How Villa Finder balanced automation and control across 100+ Airbnb properties using Rentals United
Villa Finder is a Singapore-based vacation rental company with a curated portfolio of luxury villas across Asia and Europe.
| No. Properties Connected | 125 |
| Headquarter Location | Singapore |
| Tech Used | Custom API |
| Website | Visit Now |
The Challenges
Manual calendar updates that led to the risk of double bookings.
Fragmented reservation data across channels, making it hard to track occupancy.
Time-consuming updates for prices, minimum stays, and promotions.
The Solutions
Outcome
22
Channels connected4 x more
Revenue increase on average compared to the market
The Villa Finder success
Bespoke travel is changing the way people plan vacations.
Travellers are increasingly seeking a trip that feels tailor made to them. Custom-fit schedules, handpicked properties, access to local knowledge and a personalized booking experience are quickly becoming the rule, rather than the exception.
These days, a one-size-fits-all stay (no matter how premium) is giving way to travel that feels truly personal, unique and thoughtfully designed for each guest.
No one understands this better than Villa Finder, a specialist villa operator launched in 2012 when its founder struggled to reliably book a custom holiday villa in Bali. From this need grew a company built firmly on local expertise: dedicated location specialists curate and personalize every booking across a range of luxury destinations such as Bali, Phuket, Koh Samui, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Niseko, Majorca, Ibiza, Puglia, Tuscany and St Barts.
With a portfolio of 151 properties and 103 listings already connected to Airbnb, Villa Finder blends intimate, client-focused service with a global distribution approach to reach travellers looking for that little something extra-special.
As demand for curated villa experiences accelerated, the team saw a clear opportunity to scale; but doing so without diluting their quality of service required more than additional listings.
To expand into high-visibility OTAs while keeping the personalized touch that is the bedrock of their brand, Villa Finder needed a smarter, integrated distribution strategy that combined automation with hands-on control.
This is how they did it.
The Challenge
The main issue of scaling a company like Villa Finder, is that when the business grows, so does its operational complexity.
The team needed to reduce the manual workload, remove risk from day-to-day tasks, and make promotional activity and pricing more responsive across channels — especially on Airbnb, an OTA they’d identified as a core channel for villa bookings.
Their need was not just to expand reach, but to do so without enlarging the operations team or exposing the business to avoidable errors.
But several practical issues stood in the way.
- Manual calendar updates and double-booking risk. With dozens of properties actively marketed on Airbnb, keeping availability correct across channels was time-consuming and error prone.
- Fragmented reservation data. Information was spread across multiple dashboards, making it difficult for the operations team to get a single view of occupancy and revenue.
- Time-consuming updates. Rates, minimum stays and discounts on each platform took time to update. The inability to push unified promotions quickly meant missed opportunities to capitalize on demand spikes
In short: Villa Finder needed a way to centralize control over Airbnb listings while preserving the flexibility required to manage content and guest relationships directly on the OTA when needed.
The Solution
To address these challenges, Villa Finder moved their direct Airbnb connection to Rentals United. The transition was driven by the need for centralized control, automation, and simplicity.
Key elements of the solution included:
- Centralized calendar. By routing Airbnb availability and reservations through Rentals United’s channel manager, Villa Finder gained a unified calendar that reflected bookings across all connected channels in real time.
- Automated price and rule updates. Pricing, minimum night rules, discounts and non-refundable rate plans were managed centrally and pushed to Airbnb automatically, ensuring consistent strategies and eliminating manual entry errors.
- Unified promotions management. The team could configure and launch promotions from one interface, avoiding the need to recreate offers per platform.
- Operational agility. Connecting new listings or updating synchronization settings could be completed in minutes, enabling Villa Finder to react quickly to demand or tactical opportunities.
Rather than fully handing over listing control, the team adopted a limited sync approach. This is a deliberate configuration that automates routine, high-risk tasks while keeping creative and content control on Airbnb’s native platform.
Implementation
The limited sync struck the right balance: Villa Finder retained control where it mattered while automating repetitive, high-risk tasks that previously consumed staff time and introduced errors.
Implementation began with mapping each property in the PMS to its corresponding Airbnb listing, followed by central setup and testing of pricing rules and non-refundable rates. The team received focused training before going live, after which reservations and pricing syncs were closely monitored, with minor adjustments made during the first month.
Because the sync was limited to price, availability and booking rules, the Villa Finder team continued to manage creative elements and detailed management directly on Airbnb where that added value.
The Results
Within almost two months of the rollout, Villa Finder reported a measurable uplift in operational performance:
- Efficiency gains. The operations team spent significantly less time on repetitive updates. Centralized control eliminated the need to log in to multiple OTAs for routine tasks.
- Reduced error risk. Automating availability and price pushes reduced the frequency of manual human errors associated with high-volume inventory management.
- Faster promotion deployment. Promotions and discounts could be created and synchronized across Airbnb listings from a single interface, enabling Villa Finder to execute targeted campaigns more quickly.
- Improved visibility and accuracy. A unified calendar and central reservation feed gave the team a clear, real-time picture of occupancy, making reporting and decisions much easier.
- Better control and flexibility. The limited sync setup let Villa Finder keep full control of listing details and guest communication on Airbnb, while still automating pricing and availability.
Collectively, these improvements translated into a smoother day-to-day operation, quicker reactions to market demand and fewer resources tied up in manual tasks. Villa Finder also used non-refundable rates to capture higher-intent bookings and protect revenue during peak windows. In fact, with this efficiency boost, they have achieved four times higher revenue than the market average.
The team regained the capacity to focus on higher-value activities such as guest experience improvements and targeted marketing, rather than firefighting administrative work.
Conclusion
In the case of Villa Finder it’s clear: Rentals United brings more bookings and better control.
By connecting Airbnb through Rentals United’s channel manager with a carefully chosen limited sync configuration, Villa Finder achieved the right balance between automation and hands-on management.
Using the channel manager ensures full visibility of reservations from all channels in one calendar, making the team’s work more efficient, as they now only need to update the internal system, and Rentals United then pushes updates to all connected platforms.
For Villa Finder, the result is a more scalable operating model that supports growth across its 150+ property portfolio while keeping the core Airbnb channel under confident, efficient control.