Hotel and Motel: Origins of the terms

The difference between Hotel and Motel lays in the origin of these two lodging types:

1. The etymology of the word Hotel comes from Latin hospitalis meaning “accommodation“, stay. The French word hostel, which then became hôtel, was used to identify a noble dwelling.
2. On the other hand, the word Motel comes from American English, meaning a fusion of two words: Motor and Hotel, indicating a functional accommodation dedicated to travellers along their journey.

We all agree, both offer the guests a shelter, a bed to sleep in and a bathroom.

Key Differences

Thinking about their meaning, we will now highlight the key differences of these two types of accommodation.

Location

Close to the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum, in front of a marvellous beach in Mallorca… hotels are usually located in nice, attractive but also strategic places, downtown areas, where you normally go on holiday or for business purposes, but in general on an organised trip.

Motels on the other hand have a mere functional essence. They are normally located on the main roads for professional long-distance drivers or just for those who feel tired and need a place to rest their bones.

Duration of the stay

Linked to the previous paragraph and so to the reason why you would choose a hotel instead of a motel (or the other way around) there’s the duration of your stay.

You would normally spend one, max two nights in a motel and then get back on track to complete your road trip. While hotels are built for longer stays, at least a couple of nights in there…

Services and attention to detail

… and of course, the more nights you sleep in a place, the more needs you have!

That is why another difference between these two categories is in the range of services they provide.

Please give me an example of a motel with room service or concierge. Actually, would you really need them if you’ve been driving the whole day and you would do the same on the following day? Again, we can refer back to what we can find in motels with two keywords: “essential” and “functional”. In this respect, for instance, in a Motel you will never miss a parking lot.

In a hotel, the attention to detail plays a fundamental role in any aspect of the guest’s stay.

Subsidiary services like a SPA, gym, a restaurant with local products, the above mentioned room service or conciergerie and just some of the alternatives that we can find nowadays on the market.

Cost

As you can imagine after this analysis, given the services provided and the details, the cost of a night in a hotel can definitely be higher than a night in a motel, even if there are several types of hotels with different characteristics, also depending on the star rating.

Better? Worse?

Why should we judge?

Focus on your goals and needs, then decide what’s better.

For yourself.

Frequently asked questions

The basics: Bottom Rate and Rack Rate

Before referring to all the types of hotel rates you could create, it is necessary to introduce a basic concept essential to establish the price range within which we can move and create the various types of rates to be offered to our customers, we talk about Bottom and Rack rates.

The first term refers to a minimum rate, a base price below which we will never fall, even in low season, as selling our rooms at a lower price could represent a mere economic loss. The bottom rate is then determined by internal dynamics, on the basis of the costs to be covered and the profit margin.

On the other hand, the Rack Rate is set by the relevant authorities and represents the ceiling beyond which we cannot push the sale price of our rooms without incurring sanctions that would in any case force us to reset our sale price.

Once the minimum and the maximum limits have been identified, we can then decide how to set hotel rates and what to offer our customers.

The main hotel rates

We have decided to divide the different types of hotel rates taking into account three main parameters: target audience, treatment and flexibility.

The target audience

According to who is interfacing with the accommodation to book, we can divide the rates into two macro categories:

1. B2C – Business to Customer
   The end consumer is the one who searches for rates and completes the connection process for himself to any of the direct booking sites (Booking Engine) or through the OTAs (Booking.com, Airbnb, and the other sites for renting vacation rental homes and hotels)
2. B2B – Business to Business
   In this case, there is a third person between the accommodation and the end consumer who, like a bridge, provides a connection, as an intermediary in the booking process. Classic examples of intermediaries are travel agencies or tour operators, with whom specific contracts are concluded for the sale of the rates.

The rate that reaches the end consumer is often increased by the tour operators by a value, called a mark-up, which corresponds to their percentage of profit.

