[00:00:00] Liam: Hey, welcome back to the Boostly podcast, the podcast that gives you the tools, the tactics, the training, and most importantly, the confidence to go out there and get more direct bookends. Today we're doing something a little bit different. We are deep diving into a particular PMS and All the reasons, all the things that you need to know about as a host as to why you may consider that PMS.
[00:00:21] Liam: Now, Boostly, we're partnered with many, many PMSs, some of the top ones in the industry, and this isn't to say, hey, just look at this particular one. This is to say, if you're considering this particular one, let's talk to a host who knows about that, who's using it. And you can get information from. And this is where we're quite lucky.
[00:00:40] Liam: We've got some amazing, amazing hosts as part of the Boostly Academy. And the host today has kindly agreed to come on and to share their experience of Hospitable, the PMS or the channel manager. So let me introduce, we've got Blake. Blake is from Duarte Destinations. He's a member of Boostly.
[00:01:01] Liam: He's got an amazing hospitality business and I'm excited to dive in today. So welcome along Blake. Thank you for joining me.
[00:01:07] Blake: Yes. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
[00:01:09] Liam: So Blake, I know I've teed up a little introduction, but can you just cover, um, more about your business? What do you do? So people got an idea of.
[00:01:17] Liam: What you do, and then we can dive more into hospitable.
Introduction to Hospitable and why Blake chose it
[00:01:21] Blake: Yeah. So as you said, where are your destinations? I've shortened that down from our website to a d-dest.com So that way it's a little bit easier for people to find my website What I do is I manage short term rentals and I try to do a hybrid strategy of short term and midterm rentals to try to keep my occupancy up with this With this growth with Boostly, I've actually started to create a little bit of a project.
[00:01:48] Blake: So I've got the Houston Hospitality Collective in my Houston market to bring hosts together so that way we can collectively market for each other and then also have one direct booking website for our market. So it keeps guests in one area. One side, so that way they can book and have a variety of properties to choose from.
[00:02:08] Blake: And then lately, I have been diving into system integrations and revenue management to help other hosts improve not only their occupancy, but also their profits.
[00:02:20] Liam: Wow. You're going to have people reach out for you. And is this, which area do you cover at the moment?
[00:02:25] Blake: The markets that I'm in, I am in Houston.
[00:02:28] Blake: Uh, I've picked up some clients in Austin. I'm in Tennessee in the Smokies area. And then I've got a property I'm managing in Big Bear, California. So just kind of spread out in the U. S. as clients come in, however I can help. My latest client is expanding into Hawaii. So if things go well there, then we'll be, we'll be expanding out to Hawaii.
[00:02:55] Liam: Wow. So these good people are in good demand. And that sounds like, um, that sounds like you're in demand there. And, uh, we know you're a great person just from, uh, the communities and all the help that I see you give in, in the Facebook groups. I mean, that's, that's how we've ended up on this, this call, isn't it?
[00:03:09] Liam: So let's talk about hospitality. How long have you been using hospitable? Then, we see all the time hosts are confused about which ones to go for. Why did you choose to be hospitable?
Key features that make Hospitable stand out
[00:03:20] Blake: So, I chose hospitable, uh, through using it from, uh, one of my clients. So, one of my clients asked me to do their system integrations on their PMS choice, which was hospitable, and I had not heard of them.
[00:03:32] Blake: So, for about a year, I helped her. I got her system set up and then I helped her with some of her processes. And she was asking me for extra tasks to get done within that PMS. And so I learned a lot about it. And as I learned about them, I jumped on some of their calls and understood what exactly it is that they were doing and offering and training.
[00:03:55] Blake: And as their, as their business grew and as their system grew, I decided to switch myself over to hospitable because I saw what, what great features they were adding and how much they were improving.
[00:04:11] Liam: So what features do you like most about them? Let's dive into the features.
[00:04:16] Blake: So I think what is some of the best features that they have is their AI messaging.
[00:04:20] Blake: When I think AI came out, they were one of the first ones to actually implement AI into their. into their system. So it's already built into the P. M. S. And like chat, GPT became better and made improvements. So did their AI model, and it's become something that's very responsive and very accurate when you're using it.
AI messaging and how it improves guest communication
[00:04:43] Blake: I mean, I bet I have guests that you know, may ask a very specific question, and somehow the A. I. Is able to draw from the listing and find the answer. Or I don't know if it draws from past communications or what, but it's able to get the right answer very often. Uh, so it's really neat to be able to use that messaging.
[00:05:02] Blake: What drew me, what sold me to switch my own. Properties to hospitable is actually their integration with Google vacation rentals. I think that as Google vacation rentals goes, because everybody goes to Google to start their search for stuff, that's going to be something that's a little bit more prominent in search results or in people's searches.
[00:05:23] Blake: So with hospitals connection with Google vacation rentals, not only did they get off the ground pretty early on, but they allow you to link with On Google vacation rentals to your direct booking website, and this is something that is a little bit harder to do for maybe other pms's. But I think it's important because if you're on Google vacation rentals, and the official site is hospitable for direct bookings, you click on the link.
