As a property owner, you will have lots of questions
Click on one of the four buttons below to find out more from an owners perspective
The Essentials
In brief, we help property owners increase their income with short-term rental solutions, while reducing their workload at the same time. We manage the day-to-day operations of short-term holiday rental properties, including online listing, photography, pricing management, guest communication, cleaning, laundry, toiletries and check in of guests.
We currently use the following booking platforms for our listings:
Airbnb
Booking.com
Hotel Around Town platform (our own platform)
TripAdvisor (and partner websites)
VRBO (formerly HomeAway)
However, it also depends on your property’s location, price and unique features – meaning that your property might not be listed on all of the above platforms if they don’t match the platform-specific requirements, or if they aren’t a good fit with its target audience. We like to work with our client’s needs and if you’d rather keep your property off a certain platform, then please let us know.
Edinburgh and East Lothian
Yes of course this is what we do! We will set up your property on all platforms relevant for your listing. You will have access to your owner’s dashboard to review the reservations. If you don’t have an Airbnb account, we will create this under our founder’s profile Rebecca. Rebecca has hosted over 7000 guests and by adding your property to her account you will be sure to get off to a flying start.
This is the best option for existing hosts, that are looking to hand over the hosting of their property. It’s straight forward to do, and if you decide to stop using our services, we simply remove the listing and return it to you.
Our easy access owner’s portal allows you to reserve dates as you please. Before you arrive, we will make sure that your property is clean and ready. Please note that when you check out there is a guest changeover cleaning fee added to your monthly invoice so we can prepare for the next guests.
We only let fully furnished properties, not bedrooms within a home. This doesn’t mean you need to move your possessions out, so long as there’s some space for guests to leave their own things. The best solution is normally a lockable owner’s cupboard (s), while allowing ample storage for staying guests, that way you can keep personal belongings secure for when you next stay. We often advise not to leave personal effects that are valuable or of sentimental value to you.
Property owners are expected to have adequate holiday home insurance in place, in case of damages. This should cover the building, its contents and any liabilities. Unfortunately, we are unable to give advice on the issue of Insurance but can suggest suitable insurers to speak with.
In the most basic form this is the process we follow
- Complete our property quiz here. We will guide you through this process as we go through it.
- Meet with us.
- Complete our onboarding process (this helps us understand everything we need to know about your property).
- Getting the property ‘photo’ ready.
- Going live.
- Enjoy more, while doing less.
If for any reason you decide to no longer use Hotel Around Town’s service, please inform us by email at least 30 days before the day you wish to terminate your contract. Please note you must honour all upcoming bookings within the 30 days or cover the cost of cancellation fees per booking.
This will depend on your situation and how you own your property, but it is likely worth making this step. We would review this with you as we go through the onboarding process and advise you to meet your needs.
Payments & Pricing
Our comprehensive pricing strategy takes full advantage of our local expertise and intimate market knowledge. Your tailored pricing strategy will factor in market occupancy rates, local events whether recurring or one off, wider travel trends, property location, seasonality, competitor pricing and more. Our hybrid of property knowledge and hospitality know-how will ensure that your revenues are maximised throughout the year.
Hotel Around Town offers a full-service commission-based solution to hosts, this means we collect a commission for every guest’s stay. Our services cover all aspects of managing the property, (from listing creating, management and ranking optimisation, calendar management, cleaning, 24/7 guest communication, and more). Our commission structure is tailored to your property & personal circumstances, get in touch to discuss your requirements further.
Yes, there’s a one-off payment of £180 Including VAT. In order to get your property set up and ready for guests, we charge a one-time onboarding fee which covers the cost of; copy for listing descriptions, setting up the online listing/s on the different short-let platforms, pricing strategy calendar, creation of a cleaning checklist specific to your apartment, and onboarding organisation, along with dedicated Hotel Around Town social media campaign for your property. Finally, a visit from a Hotel Around Town team member who will review your property to ensure your home has everything required in order to receive guests. The onboarding fee is charged upfront and is payable after signing up with Hotel Around Town.
Once your property is ready to host guests, we will send in one of our professional and experienced property photographers to help showcase your property and maximise revenue. If you have existing good quality photographs, we can use them. Photography prices vary depending on property type & size. Tell us more about your property for a detailed quotation.
This will depend greatly on the property itself, but you can typically expect, a deep clean of the entire property ahead of your first guests, health and safety requirements being met and possibly some finishing touches to set the tone.
