How the Short-Term Property Rental Market Is Regaining Control Over its Booking

The proliferation of hotel and short term rental booking websites have made property owners lives much easier on paper. But what is the downside of having your business rely on a third party booking site? Will the service ever have your best interest in mind?

The host of Say Yes To Travel, Sarah Dandashy, sat down with the Founder and CEO of Boostly, Mark Simpson, to discuss how he is empowering short-term rental property owners to regain control of their booking through their own OTA’s. Simpson founded the company in 2016 on the premise of “not building your house on someone else’s land.” The metaphor has more resonance today as restaurants are struggling with high delivery fees from apps, drivers are bringing suits against ridesharing giants, and property owners are looking to move away from a reliance on AirBnB.

“I speak to hosts who are 90-100% reliant on someone else’s OTA to bring in their revenue. When you are essentially playing in someone else’s sandbox you are playing by their rules. At any point they can snap their fingers and take away your account, your account can get hacked into, you can get 3-4 bad reviews and the algorithm and your reach will tank.”

The pause in traveling last year created an inflection point for landlords in the short-term rental market, many owners last five or even six digits of their revenue over night with AirBnB’s decision to allow free cancellation of their bookings with no questions asked. Immediately after this decision, property owners were taking to forums and social media platforms for advice on how to develop multichannel strategies and building their own booking portals to avoid such a large loss of revenue in the future.