The treatment

In this paragraph, instead, we outline the various types of rates according to the treatment and the services included in the rate. Namely:

• Room Only
  The cost of the room only includes the overnight stay in the chosen room/apartment.
• B&B
  The breakfast is included.
• HB – Half board
  It is the rate that in addition to the breakfast, also includes another meal choosing between lunch and dinner.
• FB – Full Board
  The rate including breakfast and both main meals.
• All Inclusive
  This rate is usually found in tourist resorts where, in addition to the main meals and the breakfast, drinks and snacks are included.

The flexibility

In this paragraph, we describe instead the various kind of hotel rates on the basis of the treatment and the services included in the rate. Namely:

1. Not Ref – Non Refundable
   These are the hotel rates that cost less than the standard rate (usually about 10 per cent off) exactly because they represent rates that cannot be modified nor cancelled. Reservations of NR rates, in fact, are collected immediately and no refund is paid to the end consumer in case of cancellation.
2. FLEX
   The exact opposite of the type of rate just described: flexible hotel rates, as the name suggests, guarantee the guest freedom to change and to cancel the reservation, according to cancellation policies established by the accommodation, which are far less restrictive than those related to the Standard rate.

A more complex type of hotel pricing: the package deals

Package deals are special hotel rates with various features that are an advantage for the guest and are often available for limited times of the year.

A package deal is so-called because in the selling price are included specific services that make the offer in question special, usually enabling the guest to obtain a complete experience at a very advantageous rate, therefore cheaper than the cost that the standard rate would be with the addition of single extras, otherwise the guest can also take advantage of services that are not available during other periods of the year.

We can therefore define package prices as special hotel rates, as they can include the features we have mentioned in the previous paragraphs – Not Refundable, breakfast included, HB – together with other ancillary services that complement and enhance the customer's experience – a sightseeing tour, an aperitif with a SPA path, etc.

What Octorate offers you

For a careful analysis of your property’s history with the aim of setting rates that suit the type of room and the time of the year, useOctoRMS: Octorate’s Revenue Management System can suggest the best hotel sale rates starting from the minimum rate that you set up!

To top it off, a dashboard of advanced statistics to monitor your sales strategy and increase your revenue! (see the article about the RevPAR).

In addition, Octorate allows you to set up a tailor-made configuration so that you can offer your guests a wide range of opportunities!
With the Rate Plans function, you can set countless rates according to their degree of flexibility and the type of treatment, create package deals with included extras with which you can use useful  upselling e cross-selling strategies and a price correction that will automatically vary the sale cost of the type of room associated.

Sell your hotel rates without commission charges thanks to the Booking Engine, your fully customizable booking engine compatible with any type of website.

Would you like to find out more? Book a free demo!

Frequently asked questions

What is iCal and what it is for

iCalendar (or iCal, in fact) is the universal format used both by many e-mail and calendar programs (including Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar and Apple’s iCal), and also by the main online booking platforms (such as OTAs, Airbnb and other vacation rental websites).

iCalendar, iCal or ICS – if we want to use some of the available extensions – is thus a particular file format whose main characteristic is to contain details of events that take place on certain dates. Talking about the management vacation rentals and the hospitality industry in general, the events in question coincide with the bookings .

This format actually, allows you to share the availability of your accommodation with online booking platforms automatically.

But how does the iCal connection work? By sharing a calendar URL with online booking platforms! In fact, the portals access them at regular (and not very frequent) intervals to check and update the availability of each accommodation.

Advantages and disadvantages of an iCal connection

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the update via iCal takes place at not very frequent intervals (in some cases, it may even be limited to a couple of times per day!).

This is due to the technical time required to pass information between the interconnected platforms, which, as it cannot be bypassed or reduced, could become a cause of overbooking,due to the moments when availability is not up to date (if you are not familiar with a word like overbooking read the article about what a channel manager is).

In addition, the information that can be contained in the iCalendar file is limited , and so are the functionalities of this type of connection.

We have in fact only talked about a synchronization of the availability.

This means that rates and content of each singlelistingon a platform like Booking.com or Airbnb, for example, still have to be managed manually (as opposed to two way, XML-based connections like Octorate Channel Manager).