Google Vacation Rentals integration and direct bookings
[00:05:52] Blake: It goes. To your direct booking website. For me, it's my Boostly website and that takes them straight to my page, which, you know, I've made. I've customized it and it's what I like to see, whereas with some other PMS you have to go to that. PMS is a direct booking website because of their connection with Google vacation rental.
[00:06:13] Blake: So it takes you to their own landing page and I like to have a seamless flow. So if you were to go to the official website and the official website is mine, that's it. That's what I think is more important and, and very, uh, necessary when you're building that trust with your guests.
[00:06:32] Liam: Are there any other features that you want to dive into or to, for us to hear about?
[00:06:37] Blake: You know, one other feature that one of my, uh, clients brought out and the reason why she asked for advice on to what, what PMS to pick, and I brought up hospitable, is when you are on a PMS that requires, uh, an API connection, There are times or there are some PMS is that creates a block with Airbnb that does not allow you to do the Airbnb promotions.
[00:06:58] Blake: And so, because you have that connection, maybe, uh. Airbnb says, uh, you have to use your PMS to make any changes and so it reduces your ability to use to run promotions because of hospitables connection with Airbnb. If you wanted to run a promotion, you could, because there's not there's not that connection there that forces, uh, forces you to use your PMS to make changes on Airbnb.
[00:07:25] Blake: So I think that feature is just like a benefit. Of the way, the connection is not necessarily a benefit of a feature, but just a benefit of the connection with Airbnb.
[00:07:37] Liam: Are there any features that you'd love to see from hospitable perhaps in the future or any kind of things that you'd like to draw attention to that is on the wish list?
[00:07:47] Liam: You know, like, hey, this is what I'd like to see from them.
Limitations and wishlist features for Hospitable
[00:07:49] Blake: Yeah, one of the things that I think would be amazing, and I'm sure it's in the works, is a text messaging feature for guests. So at the moment, uh, direct booking messages go out to the guests via email. Um, and if what I usually do is I'll jump on either WhatsApp or I'll just text them directly to get some of those messages out.
[00:08:12] Blake: But if they have a text messaging option where it'll send out the automated messages to your guests via text message, I think that's huge. I know there's a lot that goes into that and it's, it's very, um, probably regulated and difficult on, on their end. And so I can understand it taking a while, but that feature, I think, would just take hospitable right over the top.
[00:08:36] Blake: Um, another feature that I think would be helpful, but not necessarily it's not needed is when you have a, uh, for me, I have a, my personal properties that I'm managing, um, under 1 account and then I have co hosted. Properties, but they can't be under the same account. So I have to have 2 separate hospitable sign ins a unified log in would be great.
[00:09:02] Blake: So that way I don't have to go into my personal and then co hosted properties. What is nice is. Several of my clients have hospitable and I can toggle between them on co hosted, but none of them can be in my personal. Um, and that's just a. That's just a little feature that would make my job a little bit easier, but other than that, I think it's a good, good system.
[00:09:23] Liam: That's really cool. That is very cool. And thank you so much for, for doing this, Blake. I mean, I've learned a lot about hospitable and I hope you listening to this or watching this on the Boostly podcast is, has learned a lot as well. So what I'm gonna do is throw the mic up and Blake, so how can we.
[00:09:38] Liam: Find out more is there and by the way, for anybody who's considering there are links around this podcast or around this YouTube video on if you want to click those links that will take you straight over to, um, the hospitable website and, um, it'll take you to Blake's links, which is amazing. But like, if you can share, how do we best get in touch with you?
How to get in touch with Blake for advice and support
[00:10:00] Blake: So normally people find me on Facebook. Um, you can, uh, I'm part of the boosted community. I'm part of. Robuild's community, several different communities out there. I try to give back as much as I can and help others. You can find my social media handles at Duarte Destinations for the business. And if you need help or you just want to reach out direct, you can actually go to my website and you can, there's a WhatsApp button on there.
[00:10:27] Blake: You can just hit me on WhatsApp. So the website's d des. com and anywhere on there you can find ways to get a hold of me.
[00:10:36] Liam: Awesome. Thank you so much. And as I say, um, those links will be around here. Thank you. Like, was there any, anything last to share before we, uh, we bring it to a close?
[00:10:46] Blake: I don't think so.
[00:10:48] Blake: I think this, this has been great. I really, uh, enjoy sharing information about different PMSs. Um, and that's not to say that, you know, there's other ones that are, that's more useful for others. Like you said, it depends on what you need. But I think that hospitable found a way to appeal to. A majority of hosts, uh, majority of hosts that we deal with.
[00:11:10] Blake: And I think that it's a great product for, for people to try
[00:11:15] Liam: A hundred percent. Well, thank you so much for the value you share, like, and, um, I'm sure we'll see you in the communities. That's it from the Boostly podcast for this one. Thank you so much. We'll see you on the next one.
