Airbnb vs Vrbo vs Booking vs Direct Booking

(00:00) the age-old question what’s the actual difference between Airbnb vbo booking.com and all these other platforms out there and what’s the difference between all that and getting direct bookings and when you’re first getting started or if you already have a property should you bother listing on these other platforms should you try to get direct bookings is Airbnb really where it’s at in this video I’m going to aim to answer all of those questions for you so that you can get a full comprehensive understanding of the main
(00:28) pros and cons and differences between all these different platforms and which one is most suitable for you depending on where you’re at in your short-term rental Journey let’s start with the big player the one that everybody knows Airbnb now if you’re just getting started on Airbnb or you’re just getting started with short-term rentals I should say then Airbnb is really the place to start the big advantage of any of what we call OTAs online travel agencies that’s your Airbnb your booking.com your vbo the big
(01:02) Advantage there is that they do the marketing for you you don’t have to figure out how to go and find people in this big huge world of the internet who actually are looking to stay at a property that you might have to list on Airbnb you can just list it on Airbnb and they’ll go and find all those people they already have this huge community of people that likes to travel and stay at short-term rentals that go there all the time so it’s your marketing pretty much taken care of obviously you are paying
(01:30) for that you’re paying a fee for Airbnb to do that they’re charging an upcharge on the price that you set or they’re deducting from the price you set depending on how you’ve set up your settings on Airbnb but essentially you are paying one way or another for Airbnb to go out and do this marketing now you also get some really great benefits that are really really valuable to brand new host as well like the $3 million host protection guarantee and the fact that Airbnb has their own support staff on
(01:57) Call greatest one and if you talk to any Airbnb host will tell that there are certainly some problems with that but it does exist and they also have a loyal customer base so that’s really great and you also get these different benefits of Airbnb like just making the credit card processing go away because they deal with all of that but you do pay for it so there’s pros and there’s cons there uh you also are now reliant on Airbnb when you’re on there so that’s a bit of a con but for most people getting
(02:25) started it’s just where I recommend starting uh pretty much everyone is just better off starting on Airbnb for most properties because it’s just so darn easy you don’t have to worry about it you can just set your property up and as long as you actually optimize it correctly we’ve got other videos on this channel that dive all into that then you’re going to be relatively successful now once you actually have that Foundation set and you’ve got your stuff nailed and you’ve maybe even joined B&B
(02:53) tribe our community for Airbnb hosts and co-hosts and investors teaching you how to optimize every single aspect of that Airbnb listing so that you can really be in the top tier performance and making great money Link in the description down below then you may decide you want to take things to the next level and go multi- Channel now going multi- Channel just simply means that you’re taking this property that you’ve got on Airbnb and instead of just marketing it exclusively on Airbnb you’re now going
(03:20) to Market it on let’s say vbo or booking.com in addition to that now when you go and do that you’re going to need what’s called a channel management software this is a software that syncs everything up on the back end so that you don’t have things like double bookings happening because if one person books on vbo now you need to make sure that date gets blocked on Airbnb so that two guests from different platforms don’t book the exact same night you also want to make sure that you have one
(03:46) simple Unified Inbox so that you can go and message all your guests in one place you don’t want to be logging in and out of two or three different accounts to make changes and then forgetting to respond to a certain guest things like that you also want one place to do your pricing updates your listing updates everything and so that’s where Channel management softwares come in we’ve got other videos on this channel and all kinds of really great training in B&B tribe all about Channel management
(04:08) softwares and choosing the right one but you’re going to need that now which platform should you go out to should you go to vbo should you go to booking.com should you go one the one of these other ones you’ve heard of like wimo or Expedia or Google vacation rentals and the answer is it largely depends on the type of property that you have but for the most part the answer is almost always is either vbo or booking.
(04:33) com they’re the two other major players in the space now depending on the property you have and the location of your property one may be better than the other but there will definitely be nuances that you need to get used to that you won’t be used to after being on Airbnb for example in a lot of situations if you expand over to vrb booking.
