How to Choose Villa Property Management Software

What makes taking a trip to the villa so exciting? Is it the prospect of relaxing and soaking up the sun in the pool, enjoying a delicious fruity drink (or several), or just the fact that you’re in an environment where you don’t have to worry about adulting for a while?

Source

People escape to villas seeking a place where they can leave behind the hustle and bustle of their lives, even if it’s just for a little while. As an accommodation provider, it’s your job to ensure guests get the experience they expect when they stay at your property.

But first, guests have to be able to find you, book with you, and customize the particulars of their experience. In other words, the guest experience doesn’t start when they step foot on your villa; it starts from that first Google search. 

With the right villa or lodge management system, you can easily manage important aspects of your online presence, including how you appear on channel websites, pricing, ease of booking, and more. 

Importance of Villa Management Software

Nowadays, a guest booking a villa usually starts with visiting a website like Booking.com or Expedia and searching for vacation rentals in a certain area. This process is especially true if the person is looking for a new place to stay rather than somewhere they’ve vacationed before.

But while there are definitely a few standout major players in travel websites, there are thousands of options for potential guests. People are looking for the best deal, so they’ll likely visit several OTA sites to compare prices. 

For accommodation providers, this means that listing with as many different third-party channels as possible is paramount for attracting new guests. However, each provider has a different payment structure for the privilege of listing on their site, and some may not be worth the cost. It’s up to accommodation providers to pick and choose the most lucrative options—which is super time-consuming to do manually by visiting each website and sifting through analytics. 

But while people are more likely to use OTAs for initial bookings, they often prefer to book directly at places they’ve visited before. This is because, barring a specific promotion or deal, it’s usually cheaper to book directly. Plus, since they already know the place, booking directly is often easier than going through a third party.

For accommodation providers, this means two things:

1. You need a comprehensive way to manage your listings with various OTAs
2. You need a booking system that’s easy, effective, and provides a streamlined guest experience

The best way to nail down these two essentials is to invest in villa property management software (property management software is often shortened to PMS). Newbook, for example, allows you to not only manage an unlimited number of listings for multiple properties at no additional cost (many PMS charge extra for listings for multiple properties), but the robust booking engine gives you the flexibility to customize the booking process to match your business. 

For example, maybe you have an RV park with a certain number of villas in addition to RV sites. With Newbook, you can easily differentiate these two accommodation types in your booking process and put additional criteria that the customer must include, like RV size and number of people. Plus, the online booking system easily integrates into your existing website—so you’re not creating a separate webpage just for your booking system. 

In addition to managing bookings and listings, villa management software also gives you the ability to:

• Set tasks for different team members and track progress
• Set automations to take care of quick administrative tasks without manual input (e.g., when a guest checks out, it can trigger an automatic task to clean the room)
• Connect with other software in your business’s tech stack
• View important performance and revenue data to make more informed business decisions

What to Look For in a Villa and Lodge Property Management Software

There are actually a wide variety of different types of villa property management software offerings that you can implement for your business. In general, villa property management software acts as a central core, so it’s not uncommon to see a PMS that includes several features that could also be standalone software, including a booking engine, centralized reservation system, OTA channel manager, and more. 

Thankfully, whether the villa PMS includes this additional software or not, you should still look for the same features, as outlined in the table below:

Villa Property Management Software Feature	What to Look For
Channel management	- Automatic pricing synchronization to ensure that the correct prices are displayed across all OTAs - Real-time updates so that unit availability, pricing, and extras are all listed correctly across all OTAs even when updates are made - Reporting and analytics so you can track which OTAs perform the best and cull the ones that don’t offer your business value - Secure data transfer using standard security measures like SSL (secure sockets layer) or TLS (transport layer security) to protect sensitive data at rest and in transit
Booking engine	- Custom branding to keep your guest’s trust throughout the booking process (different fonts, writing tones, or color schemes may confuse the guest and cause them to think they accidentally ended up on the wrong website and cancel their transaction) - Availability calendar and unit selection so the guest can easily choose from available dates for each property and select the available unit they prefer - Extras incorporated into the booking process to increase upsell potential and allow the guest to select any extras or activities they want so they can build a complete experience during the booking process - An online guest portal that allows them to modify their booking, pay for accommodations, and more
Integrations and connections	- A web or integrations store that facilitates easy connections with popular applications and programs - An API that follows standardized practices to make creating new connections easy and effective

Perks to Using Lodge and Villa Management Software

Using a villa and lodge management system has a variety of important benefits. These benefits surround improving the efficiency and productivity of your business and include:

1. Streamlined Booking Process

The easier your booking process is to understand and complete, the more guests you’ll earn. If any point during your booking process is confusing or doesn’t make sense, chances are your guest will either book with someone else or opt to use an OTA instead. Rather than rely on native web design tools like forms and checkboxes only to be sent a mishmash of information in an email, villa property management software like Newbook gives you a templated booking engine that you can easily customize to suit your business. Plus, features like interactive maps that show available units make it easy for guests to visualize availability and select the units they are interested in. 

