks To Boost the Number of High-Quality Guests at Your Vacation Rental
1. Prepare a Guest Questionnaire
One of the simplest ways to screen your guests and avoid low-quality reservations is also one of the most effective: creating a guest questionnaire. Conducting this process helps to separate the wheat from the chaff, since most high-quality guests will already have the majority of their travel plans figured out and should be able to answer any questions you throw at them with ease.
Low-quality guests and scammers, on the other hand, will ignore your questionnaire or answer nonsensically, making it clear whose reservations you should not approve.
Here are a few ideas for your questionnaire, each of which will give you a good idea of whether you’re dealing with a high-quality or low-quality guest:
What is your reason for traveling?
How many people will be in your party?
How are you planning to spend your time in [location]?
Why did you decide to book my property?
Will you be entertaining or having any visitors during your stay?
2. Implement a Vacation Rental Agreement
A vacation rental agreement is a vital contract for short-term rental owners, and if you haven’t already created one, now might be a good time to do so. This document sets out the rules and expectations for short-term rental guests, including things like when to check-in and out, what the house rules are, and your cancellation policy. Creating this document can save you time and money if things go wrong or you end up with a bad guest, since guests can’t claim they “didn’t know the rules” when they’ve already signed a contract detailing them.
A short-term rental agreement is a clear sign to high-quality guests that you take your business seriously, and it can also help weed out bad guests (who may refuse to sign) before they ever set foot on your property.
3. Use 3rd Party Screening Software to Save Time and Energy
Nowadays, technology has a solution for nearly everything, including helping short-term rental owners find the bad apples in the bunch. And while Airbnb and Vrbo do conduct limited ID verifications, owners can go a step further to secure their properties with one of the many 3rd party software options available, like SUPERHOG and Safely. These software options can often be integrated into your property management software, which makes guest verification a breeze.
Don’t Have Time to Screen Guests Yourself? Let the Local Experts Take Care Of It
Bad guests are always an ever-present worry for vacation rental owners and property managers, but there are a few ways to minimize the amount of bad apples who stay at your rental. Whatever methods you decide to use, guest screening can aid you in attracting higher-quality guests and avoiding unnecessary damages.
Not sure you have the time to dedicate to screening every guest yourself? Let the local experts at LocalVR take care of everything for you, from marketing and guest screening to cleaning and inspections.