Your bookings, calendar and revenue can be found in your personal Owners Dashboard, which you can access via a dedicated website which we setup during onboarding with us. This dashboard is updated in real-time and gives you an insightful overview of your property and its yields, it also allows you to book your property for personal use. A detailed monthly summary will also be included for every invoice period as an Excel attachment.
For every reservation, your guests will have paid an additional charge on top of their reservation costs, that covers the cost of the changeover cleaning and all agreed laundry, in preparation for the next guests. This is always shown as a standalone charge, across all booking platforms, it’s important to bear in mind that your guest has paid for this. A summary of changeover costs will be detailed on your monthly invoice, these funds have already been paid for by your guest. The Changeover fee is deducted from the total revenue, ahead of calculating Hotel Around Town’s commission.
The booking platforms all charge commissions and some charge handling fees, these are deducted from the total reservation amount automatically.
Our Hotel Around Town direct booking platform has a flat commission fee of 3.6% Including VAT with payment processing fees deducted automatically. Typically booking platforms charge between 5% and 16.5%.
Hotel Around Town’s Commission is calculated from the total reservation (after any booking platform commission and fees) minus the changeover fee (paid for by your guests), minus our commission percentage, resulting in your owner’s revenue. For clarity, our commission is not charged on the overall pay-out.
Payments are processed by transfer to a bank account of your choosing, typically by the end of the first working week of the month following the invoice period, but no later than the 15th of the month. The invoice period covers the reservations that checked in during the previous calendar month. Exceptions may occasionally apply for reservations from platforms that pay out on check-out.
Housekeeping, Maintenance & Guest Journey
As part of the setup for hosting guests, you will need to provide adequate mattresses, duvets, pillows, mattresses protectors and pillow protectors for each bed.
Yes, we provide hotel-quality linen and towels at every guest changeover clean. The linen and towels are tailored to your requirements, they typically include bed sheets, pillowcases, hand towels, bath towels, bathmats and tea towels as suits the needs of the property.
We make certain that all guests have essentials to hand, we call them flat basics. These basics are provided for your guest during their stay and they are replenished and invoiced to you on your monthly invoice. Should you require additional items, such as fresh flowers and welcome packs, then we can have one of our housekeeping team arrange this at our delivery cost.
As part of our onboarding process to get your property ready for hosting guests, Hotel Around Town will provide you with a detailed check list, that guides you on all the items needed to host your property as a holiday home.
As part of our onboarding process we will document in detail the property, but it doesn’t form part of an inventory. Holiday homes have a higher turnover and conducting an inventory after guest is simply not practicable.
We have a dedicated maintenance team that works with many trusted contractors. Pricing varies depending on the nature of the task, and these are clearly laid out in our client terms and conditions which we share upon instruction. We can arrange smaller jobs without contacting you, but it’s important to agree a maximum spend limit during the onboarding process. If you prefer to arrange for maintenance yourself then we simply have to coordinate access with you along with you blocking out the required dates on your owner’s portal.
In the interest of safety and flexibility for guest’s arrival, we opt to use the most suitable lock box or digital lock for your guest to access your property. We create a lockbox guide for your guests, as part of our check-in guide to ensure a simple and safe check in. With this, there is no need to meet and greet guests, from experience we have found guests prefer to check in when it suits them.
We have a dedicated local guidebook which covers transport, restaurants and cafes, local attractions and more all on our website. We are great at communicating this with our guests. Additionally, we have a host welcome video which is sent to our guest ahead of there arrival showing them everything they need to know about the property they are staying in. Have a look at the example on our website.
Health & Safety
We’d never take a risk with your property, even if that means saying no to some bookings. All guests must have a verified profile and be able to provide us with details about their trip. For all bookings, we ask for the guest ID.
We have strong processes to vet guests and ensure we control who stays at your place, but we do ask you to not keep any valuable in the property when it is available in the short-let market. In the unlikely event, guests damage or steal from your property, our team of issue resolution specialists will do their best to recover the loss.
It is a legal requirement to meet a number of health and safety standards in Scotland and we expect your property to be fully compliant. Prior to hosting, we will advise you of the necessary steps, this includes gas safety certification. Hotel Around Town can instruct all matters on your behalf through our preferred suppliers, please note that work may be required to your property to meet the current legislation standard.
