Why are features important in vacation rental script‘s? Because the features on the vacation rental website give guests a good user experience. When the guest feels more comfortable using the platform, the bookings & web traffic are getting higher. The reason for the success of airbnb is the best user experience provided by its features. Thus, each & every feature is vital in the vacation rental platform. Among the many features, five are very important.
Let us see what the top 5 features are.
1. Smart pricing:
A listing’s nightly price influences the guests decision on booking that listing. So, the nightly price should be competitive than other similar property listings in that area. At the same time the nightly price should not be too high or too low. Because based on the demand in the listing area, the nightly price is changing dynamically.
Thus calculating the optimum nightly price is a difficult one. To overcome this a host can simply turn on a smart pricing feature on the vacation rental website. The smart pricing feature is frequently determined by the nightly price of that listing & then updated in online platforms. These smart pricing strategies increase the booking on online platforms.
2. Admin panel:
Basically, the admin panel is an interface between admin and website. The dashboard, content management, currency conversion were some of the features of the admin panel on the vacation rental website. An admin panel includes these features and helps to manage the vacation rental website efficiently.
Some of the important utilities of the admin panels are listed below.
- To track bookings & listings
- Manage service fee & commissions
- To overview the KPI (key performance indicators) & site analytics
The admin panel is the interface between admin and website. So, it should be user-friendly. Using the admin panel, the user can manage the website operations easily. Among the many vacation rental scripts, Hyra airbnb clone has the finest admin panel.
Let me tell you how?
When the business scales up, the admin naturally wants to add some features to the admin panel. But most of the vacation rental scripts have a rigid admin panel, which means the admin can’t add/alter the features himself on the web page. The administrator had to ask the developer for help and pay again for the simple modification. The images below show some features of the Hyra – admin panel.
(a) Hyra – dashboard
(b) Hyra – Listing management
But, hyra is 100 % customizable & the admin users can add any feature to the web page themselves. This helps the startup business to update features without additional cost & in no time.
3. iCal integration:
The double bookings & property management are the two major challenges in the vacation rental platform. If the host listed his property in more than one platform, they face these issues frequently. These issues are resolved by the iCal calendar integration. The booking details of a listing on a platform are turned into iCal files & then exported to other booking platforms.
All other booking platforms also import the booking details as iCal files. The import & export of iCal files keeps different platforms up to date in bookings details. Thus, the double booking issue was avoided. Also, iCal integration helps the hosts manage the listing easily through their smartphone.
The above image explains how iCal integration works.
4. Channel manager:
In the vacation rental business, updating live data of availability & pricing are crucial. For this job a channel manager is a perfect choice for online rental platforms. The channel manager is a software application that helps hosts to manage property data in real time. In vacation rental websites the channel manager manages & distributes the data to other online channels automatically. Thus the host need not log into all Online travel agencies to update occupancy details regularly.
Benefits of channel manager:
- Real-time synchronization with other channels
- Price optimization
- Reduced double booking
- Increased the occupancy rate
5.Payment gateway:
To maximize the revenue, a vacation rental platform should have an effective payment gateway. Because the delay in the payment process may affect the guest user experience. Another vital factor in payment processing is data safety. Thus, a vacation rental website payment gateway must strongly encrypt the users payment data.
Moreover, there are two types of payment gateways. They are,
- Hosted gateway
- Integrated gateway
The hosted gateway leads the guests to another secured payment page. But the integrated payment gateway allows the guests to pay on the vacation rental website itself. Obviously, guests feel comfortable while paying on the vacation rental website directly. So, while developing a vacation rental platform, check if it has an integrated payment gateway there or not. Among the many integrated payment gateways, including vacation rental scripts, Hyra is the best.
In summary:
In this blog we have seen the top 5 features a vacation rental script should have. Smart pricing, Admin panel, iCal integration, Channel manager & Payment gateway are the top 5 features. Moreover, this blog explained how these features are vital for the vacation rental script in a detailed manner. This will help you to analyze a vacation rental script before choosing it. The Hyra airbnb clone is one of the best vacation rental scripts available in the market. Hyra has all the above features & 100% customizable as per customer demands.
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