1
Arjan Bloch

Homestay

Hello,

 

We are a homestay on the iland of Gozo but on our booking.com site it says that you have the whole house for yourself, how do I change that because we are living there too

11
BrookAve

 

Hi Arjan Bloch

 

I have same setup so very likely I can help. 

 

First please share your partner property listing link.

This should also be added to your partner profile on this site. As it helps us help you , on occasion.

 

Guide : How & Why Add your Listing to your Partner Community Profile

 

a basic break down of how I did it:

 

  1. Decide how many rooms, and treat each room as a roomtype so that room type count =1.  
  2. With room type count =1 the iCAL sync feature becomes available. However its not reliable. Only useful if you want to export to your email service calendar such as MS Outlook (office 365), Gmail calendar.  
  3. my two rooms are called Delux Double and Standard double. booth rooms are 99% identical in size, bedclothers and some knick-knacks.   
  4. you can if you want create only one room type and a count of 2 or more. but if you do, do it just for all of the same size of bed.
  5. should the room(s) have space for a pullout or folding single bed, then simply under the room type setup  in the alternative setup add the double bed and then add the futton bed (american for folding bed).  
  6. Photos of the room and the house, should make it clear its shared, like tagging the kitchen as shared etc.  
  7. In the auto message templates, the fine print, and host profile etc you can define HomeStay , so there can be no misinterpretation. I learned that one quickly in the first few bookings. Some guests are so up their own ass they think it should just be like a hotel. I quickly solved that by rewritting the auto message template making its 100% crystal claer in the first section  , What they Booked; What it is not the same as; and a list of house rules; and how they can self check -in.  It was something I had to evolve over time due to different people  and their bizarre mindsets, so as to set them straight and future guests so there was no more room for misinterpretation.

 

Look forward to seeing your link to the property so I can have a look and help with other ideas.

 

Note: I did consider  3rd party Channel Managers, for using 2 or more OTSA service providers such as Expedia and Booking, but in the end with only two rooms i decided in stead to just use the mobile apps. and also make my own spreadsheet to cross reference.

 

I'm from an IT background so I understand how all of this works.

If you really do decide to work with another OTA to increase exposure, I would suggest having a look at CLOUDBEDS as a channel manager service, for only 10euro a month, to me it would be worth it.

Kind Regards.

 

For direct BdC support team if you want to message or phone them , this guide will show you were to look.

Contact BdC- Location of Partner Only Phone number and Message methods