Finally, we can take a great sigh of relief as the vaccine for the COVID-19 pandemic has come to market. This is the time to pack your bags and start ticking off all the places on your travel wishlist. Now, you can visit all the destinations that you were forced to miss due to the onslaught of the coronavirus. Entrepreneurs who had stalled plans of building a rental marketplace like Airbnb can start again.
However, the threat is still imminent. So, precaution is better than cure. You need to be careful all the time. This is better to make the right choices starting from accommodation to the mode of transport.
With the current advanced technologies, we can easily book our accommodations in 2024. Some websites even allow us to book personalized experiences. And why not, because personalization is one of the key things that users seek.
One popular platform that helps people rent accommodations and even provides its guests with some exclusive tourism activities is Airbnb. It started in 2007 as just a mere air bed and breakfast service. Now, it is one of the world’s leading all-in-one vacation experience providers. Its services include right from lodging, home staying, holiday rentals, and recreation activities.
You can start an online hospitality rental service of your own. Focus on devising a good business plan. An expert IT company can look after the technical side.
Challenges to Online Rental Marketplaces
Since its conception, Airbnb grew at an exponential rate ever. Through its expansion journey, it went on to acquiring other online marketplaces. It recently raised a whopping 3.5 billion dollars through its IPO.
Nowadays, the online vacation rental platform sector is the hottest cake in the United States and globally. Startups interested in joining this race are looking up to building a rental marketplace like Airbnb. If you are one of those aspiring entrepreneurs, you have come to the right place.
Getting into the business world is not an easy job. One use case scenario will never be similar to another scenario. Having a prepared and open mind is the only way you will learn and advance your career in the market. Accordingly, you are bound to face few common challenges in the initial stages of the online rental marketplace business.
Here, we examine these factors in-depth.
Quality & Quantity Assessments
Issues can arise with your inventory, due to the surge in demand amid 2024. Generally, the market tends to increase the quantity or decrease the quality of the goods or products.
This leads to lowering consistency levels of customer services and care. Hence, establishing user trust becomes extremely tough.
Analytical Challenges
Customer satisfaction is the main stepping stone for success in this field. You need to understand the target audience, to increase the retention rate, and decrease the bounce rate. But you can’t always get it all right at the first attempt.
This is a hands-on learning experience. Therefore, place yourself in the shoes of your customers. Thus, analyze their needs based on their age, marital status, vacation type, destination choice, and period of vacation, etc.
Logistical Challenges
The vacation rental is a one-to-many arrangement. There might arise a problem of double or overbooking on some occasions. Similarly, there can come up issues such as damaged goods, and bad logistics.
These kinds of inconveniences will lead to customer dissatisfaction. This in turn will again cause a lower retention rate. Hence, analyzing the supply-demand matrix is of utmost value.
Guidelines for Building a Rental Marketplace like Airbnb
Let’s discuss the basics you need to know while building a rental marketplace like Airbnb during 2024. These will help you before you plunge head-first into your new ambitious venture.
- Choose your Business & Revenue Model
- Understand the Application Features
- Develop virtual Rental Platform
- Promote online Rental Marketspace
Now, we see in detail how to go about crafting a virtual hospitality rental platform to make big bucks.
Choose your Business & Revenue Model
Your models form the structure of your business. Moreover, they also reflect your goal and the future path. As mentioned before, for your website to succeed you need to attract, retain and increase your customer base.
Planning a robust business model and revenue model plays a pivotal role here. So, choosing an efficient business model helps you in generating a good return on investment (ROI) in the form of revenue. These are the Commission-based model, Listing fee model, Membership model, Subscription model, Lead generation model, and Freemium model.
Understand the Application Features
If you have to explain what Airbnb is in three simple but apt terms, these are the right phrases. Location-based rental website, peer-to-peer vacation rental service, and rental marketplace.
The following are the basic features that you need to concentrate on to make your hospitality rental website more effective. For example Multiple profile options (users, admin, and host), Property listing, Booking system, Messaging system, and Online location search. Push notifications, Online payment gateways, Community support, Review & Rating system are also important.
Once you incorporate these basic features, you can slowly upgrade your solution to include more complex features. For instance, seasonal pricing, currency management, review management, popular location selector, banner management, mobile verification system, trust, and verification certificate.
Develop virtual Rental Platform
You can go about building a rental marketplace like Airbnb using three methods.
- From scratch (On your own or hiring a tech team)
- Purchasing an Airbnb clone software
- Using a SaaS platform (Software as a Service)
The different technical stacks that are usually used to develop specific features are as follows.
Programming languages – Ruby, JavaScript
JavaScript Framework: React.js
Application Framework: Ruby on Rails
SQL data storage: PostgreSQL
Data storage: Redis
Automation Frameworks: RSpec, Capybara
Web server: Nginx
Web application server: Puma
Hosting: Amazon Web Services (AWS)
This is just for your knowledge. You don’t need to know every nook and corner of your website and its functionalities.
Promote online Rental Marketspace
The final and the most important step in your line of business is marketing. This is the tool that will connect you and users, worldwide. If you don’t market yourself efficiently, then it is impossible to attract the right audience. Subsequently, you will find it difficult to grow your customer base.
There are a few commonly used marketing tactics that have proved to be robust. For example, digital marketing, search engine optimization, content marketing, social media marketing, and influencer marketing. You can pick any of them or even customize one for yourself and see which works best for you.
Conclusion
Hope that now you have gotten a hang of what to expect from the holiday rental market. You will also become aware of how to carry out building a rental marketplace like Airbnb. Because, this is one vast area with unlimited scope for growth, innovation, and development.
There is a constant requirement for improvement in user experience, be it technical or personalized. So, you need to be always on your toes and be up-to-date with all the required technological upgrades. Likewise, also keep knowledge of market changes, users’ trends, and preferences.
Do you need to craft an online hospitality rental marketplace? If you are seeking any advisory or technical help, do reach out to Techliance. We will help you to our best possible effort.