At Rentals United, we work tirelessly to ensure our vacation rental channel manager is the best on the market.
In recognition of our efforts, we were awarded the prize for Best Vacation Rental Channel Manager of 2022 at The Shortyz, a coveted industry award by Short Term Rentalz.
We are proud to have won this prestigious title for the second year in a row. We earned it through votes from the public and the professional assessment of an illustrious panel of judges.
But what made our application stand out? What makes Rentals United the best channel manager of the year?
Here, we’ll explain exactly what our customers can expect from Rentals United and why we deserve the top spot in our industry.
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What makes Rentals United the best vacation rental channel manager in 2022 and beyond?
Rentals United is the world’s leading channel manager. We intend to hold on to that title, and there are several reasons why we’re the best at what we do.
1. Unparalleled channel partnerships
The number one reason property managers choose us is the quality and variety of our channel connections.
When using our service to distribute your listings, you can relax in the knowledge that any changes you make to your content, pricing and calendars will be communicated to your channels as fast as possible.
We are able to guarantee this because all our channel integrations are done via official API connections and are subject to strict certification processes before going live. We have valid contracts with every external service we connect to, making the quality of our API connections unrivalled.
Furthermore, we’re the only channel manager to be premier partners with four of the world’s largest OTAs. Booking sites like Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo and Tripadvisor all recommend us as a reliable partner. What’s more, we are one of the few Google-approved software partners who can get your vacation rentals listed on Google Travel.
Our customers even have access to priority, top-tier support from top OTAs. This means if any issues arise with your connection, we can fix it faster than anyone else.
As well as all the big names, we also have established partnerships with a large number of specialised and niche vacation rental websites.
As a result, our customers can advertise their properties across a diverse range of sites, including:
- Location-specific sites that promote properties in a particular region.
- Sites featuring properties to fit specific requirements, such as those dedicated to business travel, accessible travel, pet-friendly accommodation, and quirky places.
- Trend-based sites that cater to rising travel trends in short-term rentals. This includes accommodation for digital nomads, sports tourism, wellness retreats, and more.
- Mid-term channels that deal with longer stay bookings.
- Metasearch engines.
- Short-term rental wholesalers.
When we become partners, we help you get your properties listed on all the relevant sites to ensure that you maximise your chances of getting bookings.
Our list of partners is always expanding. Here are 12 new channels we’re adding to our partner list this year, from luxury vacation rental marketplaces to travel agents and metasearch engines.
2. Saving time and reducing manual labour
With a good channel manager, property managers can drastically reduce the time and effort they have to spend maintaining all their listing across various channels.
Rentals United provides reliable connections through a well-maintained API. This gives you total peace of mind as you know that your calendars are always synced and up-to-date, and your risk of double bookings is minimal.
Our customer testimonials speak for themselves.
Quality Cottages is a self-funded business headquartered in Wales, managing 450 rental properties. Before working with Rentals United, they had only listed a small part of their inventory on OTAs. However, their homeowners had started asking for this capability. As a result, Quality Cottages was facing the challenge of onboarding their properties to multiple new channels while keeping their pricing and availability up-to-date. Thanks to Rentals United, they were able to achieve a 9% increase in occupancy and a 7% increase in revenue.
Air Peace of Mind is a London-based property management company that manages around 200+ properties. Through Rentals United, they were able to seamlessly connect to multiple sales channels, avoid double bookings and ensure a consistent guest experience. This has resulted in higher conversion rates and happier guests.
And last but not least, Mykonos.Luxury, a property management company with 50 luxury villas on the island of Mykonos, Greece, was able to save 2 hours a week and boost its revenue by 40% thanks to Rentals United. Their strategy was to start distributing their high-end villas on specialist channels like Homes & Villas by Marriott International. This allowed them to increase their bookings without diluting their properties’ perceived value by listing on mass-market channels.
Customers trust Rentals United to facilitate seamless booking and communication across channels and minimise the manual work of updating rates and availability.
