At the beginning of this month, a particularly important news was shared all over the media: the USA are now out of the Paris Agreement. Environment protection and public health becoming a bigger concern as the years pass, we wanted to jump on that occasion and cross two subjects that we’re particularly interested in: eco-responsibility and vacation rental. Can these two issues ever correlate?

VillasThalassa: a concrete example of what can be done

We wanted to feature one of our clients in this article:VillasThalassa, in Greece, are a great example of eco-responsible vacation rentals, mixing up building optimisation, travelers awareness and everyday responsible use.

This is what they set up for their villas:

• Mostly using ecological products to clean the houses

• A better insulation, leading to a roof 3 times better insulated and twice for the walls -compared to the legislation

• Involving travelers and making them aware of their ecological responsibilities by charging electricity, if the consumption is too high. The point is not to earn more money, but to truly prevent them from leaving doors and windows open, when air conditioning is on

• Hot water is produced by solar panels

• Some of the houses are fully self-sufficient, electricity wise.

The possibilities are unlimited

When it comes to protecting the environment and enjoying holidays, the possibilities are endless: everyday, new technologies and solutions are made available. Some represent a real investment, such as solar panels, but others are very simple and easy to set up. Every budget and everyone motivated to do so can participate in making this world cleaner and safer.

We’ve selected a few more examples, for your eco-responsible vacation rental:

• When building your property, make sure it is South East/South West oriented

• Add sliding doors and windows with mosquito nets, allowing a thermal breeze ventilation. This helps reduce overheating during the hottest hours

• Install a pergola, protecting the windows from the sun during summer

• Walls oriented North should be buried, when possible

• Prefer an infinity pool, partially self-cleaning. This helps limit filtering time -and power consumption.

What about you, have you also started improving your properties’ ecological print? What kind of solution did you set up?

Everyday, we keep improving our software by offering a more complete and integrated solution. We’re pleased to announce our new partnership with Touch Stay, allowing you to create a customised welcome book you can carry anywhere.

What’s Touch Stay?

BookingSync already helped you secure and clean your property, optimise their pricing and automate your marketing campaigns; you can now manage your digital welcome book creation too thanks to Touch Stay.

Touch Stay was created in 2013 by Joe Jones and Andy McNulty. Tired of always asking the owner for advice on the home and the area and ignoring the old-fashioned, forgotten welcome book, they decided to set up a more modern and versatile welcome book that guests will want to read, AND will find useful.

This is how they had the idea to create a digital welcome book, allowing hosts to share their best advice and addresses with travelers from all over the world and bringing the locals and travelers ever closer. Today, thousands of properties and guests are using Touch Stay's software!

Why using Touch Stay?

With Touch Stay, travelers can fully enjoy their stay by accessing the property’s and region’s important information and directly on their device whether they’re using a smartphone, a computer or a tablet.

As a professional, you can:

• Save time by updating your welcome book from anywhere on any device and instantly the guests will see it.

• Present a professional first impression with a beautiful and informative "hello" which guests then remember long after they leave.

• If you own multiple properties, you only need to update common information once and it auto replicates to every property, saving lots of time.

Of course, if your guests do not own any compatible device, you can download a PDF version of the book and print it!

As a BookingSync client, you have access to a special discount on the Touch Stay offer: get 15% off the annual plan!

Want to know more? Watch this Touch Stay presentation video, especially made for our BookingSync customers and access Touch Stay in our App Center!

A brand new Airbnb feature was added to the platform a few weeks ago: co-hosting. Once limited to vacation rental owners’ friends and acquaintances, anyone can now help host travelers.

What’s a co-host?

A co-host can help you manage your vacation rental and its logistics. Writing the listing, handling emails, checking in and out the travelers… In short, you pick which services you need help with and define the related service fees.

You have two options: either you know a friend who could help you, either you don’t know anyone and will need to use Airbnb’s co-hosting service.

If you’d like to become a co-host, there’s nothing easier! Just add your profile to your neighborhood’s co-host directory. Pick the services on which you wish to help and define your service fees. They’re generally ranging between 10 to 20% of the booking revenues. When an owner picks you up, you then become the travelers’ official intermediary: it’s now your duty to share your sense of hospitality and hosting, valued by Airbnb! That’s also an easy way for you to supplement your income.

One last feature was added to the platform: owners who also have a co-hosting activity can now create a company profile. This page gives a preview of all the vacation rentals you own AND you co-host. This also highlights your rating!

What about property managers?

As you can imagine, this new service may not be equally appreciated by all the vacation rental professionals.

With this new feature, Airbnb keeps extending its offer and highlighting the non-professionals: following Experiences (various experiences to book during your stay) and Places (a guide to help you discover your host’s favorite places), your friends or neighbours can help you in your activity.

These services are not yet available everywhere. Will the vacation rental owners trust their neighbours and give the keys to their home, or will they prefer to call upon professional vacation rental agencies? Only time will tell...