However, it is important to keep in mind that managing a connection made through an iCal file is relatively simple and, if used to link portals that do not provide an excessive volume of bookings and for which little information flow is required, synchronizing your calendar via ical format still allows you to reduce many of the manual tasks involved in updating availability.

We can therefore define the iCal connection as an intermediate step between a manual process and an API connection.

In addition, the iCal format is a valuable alternative that enables you to connect to the Channel Manager all of those portals that are not currently connected via API or XML.

How to create an iCal connection with Octorate

With the iCal connection, Octorate will check the ics data concerning the rooms in your hotel, B&B, room rental or apartment in order to ensure the correspondence of information with the portal: data will be synchronized, and, as a result, the dates left accidentally open will be closed, bookings and availability will be synchronized.

In the detailed information about the single rooms you can find the link to synchronize your calendar with the portal to be linked, and in the same way, you can enter the link provided by the booking portal directly into the Rooms/Apartments section of the Octorate platform!

Frequently asked questions

What is slow tourism

If you are looking for a slow tourism definition, consider it is a way of traveling often identified as sustainable tourism that focuses on experience (slow, profound, which allows you to fully immerse yourself in the ecosystem of the place that hosts you) and sustainability (low-impact on the environment).

Basically, slow tourism is the exact opposite of mass tourism and fast tourism: an organization with the aim of discovering typical, non-chaotic places that run away from the most popular destinations, invaded by those who only understand tourism in terms of quantity as “a quick stay”.

Those who decide to experience the world (and tourism) in a Slow way, instead, prefer the quality of the experience, local and low-polluting means of transport such as the bicycle, preferring to eat local products and support small activities and local craftsmen.

In this way, the Slow Traveller enhances the uniqueness of the place and its culture over the standardization that characterizes so many of the most booked destinations in the world each year.

Define Slow tourism: a little bit of history

Slow Tourism cannot ignore the concept from which it derives, that of Slow Food. In the second half of the 1980s, the Italian gastronome, writer and activist Carlo Petrini founded the Slow Food gastronomic movement as a form of protest against the opening of a McDonald’s in the famous Piazza di Spagna in Rome.

Since then, the idea of slowness as a need to taste, to savour, to stop and dive into the experience, has been extended to many other areas such as Tourism.

The principles of the Slow Travel Manifesto

In 2009, furthermore, Nicky Gardner wrote the Slow Travel Manifesto, a model of slow tourism starting from the Conceptual assumptions of Slow Food and Slow Cities, which sums up the key assumptions of slow tourism in 10 fundamental characteristics and set the standards of slow tourism movement:

1. Slow Tourism as a state of mind that begins at home long before the journey
2. Avoiding flights, choosing to use means of transport such as ferries, buses and local trains that increase the connection with the landscape
3. Experiencing the travel to a destination itself as a pleasure and not with impatience
4. Promoting local markets and shops
5. Enhancing the culture in local bars, cafés and bistros
6. Take time to get an idea of the languages and dialects of the places you visit. Learn some local phrases, perhaps through the use of a dictionary or the purchase of a local newspaper
7. Being concerned and respect native communities with curiosity
8. Don’t just follow the advice of the guides, but try living like locals in their daily routine
9. Enjoying the unexpected (late trains, for example, can create new opportunities and discoveries)
10. Doing something to express gratitude to local communities for their hospitality

Some slow tourism examples

According to what we have said – and what we have read in the Slow Travel Manifesto – some stay/travel activities can be considered slow tourism examples, such as:

• Volunteer tourism
• Trekking/Hiking
• Tours and trips by bicycle or with sustainable means of transport
• Backpacking trips
• Roadtrip also with personal car or caravan
• Religious and spiritual tourism
• Cultural tourism
• Food and wine tourism

Promote Slow Tourism with Octorate

If you own an accommodation and you are a lover of Slow Tourism, or if you are simply curious about the previously illustrated concept remember that Octorate can help you organize the best activities for your guests.