We also help you set up to date pricing and expand your business into new markets.
3. A wide range of tools that drive profits
One of the things that set us apart from other channel managers is our extensive range of advanced tools that help customers increase their profits.
For example, Rentals United Data Studio is a one-of-a-kind tool that gives you actionable reports and dashboards to analyse the booking behaviour and trends that impact your business.
You can view high-level metrics like channel share, year-on-year comparison, and stay date breakdown, or analyse your average booking window to understand your lead time and demand.
This feature allows property managers to gain a deeper understanding of how inventory is performing. By visualising data, you can take control of your vacation rental revenue management and focus on the areas of your business that need the most attention.
As well as Data Studio, we also offer a range of other advanced features, such as:
- Manual price and availability overrides which update instantly on booking sites. This means you can easily fill calendar gaps by discounting prices, or block availability when you have a direct booking.
- Multiple rate plans so you can offer more choice to guests, including standard and non-ref pricing.
- Support for all pricing types, including nightly, occupancy, LOS, and discounted pricing so you can always set your rates accurately.
- Group identical or similar inventory on a multi-unit basis to get more exposure and increased occupancy.
- Support for all OTA property characteristics and amenities so your properties stand out and guests get complete information.
- Access to channels that have lower commissions, wider distribution options, and advanced API integrations to improve your profitability.
- In-depth onboarding and regular performance reviews, included in the service fee.
- Integrations with selected 3rd party dynamic pricing tools and operations software.
Next to providing all these helpful tools, the Rentals United team acts as a partner to your business, providing you with tailored advice on how to get the most out of your distribution strategy and boost your revenue.
4. The ability to build high-performing listings
Working with Rentals United helps to increase your bookings with high-converting listings that are optimised for all your channels.
We work closely with large OTAs to identify the most significant conversion drivers and use this knowledge to make sure you increase your reservations. As a result, we can give you access to insider information to help you master Airbnb SEO, learn how to rank higher on Vrbo, improve your Booking.com ranking and optimise your listings on all your other channels.
In addition, we offer a range of tools to help you bring your listings up to scratch. For example, Rentals United Data Studio has a tool called Property Health Cards, which generates a report based on your property data, allowing you to pinpoint opportunities for adjustments that will make your listings instantly more likely to convert.
Two of the most critical metrics on the Data Studio Property Health Cards are Listings Quality Score and Unsellable Nights. The former allows you to check at a glance how your listings are performing in terms of revenue outlook, amenities, days since last booking, photo count and occupancy. The latter shows you how the percentage of blocked nights in your calendar are impacting your availability and revenue potential.
With tools like these, you can say goodbye to time-consuming manual listing audits and optimise your presence on sales channels with less work.
5. The property manager owns everything
Rentals United makes it easier to list and manage your listings across channels, however, property managers always retain ownership of all their contracts, reviews, and finances.
Our customers need an account with each OTA because they own the relationship with the OTAs. The Rentals United channel manager is just a facilitator and although we make account creation with different channels easier, we are not a marketing agent and we do not own any of your contracts with customers and OTAs.
This is important because it means that if you were to stop working with us, you wouldn’t have to worry about losing your rankings and reviews.
We don’t own your contracts, but we do help speed up the process of getting them signed. Our customers receive priority treatment when signing new contracts with OTAs.
With Rentals United, the property manager can be the Merchant of Record with all channels that allow this, meaning that they are responsible for processing and distributing the payment. Being the Merchant of Record gives you more control and flexibility, and also provides a better experience for your hosts and guests.
Try out the world’s favourite channel manager
Rentals United is a specialised software, not an all-in-one tool. We do channel management better than anyone else because we only focus on channel management
and revenue optimisation. Our product helps property managers increase their profits and reduce their workload.
We guarantee secure and reliable connections that are always up-to-date and will remove your risk of double bookings.
If you’re in doubt, why not give Rentals United a try and see how we can help you.
To see the platform in action, watch our online demo!