As the ‘sharing economy’ continues to gain momentum, systems are being put into place to regulate and standardise how the sharing economy is run. One company that is paving the way is GuestReady.
GuestReady aims to professionalise hosting on home-sharing platforms like Airbnb and HomeAway by providing hosts with a range of services including laundry, cleaning, guest check-ins and checkouts, guest communication and more.
It introduces its own set of standards and creates a new benchmark for private hosts who wish to lease their homes to travellers.
In doing so, GuestReady hopes to help make property owners more efficient so they can accommodate a greater number of guests over time and ultimately boost their profits.
It achieves this by offering two options, depending on the type of property – Airbnb management packages (e.g. revenue estimation, professional photography, guest screening etc.) or standalone services (e.g. laundry, toiletries, guest communication).
By handling much of the technical work behind managing a short-term rental, it allows property owners to essentially take their hands off the entire process and simply enjoy the extra income.
To monetise themselves, GuestReady charges hosts using their service with either a percentage of a property’s revenue or a set monthly amount. Clients using standalone services are charged depending on the service used – spanning between $11-$50.
GuestReady has just launched in six cities, including: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong.
It provides a great solution for busy hosts who perhaps cannot afford the needed time to manage their own properties adequately. It also potentially opens up the opportunity for homeowners who are not yet hosts, to raise their properties to a guest-ready standard.
GuestReady CEO, Alex Limpert
“As the short-term rental industry is maturing, there is a natural need for more efficiency, professionalism, and standardisation… the property and any service related to a stay need to be of immaculate quality. For non-professional hosts, this is hard to achieve, which is where we step in,” said CEO, Alexander Lampert.
From a consumer standpoint, it also gives paying guests assurance that booked accommodation is carefully and properly managed, avoiding any nightmares during their stay.
The main challenge of GuestReady however, is how they maintain universal quality standards across an international market as service quality varies widely between both cities and suppliers.
That being said, GuestReady must also be wary of making sure they do not lose what gives a rental property its unique appeal. While becoming systematic is a good thing, it should not be done so at the expense of a guest’s ability to have a unique experience by staying there.
It could be argued that introducing a standardised level of service across properties could undermine the very thing that gives staying in private accommodation its ‘rough and ready’ charm.
On top of that, professionalising these services potentially adds an extra tier of formality between a homeowner and their houseguests, which may or may not go against a traveller’s ultimate desire to connect with their host and ‘living locally’.
It poses as a challenge to hosts who perhaps want to give their guests a more personable experience by welcoming them into their homes, but still want to manage their properties to a higher standard.
The question must be asked as to whether guests will come to expect more traditional forms of hospitality when staying in someone’s home, as they would when staying in a hotel.
GuestReady blurs the lines between traditional hotels and private accommodation by offering a higher grade of service, typically expected of the former but not always the latter.
If a homeowner is capable of providing all the benefits associated with private accommodation (greater privacy, cost-effectiveness and a unique location), while maintaining their properties to a qualified standard, then hotels may have something to worry about.