Thanks to the Booking Engine (if you don’t know what it is, read the article on What a Booking Engine is) you can put your rooms or apartments up for sale without commission charges and organize in detail a truly authentic and very slow size experience for your customers
You will be provided with notification messages to catch their attention and inform them about the services offered in your accommodation.

With the Tariff plans, you can also create authentic slow packages including extra services that you can configure and customize independently. Your guests interested in a slow experience will be able to select a special package especially for them or simply add extra services at the time of booking to better prepare their stay in your accommodation.

In addition, to completely remove all the stress, by connecting one of the available Payment Gateway to the Octorate platform, you will be able to process payments automatically and dedicate yourself to all those activities of welcoming and taking care of the guests that you will never be able to automate ( luckily!).

Frequently asked questions

What is a welcome letter for hotel and vacation rental guest and what is it for?

A welcome letter for hotel and vacation rental guest is a document written by the manager/owner (or his team) with the aim of welcoming the guest who has just arrived and will stay in his accommodation. In addition to welcome phrases for guests, it often contains important information and details (which we will consider later in this article).

Advantages of using a welcome letter for hotel and vacation rental guest

One of the biggest advantages of a welcome letter for hotel and vacation rental guest is that it gives you the chance to “talk” to your guest in a non intrusive way. Immagine your guest laying on the bed, without shoes, reading your welcome letter in total relaxation: you are providing useful information to him without doing it in person, wasting so much time and possibly making him nervous by listening to you talking so much.

One of the possible risks, however, could be that the guest ignores the letter and does not read important information or, even worse, that he gets bored and doesn’t even get to the end.

For this reason – apart from welcome phrases – it is very important that, in order to write the best possible welcome letter your card:

1. Shouldn’t be too long
2. Should be customized with the guest’s name
3. Should contain images or icons
4. Should contain useful information for you and your customer

Welcome phrases for guests: 3 practical advices

Now that you know what it is, what it is for, and what to include in your welcome letter for hotel and vacation rental guest, let’s take a look at the must-have aspects and contents. After our three advices, we will also provide you with a free, customizable template so that you can download it and use it with your guests in all circumstances.

Tailor-made and customized opening and conclusion

Firstly, absolutely do not forget to include an initial message to welcome the new guest, perhaps with a mention of the journey he or she has made to reach your accommodation.

This is a great way of making the customer feel important, welcomed and pampered.

You can also customize your message with some details you know about him/her ( for example if you know it is his/her birthday or even if he/she is there for work) and, don’t forget to call him/her by name!

In the same way, always close your welcome letter by wishing the guest a good stay and confirming that they can always count on you for everything they need. If you can – even if the message can be written by a computer – put your signature by hand. It is a small detail, but we already know that these make the difference.

Include the rules and regulations of the accommodation

The aim of a welcome letter, therefore, is to make the guest feel at home, but also to remind him that he is not at is own home!

If you want to ensure that the rules of the accommodation and its facilities are respected, the only way is to include a clear and precise set of regulations in your letter. Trust us, you will not appear strict. On the contrary, your guest will appreciate your professionalism and organization.

For this reason, in your welcome letter remind your guest information such as:

• Wi-Fi password
• Breakfast and check-out hours
• If there are more pillows in the wardrobe
• If there are specific facilities

Also, try to anticipate the most common problems and present your services as a direct solution to them ( for example: “Are you hungry?”, “Our restaurant is at your service to satisfy…”).

Places of interest and contacts

“What’s nearby?”

It’s a phrase that customers almost always ask for when they arrive, and which is soon, often forgotten, almost immediately. Everyone has a mobile phone with an internet connection so they can search for places of interest, but imagine how much time your guest can save if you leave him/her a list of recommended shops and restaurants.

Finally, don’t forget to specify how the guest can contact you during the stay and afterwards, and how they can leave comments about their experience.

Remember that this letter is just one small step to make your customer’s stay special! You may find that a welcome letter has fulfilled its purpose even months later when the costumer books a stay with you again!

