We’ve recently talked with Yann Bricombert, vacation rental owner and author of the blog Propriétaire Libre (A Free Owner) after he organized his last contest: the Vacation Rental Trophies, which took place between November, 28th and December, 6th.

You can read the full interview, in French, here.

Another year has come to an end, let’s look back together on 2016!

What happened at BookingSync this past year? This article will give you a better insight on what our teams worked on.

Exchanges

• Vacation Rental Management Association Seminar: VRMA’s Europe Seminar took place from March, 6th to 8th in Barcelona, which featured: meetings with professionals of the industry, exchanges and presentation of our new integrations (FetchMyGuest).

• Ember Thalassa in Greece: we provided Ember’s developers with two villas in Greece, on the Island of Lefkada, in May and October to thank them for their investment - Ember is a Javascript framework.

• BookingSync x Vacation Rental World Summit: the 3rd edition of the Vacation Rental World Summit took place on October, 29th and 30th, in Barcelona. It allowed us to know better the main actors of the vacation rental industry and to freely exchange ideas with them.

• HomeAway event in Arcachon, France: This meeting is the first one to have been dedicated to vacation rental agencies and independent property managers. Organised on December, 8th, it allowed us to meet professionals of the sector and introduce our vision: Save Time and Book More, as a partner of the event.

What’s new

• BookingSync and Airbnb are now official partners: in July, we officially introduced our partnership with the community rental platform Airbnb. It allowed us to offer an advanced synch thanks to a direct access to the programming interface.

• Webinars (almost) every day: our Relatonship Officer, Maud, settles webinars in French and English every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They are accessible to any property manager/vacation rental owner interested in our software. Take your chance to ask your questions live!

• Instant booking with HomeAway is now set up on our platform

• 3 new “Channel Managers”: Outswitch, BookingPal and RentalsUnited. Dependind on your rentals catalogue, you’ll be able to distribute them on the most relevant and effective portals in order to maximise your occupancy rate and profitability.

• 2 new partners: FetchMyGuest and CurbAppeal - Listing Camera

• Tax management with billing date

• “Instant booking” on our clients’ websites

• Our Website app interface has been entirely rebuilt and translated into French. Managing your BookingSync website will get even smoother.

• New apps: Notifications centre, Bills, Owners and Zapier to help you synch your services.

New co-workers

The BookingSync team has grown in 2016:

• Romain: in charge of the Marketing and Happiness Strategy

• Reinforcement of our customer care service: Delia, Aline, Ella and Emilie

• Marine: in charge of social networks and our blog

• 5 new developers: Julien, Daniel, Roman, Leonid and Mateusz

• David: in charge of the design

Babies and weddings!

• Florian, our co-founder, is now a daddy: welcome to our world, little Hugo!

• Marine and Emilie got married (but not together!)

What about you, what will you remember from 2016?

As a vacation rental professional, you know that offering an instant booking option is crucial if you wish to get the best ranking possible. HomeAway says that “listings offering online booking receive on average 110% more bookings than the ones that don’t”.

You can set up instant booking thanks to HomeAway’s partner payment solution (HolidayRentPayment in the UK) - name may vary from one country to another, and it is powered by Yapstone.

Payments are transferred one day after the travelers’ arrival and are credited to your bank account under 5 to 7 days - time may vary depending on banks - and transaction fees will apply.

Let’s talk about European residents, for example:

• 1.7% for Visa, Mastercard, Electron and credit cards that were issued in the same European country as the owner

• 2.2% for Visa, Mastercard, Electron and credit cards that were issued in the Euro zone and the UK

• 2.7% for Visa, Mastercard, Electron and credit cards that were issued outside the Euro zone and the UK

As a BookingSync client, you can use the payment gateway that is already used on your account for your HomeAway bookings, ensuring full transparency and security!

Here is how to access the feature:

• Having a BookingSync account and activating the instant payment option

• Choosing and activating a payment gateway (Paybox, Stripe, Braintree, VacayPay, except for PayPal Express)

• Having a professional HomeAway account (manager) and at least 5 properties to manage

This new addition offers many advantages:

• The booking process remains the same and travelers complete their bookings on the HomeAway website, as usual

• Data exchanges are kept simple and secure thanks to a certified connection

• Bookings, deposits, balances and contracts are automatically updated on the BookingSync platform

• You can benefit from reduced bank transaction fees - for example, up to 0.4% via Paybox if your company is based in France and if payments are made with a card that was issued in Europe

BookingSync’s platform and property hosting meet the highest standards in terms of data security, which were established by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

As of today, we are one of the few PMS (Property Management System) that offer a complete and secure integration for your HomeAway payments!

With this new article, we carry on introducing social networks for vacation rental. Today, we’d like to feature one of the most recent creations in the professional digital communication world: Snapchat.

Facebook and Instagram are two of the most famous networks and form the basis of your online presence - in addition to your website and other booking platforms.

Are some of your rentals especially designed for a younger audience (small apartment in a city center, technological equipment, floors)? Here’s some good news: you can use Snapchat to develop this customer base.

This network is way less developed in the vacation rental industry, so grab this opportunity for you to make an impact on your potential travelers!

With more than 150 million daily active users in 2015, its market is very promising.

What’s Snapchat?

Snapchat is a pictures and short videos sharing app, for iOS and Android. Contrary to other social networks, Snapchat’s shares are only available for a limited period of time: from 1 to 10 seconds, maximum. Then, after 24 hours, they’re being automatically deleted. Short-lived marketing is at its peak!

It’s now up to you to share less substantial information, that can be less formal than on Facebook, for example.

What to share on Snapchat

Young people under 30 are their target #1: keep this in mind when sharing a video or a picture!

• Create geofiltersthat can be available within your property’s perimeter: a low-cost ad, animated by your guests!

• Share time-limited coupons, especially for Snapchat. Encourage your visitors to book ASAP, and ensure the best return on investment.

• A real-time window on your vacation rental: on Snapchat, there is no Photoshop, no professional photos. Speak directly to your audience, add some funny filters, write a message with your finger, no need to get the perfect shot! That’s even what makes it so special: capturing the instant. Picture your rental, its attractive features, its visitors - with their consent, and why not asking them to make a short testimony?

Highlight the local events, what can be visited in its surroundings… Anything that could interest a younger audience!

Used with the other main networks, Snapchat can help you make the difference and stay in your potential travelers’ minds, especially if you wish to reach a younger target, on a less conventional and funnier way!