Skift Take
Vacation rental companies want to imitate hotel companies with brand name requirements around cleaning and other operations, but they’re likewise dealing with similar problems as hotels when it comes to labor.
Cameron Sperance
The vacation home rental service was more durable than expected throughout the pandemic, and operators of all sizes are seeking to hotel-style operations to take advantage of further development opportunities.
Summer season travel demand is anticipated to warm up quickly throughout all markets, specifically in regions like the northeast where most service limitations are reducing by the end of this month. Short-term rental tenancies balanced 34 percent in the Mid-Atlantic states and 30 percent in New England in March and April, according to Key Data. But that is expected to leap to 56 percent and 51 percent, respectively, this summertime based off forward reservations.
National operators like House & Villas by Marriott International as well as more regional brand names like Southern Trip Leasings see the summertime rise and seek to standardize their operations in the exact same vein as a hotel to attract more clients.
“You truly are taking a look at what can just be described as what feels like, on the ground, the busiest summertime for trip rentals that I’ve ever experienced in twenty years and certainly since we started tracking the data,” stated Key Data CEO Jason Sprenkle on Wednesday during Skift’s Short-Term Rental and Outside Summit.
One of the earliest examples from the pandemic of short-term rental companies adjusting some kind of brand name standard involved cleaning protocols. While organization restrictions are raising across the U.S. due to vaccine circulation, the cleaning standards presented during the pandemic will leave a legacy.
Panelists at Skift’s Short-Term Rental and Outdoor Summit Wednesday
Heightened cleaning procedures dripped down into finding more effective ways to tackle operations at Southern Vacation Rentals, which runs in Northwest Florida and Coastal Alabama. The business now has standardized bedding and coverlets for all of its 5,500 beds that can quickly get cleaned in between stays.
Marriott, through its Residence & Villas platform, has a benefit in deploying hotel practices to its short-term rental listings. The business has actually kept given that the department’s 2019 launch it would work just with management business to have an elevated brand name standard throughout its offerings, which is now approximately 30,000 homes.
“We’ve been concerning the marketplace to help continue to inform and professionalize with a strong point of view on what we believe develops a solid consumer experience that visitors can go in and say, ‘This location feels tidy,'” said Jennifer Hsieh, vice president of Houses & Villas by Marriott International.
Standardization Pushback
A few of Marriott’s short-term rental standards and agreement terms, consisting of non-compete provisions and price parity where such a practice is legal, came to light in multiple Skift reports in current weeks.
Marriott asks management companies to provide their entire portfolio, and the hotel company will then narrow down which homes it wishes to use on the Houses & Villas platform. If a management company does register with Marriott, they are disallowed from dealing with other companies like Hyatt.
A few of those terms got pushback and, while Hsieh didn’t respond to each claim, she broadly protected Marriott’s method of going about the business.
“What I can state is we have not had any property management business who’s dealt with us walk away,” Hsieh stated. “Once they join and become part of the Marriott household, they stay with us. I believe that speaks loudly to the fact that we partner deeply with folks, and we progress the business as we go. We listen to their requirements.”
Comparable Playbook, Comparable Issues
Like most travel business, short-term rental operators deal with a significant labor shortage issue heading into the summer. A few of that may be a self-inflicted wound.
“There’s lots of elements as to why people are struggling today to discover help,” stated Southern Trip Leasings CEO Scott Seay. “We’re definitely in that exact same cart with everyone else.”
Southern Trip Rentals had to furlough a number of its workers at the beginning of the pandemic like most companies. While that may have been the right choice for a business’s bottom line, it also put desirable employees back into a task market where lots of throughout the hotel industry left for good.
Seay kept in mind many of his business’s employees returned “very ferociously,” but there is still a requirement for more employees. He chalks up the business’s more localized operation throughout the Alabama and Florida panhandle as a benefit in recruiting workers through word of mouth.
“I believe we’re starting to see that maybe pick up this summertime, but it’s been a turbulent year with a great deal of ups and downs,” he included.