Download the template for free

📥 Download for Free

Frequently asked questions

What are metasearch engines in the world of Hospitality

If you want to know what are metasearch engines, just keep in mind that a Metasearch is a platform that uses data extracted from other search engines, in order to offer aggregated results, so as to provide the searcher with more comprehensive results by presenting the global offer of several query sources.

In our industry (that of Hospitality) we refer more specifically to travel metasearch engines, or those platforms that display results concerning hotels, vacation rentals, flights, car rentals and, more in general, everything that has to do with the hotel industry.

However, there are metasearch engines for all kinds of sectors, as for example to find job offers.

What are metasearch engines used for in hotels and vacation rentals?

Basically, metasearch engines allow, in the Hospitality industry, to save time for travelers, while they allow to increase the visibility of the host’s accommodation and hotel.

Therefore, in Hospitality, a metasearch engine brings up an accommodation within a selection of services according to the filters configured by the searcher, who can complete his or her booking without having to access to the main page of each platform.

However, it is important to bear in mind that the high levels of competition in this sector make it necessary to invest in advertising campaigns in order to appear well positioned in the results of metasearch engines.

A real-life use case

Now, imagine yourself sitting on your sofa. You have a great urge to go on holiday but you have no time to organize it.

For this reason, you will be comparing prices and offers on different sites. You will spend so much time that, after a few hours looking for alternatives and doing the maths, you will probably not want to go at all!

Before giving up, however, you can always use a metasearch engine that will perform your search on the main platforms and will offer you in a few seconds the best results based on the parameters you have entered (availability, calendar, prices, rooms, etc.).

Easy, isn’t it?

What are the best metasearch engines for hotels?

The most popular metasearch engines for Hotels and Vacation Rentals to save time and increase the visibility of your accommodation are:

• Google Hotel Ads
• Google Vacation Rental
• Trivago
• TripAdvisor
• TripConnect
• TripTease

We suggest you go directly to the site of the following metasearch engines to discover all their features and potential.

It is clear that you will also need to contact these partner platforms to activate an account with them and connect it to our All-in-One system.

Each of them has its own characteristics that can be useful to any accommodation and improve its profits through increased visibility that will lead to more direct bookings.

How to manage metasearch engines on Octorate

In order to start using metasearch engines for your Hotel or vacation rental on Octorate, you will need to include the Metasearch package in your subscription and, above all, activate and correctly install the Booking Engine, from which the Metasearch extracts the data to be shown to users (and without which, therefore, you cannot take advantage of the benefits of the metasearch).

In addition, as indicated in the previous paragraph, you will have to go to the platforms concerned to activate an account with them.

What metasearch engines will do is to show the web page together with the results of the main online booking portals.

There’s a fantastic news for you: thanks Octorate’s partnership with Google Hotel Ads, you can display your rates on Google for free thanks to a new feature called Free Booking Links. You can imagine that those results, as their nature is organic, will be displayed after the Google Ads one (you can obviously charge your credit on Octorate and manage on a single platform your Google Ads Adv too).

Therefore, the use of metasearch engines in hotels therefore has a double advantage.

For guests, it will be much more advantageous to book on a site reached by the index of a metasearch because the price will be certainly more convenient (because free of OTA commissions) and all this will also be an advantage for the hotel, because there will be more direct bookings without commission costs.

Frequently asked questions

Automatic check-in apartment: what it is, when do we use it and how does it work?

We could define the automatic check-in for apartments or vacation rental as the series of softwares and processes which enable the guest to access the booked accommodation without the need of the personal presence of someone of the staff to welcome the customers, give the keys of the room/apartment, ask their papers, give them the information about the accommodations and the facilities.

How does an automatic check-in work?

Among the possibilities on the market, we could imagine a box, specifically placed near the entrance door of the accommodation, which contains the keys to open the door, this door could be opened thanks to a security code previously communicated to the guest. In fact the customer, having already received the access code by phone, will only have to enter it to get the keys.

A self check-in? Somehow yes.

