Mobile is King for Vacation Rental Travelers

Since our beta launch in 2015, we have been paying close attention to how you and your travelers use your guidebooks. We found that more than 75% of Hostfully guidebook views come from mobile devices, so we set out to vastly improve our mobile experience.

Keeping up with the demand for mobile

75% of the world has access to a mobile device. Despite this powerful trend, only 15% of businesses have optimized their websites for mobile.

This pattern continues in hospitality, where companies are just beginning to provide mobile-optimized services that improve guest experience. It’s a needed change, as more and more travelers use mobile devices compared to any other interface.

At Hostfully, we understand that a poor customer experience results in lower bookings, and ultimately lost revenue. So we dramatically updated our mobile experience to help your business keep pace with the needs of your customers.

We are excited to announce the release of Hostfully 2.0, which works beautifully on every mobile device and also feels great on desktop. We’ve updated look and feel of the entire product, using usability principles from Google’s Material Design framework.

Roll out your best content — with no native app required

Your content is still available for travelers in the same URL, so users don’t need to make any changes to implementations or communication. And there’s still no app to download, making it just as easy for you to tell your customers about your property, procedures and locale.

Here are some of the new usability features that you’ll notice with Hostfully 2.0.

Cards and Decks

• Cards store information about a particular topic, like wifi, check in, or how to use the BBQ
• Decks define which cards appear in each guidebook, allowing you to reuse content easily across as many guidebooks as you’d like

Admin Dashboard: Now it’s easier to add, edit and manage all your guidebooks from a mobile device, tablet, and desktop.

Improvements for your travelers:

• Large map view on mobile so travelers can see recommendations relative to the home property
• Ability to filter recommendations by category
• Looks and works like a mobile app on any Android or iOS device

Final Thoughts

Your guest lifecycle depends on a positive mobile experience for your customers. That convenience is now something that customers consider synonymous with mobile self-service.

Vacation rental companies are challenged with keeping up with the digital age. A recent industry study found that 84% of vacation rental and property management companies want to offer services that are unavailable within their current software suite.

Hostfully is changing this by offering hosts and vacation rental companies the ability to optimize the guest experiences with mobile technology.

We’d love you to check out Hostfully 2.0, and see how it can help increase your vacation rental return on investment and improve guest experience.