2. More Efficient and Productive Staff

Having your booking engine integrated with your villa property management software is also key for streamlining the tasks that are needed after a booking is made. Once a guest completes a booking, an automation can be triggered to schedule a cleaning or room check on the unit that the guest has selected to ensure that it’s ready to go. 

With automated notifications, your staff can always be aware and ready to spring into action when a new task is assigned to them, reducing downtime and allowing them to complete new tasks faster than before. 

3. Better Promotion for Services and Add-Ons

Guests want to feel like they are in full control over their vacation experience. By incorporating additional services and add-ons into the booking process, you not only give them the ability to choose relevant services and extras but also boost your opportunity to sell more of these. 

With villa property management software like Newbook, the guest can select any extras they want to add to their vacation experience during the booking process, from kayak and bicycle rentals to ensuring that a bottle of wine is waiting for them when they enter their unit.

4. Self-Service Options For Guests

Guest portals are a great tool to give guests more flexibility with checking in and out and ease the burden of scheduling a staff member to be physically present at all times to handle these transactions. Villa property management software like Newbook includes a built-in guest portal that allows guests to check in or out, pay their bill, get answers to common questions, and even make adjustments to their stay—all without interacting with a staff member. 

Villa and Lodge Management Software Free Options: Pros & Cons

You know that saying, “You get what you pay for”? Well, people usually say that because opting for the cheap or free option usually nets you very little. But at the same time, free is an enticing option, and if you’ve got a tight budget and the time, trying out a couple of lodge management software free options can’t hurt, right?

Let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of using free villa property management software:

Pros

Cons

- Doesn’t cost anything - Features might be “just enough” for what you need the software to do - Open-source software (which is usually free) often has robust communities that offer help and support

- Requires you to “host” the software using your own computer (if you want remote online access, you’ll have to set this up yourself, which can be difficult) - You’re responsible for all IT-related endeavors, from software updates, data security, and user access - Will likely have a much higher downtime potential compared to paid software (unless you invest in high-end server space) - Plenty of hidden costs associated with ongoing maintenance

The biggest difference in going for paid villa property management software versus free is the hidden costs and time associated with ensuring the software is working properly and is reliable. You’ll either need to be an expert software developer yourself or enlist the help of one on a regular basis, especially when you want to expand your business and connect your PMS with other software. The only time free software is fine is if you want it to do one simple thing, and you’re fine with it being very limited in that regard. For property management software that’s designed around the principle of being central to your business operations, opting for free software isn’t a great idea.

Why Newbook Is Your Best PMS Option for Villas and Lodges

When it comes to choosing the best villa property management solution for your business, we know that you have tons of choices. Newbook has been designed from the ground up to cater to accommodation providers large and small by providing a fully-featured yet simple-to-use platform.

• Newbook stands out as a comprehensive revenue management solution, serving as a unique one-stop shop for hotels and resorts. Our platform offers essential tools to streamline operations effectively. Recognizing the significance of seamless integration, we support hundreds of platforms such as Quickbooks, Wild Energy, IDeas, and more. For specific needs, our Open AI integration is available to facilitate tailored solutions.
• We prioritize data security and uptime to meet our customers' highest standards. With a robust 99.99% uptime guarantee and state-of-the-art cybersecurity and data protection protocols, our clients can rest assured that their revenue generation remains uninterrupted, free from concerns about downtime.
• Newbook takes a personalized approach to customer service, offering a white-glove experience from onboarding to continuous support. We strive to establish a partnership with our customers, ensuring they view us as more than just a technology provider but as a crucial and reliable ally in their operations.

Let’s take a closer look at a Newbook customer who was able to achieve a 12% growth rate in occupied nights in only a year—thanks to the increased exposure using Newbook’s built-in channel manager software:

BIG4 Adventure Whitsunday Resort is a beautiful property located in Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia, offering a wide range of accommodation options for travelers from glamping, caravaning, condos, cabins, and villas. The McKinnon family is committed to continuous innovation to keep their resort attractive and enticing for guests over time.

In today’s online world, the key to getting noticed is to put yourself out there on the right channels online. Using Newbook’s channel management software alongside the property management system allows the McKinnon’s to increase their online exposure and make the best use of OTA connections. When offers change on the resort, like new facilities added or other perks, they can easily update the marketing materials and pricing across all OTAs without visiting each site. Over time, Big4 Adventure has continued to smash company growth records and delight guests by continuing to promote their fun new attractions.

Conclusion

Choosing the right villa property management software is crucial for accommodation providers looking to enhance their guest experience, streamline operations, and increase revenue. The guest experience starts from the first online search, making it essential for providers to have a strong online presence across various third-party channels. 

A robust villa property management software, such as Newbook, offers features like channel management, a customized booking engine, task automation, and integrations, allowing accommodation providers to manage their listings effectively and provide a seamless booking experience.

Book a demo with Newbook today and discover the difference our software can make in your business.