(04:55) com you’re going to need to now process your own credit card payments that can be one of the worst parts of listing your property on a platform other than Airbnb because until you actually do it you never really think about the fact that there’s fraud out there there’s disputes that happen there’s refund policies you need to you know work out and the luxury of having Airbnb do all that for you is really nice are you a brand new or experienced Airbnb host co-host or investor who wants to host as successfully as profitably and with as much fun as
(05:29) possible if so then I would love to invite you to check out BNB tribe Linked In the description down below this video it’s our exclusive Community for Airbnb hosts investors and co-hosts from all over the world where I share some of my best trainings that go into detail on every single aspect of Airbnb hosting from A to Z we’ve got Advanced Training playbooks that will help you to use more advanced strategies to take things to the next level and make more money and have more fun hosting co-hosting or
(05:58) investing on Airbnb you’re also going to get access to an incredible community and over $2500 worth of deals perks discounts bonuses that I’ve negotiated with other vendors in the short-term rental industry so if you want access to all of that and a whole bunch more check out the link in the description down below for B&B tribe and I would love to see you on the inside now the control you get from having that in your own wheelhouse when you list with vrb booking.
(06:27) com is actually really nice but you do need to have the right system set up so that if someone goes uses a stolen credit card happens quite a bit to go and try to book your property you are able to detect that fraud and make sure the person isn’t able to get a free stay that later that credit card company is going to come and Claw back that money from you again this happens pretty frequently if you don’t have the right system set up depending on where your property is it can be a really big issue so you need need to be prepared for this
(06:52) kind of stuff you also need to make sure that you now are going out and charging security deposits and that you’re managing your own liability make sure you have really good insurance policies because neither vbo nor booking.com has anywhere close to the kind of liability coverage that you get when you list your property on Airbnb meaning that if a guest does damage your property or some other issue happens during this day you’re really not going to be covered as much as you would be with Airbnb you’re
(07:19) going need to have something like a security deposit or your own insurance policy you can use third party insurance policies like I think it’s guest hog or host hog uh offer some that’ll just give you that added layer protection but again just a Nuance you have to work through now the advantage of listing on these other platforms is that you open your property up to a whole new set of guests that maybe aren’t even looking on Airbnb typically they’re also willing to pay a little bit more I found that in
(07:47) general when you list on booking.com or vbo you’re going to make more money per night than you would on another platform like Airbnb now the other benefit is that you actually get more control by having less things taken care of by the OTA the platform you get more stuff inside your control and so you become less platform dependent which is really nice and you’re now Diversified so you’re less dependent on one single platform as well there’s also some policies that I tend to like better on the other platforms you’re not penalized
(08:17) or kind of hurt punished quite as much on the other platforms for negative reviews as you are on Airbnb and that can be a blessing and a curse obviously for the right host who’s doing a really great job and trying really hard and just has that one guest who gives you a bad review for a really unjustified reason it’s really nice to not be having to stress like crazy about that but for bad host who just want to give a really subpar experience it can be an issue so kind of pros and cons to that and obviously the other big benefit here is
(08:49) that you just get more bookings and more Revenue because you get this additional exposure you should be able to fill in more gaps in your calendar and make more money now in terms of deciding between the two my answer is is almost always that if you have a more Hotel equivalent property meaning that someone might choose to stay in your property or they might choose to stay in a hotel You’ kind of be directly competing with them then booking.
