What is a Kaizen Blitz?

a focused, time-limited (usually one week or less) process improvement exercise where a team works to quickly identify and implement changes in a specific area

If I create a website, will I get direct bookings? No.

You could have a beautiful, expensive, professional looking website and a free/cheap one…even a bad looking site could outperform a beautiful, new, expensive site.

Why?

What’s most important is having a direct booking strategy that drives traffic and interest in booking your listing.

When can I book a call with Hospitable to help me with my direct booking strategy?

After you have watched the Direct Booking Live Workshop video and completed (or at least attempted until you absolutely could not proceed any further without help) the below steps.

Is this process approved by OTA/Channels?

We have crafted the strategy to comply with channels off booking platform policies to the best of our knowledge, but you should review the channels rules yourself and confirm if you want to implement and what changes you may want to make to be compliant if you have a different interpretation. We make no warranties or expressed statements that this program is approved or compliant.

1. Setup your direct booking website on a custom domain

Overview video:

  1. add a payout method first
    1. be sure to complete the full process
    2. It could take 24 hours for verification of your personal or business info
  2. Create a site
    1. Don’t worry about it being perfect, just get it live. You can always come back and change the templates, hero photo/video.
  3. Add a custom domain (example: wwww.staymontanta.com)
    1. do not us the hospitable generic domain (example: turkeyfarm.hospitable.rentals), search for a domain and purchase inside Hospitable if you don’t already have one)
      1. When a guest looks at your domain and it’s not a ‘normal’ domain (www.domain.com) then they think it’s spam, not professional, and they back out of the booking flow.
  4. Publish your site

https://www.loom.com/share/a87bad64f7834cc4b838e159659eba86?sid=b0ad731f-9376-4ba8-bf07-825aeec9a626

2. Google Vacation Rentals

  1. Once your site is published, visit :https://my.hospitable.com/direct/channels and click your propertie/s —> Save. your site will automatically be submitted for Google Vacation Rentals distribution after this step and can take up to 2 weeks.
  2. Be aware of Google’s content policy which prohibits pictures with text or picture in a picture pictures — they will delete or re-organize your photos as a result and could delay the process

3. Setup custom code and requests for email 2-minutes after confirmed reservation

  1. Copy/Paste this as a Custom Code

Hi %guest_first_name%, what's your best email address? All communication will remain via the %platform% app but the local property compliance requires an email address on file.

We can also send an invoice/receipt if you require one, just let us know.

Forever your Host,

%host_first_name%

  1. How To

https://www.loom.com/share/5c7f8980ab074503b3fdb256262f0a5d?sid=a78e510d-ed3d-4cc8-a8f1-687e139203c2