Let’s put aside for a moment all the objections about the loss of humanity of all the reception processes linked to the field of Hospitality, the moment of highlighting the positive and the negative side of the self check-in still hasn’t come. For the moment we could limit ourselves to see it as an opportunity which, in some cases, could simplify the access of the guests to the accommodation.

In which cases do we use an automatic check-in apartment?

Often it is associated to accommodations like vacation rentals which don’t have a real reception opened 24/7 or a staff member available 24/7 to reach the place and open the apartment to the guests.

However, cases of hotel self check-in apartment are not uncommon for all the hotels which haven’t got a reception opened all day long but still want to find a way to welcome the guests even after the reception time.

Advantages and disadvantages of an automatic check-in for apartments

Going back for a moment to the previous objection: a self check-in process brings to loose the human trait typical of the world of Hospitality. Not by chance, the words of this field remind to the main concept of welcome/ hospitality ( the word Reception means in fact to welcome somebody).

The risk and the disadvantage of the self check-in is that the customer doesn’t have at all the feeling of being welcomed.

It is obvious that everything that is automatic, can’t be customized.
Therefore the guest could receive a series of messages or preset emails that could give him the feeling of being one of many.

In which cases do we use a self check-in?

However, the technology enables us to keep in constant touch with the customer to make him feeling still welcomed and attended.
Furthermore, in some cases the guest can’t wait to accelerate the check-in operations and access to the room as soon as possible.

Let’s think, for example, to an employee on a business trip, he spent all the day out and the only thing he wants is a hot shower and a bed to sleep on.

And again, let’s think about all the time a plane is late: the customers who were supposed to arrive at 4 pm, are suddenly obliged to check-in after midnight. In this case, having the possibility to turn a classic check-in into an automatic operation could only be an advantage, for the hotel and for the guest!

Of course, having already done all the check-in operations and received the access code on the smartphone will make him feeling happy!

Furthermore, given the pandemic situation we are living now, the self check-in operations contribute to limit the contact with people and to guarantee more safety during a difficult historical period which has brought down entire industries, including the Hospitality.

How can Octorate help you with the automatic check-in for apartments?

Going back to the example described before, the specific box near the entrance door of the apartment, containing the keys to open the door; it could be opened with a security code previously sent to the guest.

Octorate plays a key role because it enables you to customize the communication process with your guest. Well, the box and the safety code are words related to the provider chosen to manage the self check-in (in the next point you’ll find the list of softwares integrated with Octorate).

Thanks to the Web Concierge in fact you’ll be able to create templates to send to your guests, containing the access code to the accommodation, the general rules of the apartment and even a customized message for the guest. We agree, it isn’t like being at the reception face to face, but anyway it will make the communication less impersonal!

In addition, thanks to Octorate fast check-in (be careful, Fast, not Smart) your guests can fill out the registration form and upload their papers, accelerating the operations of registration and sending guest cards.

Best providers of automatic check-in for apartments

As we said, to take advantage of an automatic check-in in your apartment you only need to activate the service with a third party company which deals exclusively with this. Inside Octorate you’ll find a list of integrated partners which represent some of the best solutions of 2022 for the smart locks of your apartment. Thanks to them you can start to organize everything to activate the automatic check-in.

•  Chekin
•  OK Home
•  Vikey
•  Nuki
• Chiavistello.it
• Ok Home

Frequently asked questions

What does OTA stand for?

The acronym OTA stands for Online Travel Agency. If you have never heard about this definition, maybe by naming some of the main OTAs, you will get what we mean.

• Booking.com
• Expedia
• Airbnb
• VRBO

Does this ring any bells to you? Yes, of course.

An OTA is a platform on which we can open an apartment to sell with its rates and availability, characteristics and photos, so that it can be booked online. However, OTAs also work as a guarantee for guests, as they ensure a series of benefits such as discounts, high security levels and the possibilities of making your evaluations in advance, thanks to other customers’ reviews.
In our blog we will use the words OTAs and Portals as synonyms, just so you.

In our blog we will use the words OTAs and Portals as synonyms, just so you.

What is a Channel Manager?