(09:13) com tends to be a really good option the reason being the booking.com was primarily built for hotels and so the majority of the people that book a property using booking.com tend to be looking for hotels and so if they go and see your one-bedroom or studio apartment in a downtown Metro area near business travel what have you then they’re more likely to book that property than if they see your vacation rental that’s 30 minutes outside of the city now it’s not to say that you won’t get any bookings on booking.com with a
(09:41) property like that it’s just to say that you’re probably going to get more bookings over on vrpo vacation rental by owner so needless to say if you have a more traditional vacation rental meaning you’re not renting a one bedroom or studio apartment that’s down in the city you’re renting more like a three or four or five bedroom home in a vacation destination a station destination outside the city something like that where a family or a group of friends could stay vbo tends to be a really good
(10:08) option so I recommend expanding to one of the two to start with and then maybe down the road expanding to the other one now the next question I get asked all the time is you know there’s like 9,000 other platforms that I could list on is it really worth it and the answer is pretty much a resounding no it’s just not really that worth your while in my experience I would rather encourage someone to go and pursue a direct booking strategy after getting onto some of the major platforms as opposed to trying to go get listed on all the
(10:40) additional platforms now direct bookings can be a really really great way to get even more control in your court and to really be able to fill those gaps and to make more money now the downside with direct bookings is marketing marketing falls on you you also don’t have the support of the platform you get any of that insurance coverage any of those really nice perks and benefits that you get when you’re listing on one of those really great OTAs but you do get a lot of control and if you’re already an
(11:09) experienced host who’s already been hosting for a while on these other platforms then chances are you pretty probably have a pretty good understanding of kind of the landscape of short- ter rentals what things you are going to need to watch out for what things you are going to need to have in place like your own Payment Processing your own channel management software your own softwares for or or insurance policies that kind of stuff as long as you have that stuff taken care of then direct bookings can be a really really
(11:33) great option now what I recommend as a starting point for direct bookings is to start collecting email addresses as soon as possible for any guests that stay at your property now my preferred method of doing this is via the Wii when people go to log into your Wi-Fi you can use a device like stafi there’s going to be a link in the description down below if you want to check them out and use my link and support the channel and stafi is going to then allow you to collect guest email addresses just like you
(11:58) would at a hotel when you go go to log into the hotel Wi-Fi they ask you for your name maybe your room number your email address you’re going to do an optin there and so you can set up that at your own property now you’ll be collecting the email addresses of every single person that stays at your property and uses the Wi-Fi and then you can set up a really simple email marketing strategy that’s going to email your guests maybe once a month just trying to get them to rebook with you for other dates it can be really
(12:24) effective it’s very very low cost very very low risk because you know that the people on that list are people that really want to stay at your vacation rental they’ve already done it before they’ve already put their dollars there and you get the luxury of knowing the guests that you’re going to be hosting before you ever host them you’re not booking at complete strangers so it’s a really really great easy way to get started there’s other ways you can get started with direct bookings or even
(12:49) grow your direct bookings like social media marketing uh you can even do paid advertising there’s all kinds of different stuff but my personal favorite is just remarketing to your existing guests cuz now you can leverage this traction you built up on Airbnb vbob booking.com and start making even more money not paying any of those platform commissions you give the guests a bit of a discount to give them incentive to book with you directly it’s just a win-win right across the board so if you’re interested in learning more in
(13:16) depth how to actually do all this how to optimize on all these different platforms navigate everything then I highly recommend you check out B&B tribe it’s our brand new community with all kinds of great trainings it’s got our B&B boot camp training that’s going to walk you through the A to Z of Hosting it’s got our Advanced Training playbooks for how to do things like list your property on multiple channels how to find the right pricing software the right channel management software how to
(13:40) get direct bookings and set up your email marketing strategies it’s got great connections for things like Insurance all the different stuff all packed in to a super super low monthly rate very very accessible to everyone we want to grow this community to be the goto place for anyone looking to learn about Airbnb hosting co-hosting Property Management investing whatever you’re path might be highly recommend checking that out it’s linked in the description down below I hope you really enjoyed this video if you have any other
(14:05) questions or comments or thoughts that you want to share then let me know in the comment section down below hit like on this video if you did enjoy it and get value from it I hope this has helped you to get a better understanding of this whole landscape of short-term rentals and these all these different OTA platforms and last but not least if you are into this channel you like this video you want to see more of this content then hit the Subscribe button I post two new videos every single week on this channel I have for a number of
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