Ok, we have just spoken about OTAs and the fundamental role they play when it comes to online visibility. Now let’s get straight to the core of this article: what is a channel manager and what does a Channel Manager do?

Channel Manager definition

A Channel Manager is a software, which helps you automate and run precisely all the activities belonging to the hospitality sector, such as the rates and availability update in real time on the main existing OTAs and the online bookings management for what concerns their confirmation, cancellation and modification.

Additionally, an ical connection facilitates seamless sharing of availability on various OTAs, further enhancing the efficiency of channel management.

The advantages of a channel management system: a real situation

I am the owner of a flat in the center of Rome, which is currently open to sell on three portals: Booking.com, Airbnb, VRBO. Everyday I need to access each portal to check the situation and update what’s needed. What does this mean?

• If I want to update rates, I will have to do it on each portal and of course, in case I had set a specific price according to the portal, I’ll have to bear this in mind when editing rates.
• In case I make any modifications to the flat and so I need to update any pictures, this operation must be done on each OTA.
• What if I get a reservation from Booking.com? I’ll have to access Airbnb and VRBO to close availability manually, while taking the risk of getting an overbooking.

This happens during the whole day, every day – it is crazy!

Now you know already that a Channel Manager could make all these processes automatic!

To sum it up, here are the advantages of having a Channel Manager:

1. You can automate your daily management tasks
2. Rates and availability will be updated in real time
3. Spare time in the management of your business
4. You will not have to access to each OTA on a daily basis
5. It prevents you from getting overbookings

What is an overbooking?

The overbooking is the situation that comes up when the number of bookings made for a specific date exceeds the actual availability for that date.

This could happen, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, when you have to close availability manually on several portals. Let’s get back to the case mentioned above: I currently sell my property on three portals and I have just received a reservation coming from Booking.com, however I notice it 15 minutes after it’s been made.

During this time, the availability in the other two portals is kept open and that is why a customer has the chance to book the same date in Airbnb before I can close it manually.

I have two reservations, from two different portals, for the same apartment: that is an overbooking, and that is an overbooked hotel.

The Channel Manager was conceived to find a solution to this kind of problems, since the platform directly gets reservations on its calendar, closes availability and sends these modifications to all the connected portals.

The advantages of working with Octorate Channel Manager

Octorate Channel Manager is a software, an all-in-one platform to automate and perfect the daily tasks linked to your property. There is no software to download and install and you can use it on the device that you prefer.

In the Channel Manager calendar, you can update prices (read our article about hotel rates types and learn how to set the best prices) and availability and send them to all the OTAs connected at the same time.

Moreover, you can also set up a Price Ratio concerning each OTA that will automatically edit the price, before sending it to each specific portal.

If you get a reservation from one portal, this will automatically get to the system and close availability for the date in question on the Octorate calendar that will send this closing to the connected OTAs in real time.

Furthermore, the Channel Manager also provides you with specific tools created to avoid overbookings, such as the Autopilot, which makes a constant check between reservations and units available, so that the calendar can never show higher availability than reality.

Octorate Channel Manager also gives you the chance to manage photos, descriptions, booking options, in general the content of each listing on the main portals, all this from one single interface.

Frequently asked questions

3 basic rules to figure out how to furnish a vacation rental home

Figuring out how to furnish a vacation rental home is no easy task, we all know that. Just thinking about it is a magical trigger for a series of targeted questions such as:

• What colour to paint the walls of the bedroom?

These are immediately associated to another main question:

• How much does it cost to furnish a vacation rental home?

And here we are, ready to give you our advice on how to furnish a vacation rental home by guiding you with our 3 basic rules for the Home Stager.

Express your personality

As a first tip for furnishing a vacation rental home, aim at creating a space that represents your personality and your way of conceiving your guest experience.

What do you want to convey to your guests?
What first thought would you like them to have when they open the door?

Furnishing a house is also, and above all, a creative process that allows us to express ourselves and, with the various alternatives of stores at our disposal, the cost will certainly not be a valid excuse to prevent us from choosing our own style of furnishing!

Besides, who said that in order to get eye-catching design furnishings for your vacation rental home you have to buy new furniture?

It might instead be a good idea to search for furniture items in the countless flea markets available or on online marketplaces.
Not only will you save money, but you can also give a second life to old objects… sometimes even in unexpected ways! (If you like this approach, you might find other useful ideas in our article about slow tourism).

And no, you don’t necessarily need an interior designer to decide which way to go. You can search for inspiration of the best furniture for rental property on pages such as Pinterest, Westwing and Zara Home sites created with exactly this goal in mind. And remember: getting inspired does not mean to copy!

Vacation rental design ideas

There are may interior design styles among which you can decide how to furnish your rental property. To help you choose the best one for you airbnb in order to satisfy your and your guests’ needs, we created a freebie that you can download at the end of this article.

Whether you have a chalet, a beach house or an apartment in the city, in our template you can find many ideas and different interior design styles to choose from, such as:

• Minimal
• Modern
• Nordic
• Coastal

Simplicity

Once you have identified your decorating style, focus on one key concept, useful for most aspects of our lives:

Less is more.

Don’t think that filling a space with objects, appliances or decorations necessarily gives the idea of comfort and well-being to your vacation rental home! Remember that your guests are usually staying with you for a short-term rental and do not need superfluous items, too many decorations or knick-knacks.

Think also about all the extra time it takes to clean a room full of objects that will only collect a lot of dust.

In addition, your guests will need space to leave their personal items, their new purchases or simply their clothes that they will take off in a hurry to get changed and to go to see the unmissable exhibition your city is hosting this weekend.

Don’t let the snowball from Christmas ’88 get in their way or, even worse, end up in a thousand pieces on the floor!

Functionality

How to choose the perfect kitchen furniture?

How to choose a good lighting for your home?

These are just a couple of the numerous questions we can easily answer by focusing our attention on the objective, namely on functionality. You don’t need a master’s degree in interior design to understand that every room is a space used for different activities and therefore requires different furniture, tools and even different lighting!

Don’t just focus on how to decorate a vacation rental, instead ask yourself what you need to provide in a vacation rental home and how to arrange items according to the environment!

A few examples?

In the bedroom you might think about installing several types of light sources: table lamps offering a soft lighting option that would not be blinding for the early hours of the morning but more powerful light bulbs or spotlights to allow your guests to choose their clothing carefully.

Don’t forget to place switches and sockets for the mobile phone near the bedside table to make it as easy and convenient as possible to do some of the most common activities!

In the living room, try to create a cozy and relaxing space by using soft colors  in order to allow your guest to have a place where to rest.  Also, make sure that searching for the wi-fi password does not become a titanic task, as well as searching for the hairdryer in the bathroom!

More generally, display what might be of daily use in the kitchen, on the dining table for example:

• Oil
• Salt
• Coffee and coffee machine
• Sugar

You might decide to leave the towels neatly folded on the bed of your guests, or directly in the bathroom, already placed on hangers, as many property managers do.

In any case, to make things easier for your guests, you can always use a welcome letter to show them where to find essential items.

How much does it cost to furnish a vacation rental home?

There is no single answer to this question. The cost depends on your needs, the style of furniture chosen, the materials and the result you want to achieve. But don’t let this stop you.

It is possible to furnish a holiday home without spending too much money!

On Ikea, for example, to furnish an apartment consisting of kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom, a budget of between € 6000-7000 is necessary.

However, keep in mind that the location of your property can affect the cost indicated and that having custom made furniture will be much more expensive.

Moreover, to avoid spending a fortune it is essential to decide your budget before starting to buy the various furniture.

A tip we want to give you to stay within your budget is to establish in advance the maximum price you are willing to spend for each room.

To sum up

Now that you’ve read these tips on how to furnish a vacation rental home, they may seem super simple, but tell the truth: did they help you to tidy up a bit or to generate new ideas in a more schematic and functional way?

Often we don’t need a detailed written answer, but someone who can give us simple and effective guidelines!

Frequently asked questions