How to Turn Vacation Rental Gap Nights Into Moneymakers

An empty vacation rental home is a money loser, even on gap nights between bookings.

As property managers know, filling “the gap” is time-consuming and tricky — a messy, multi-screen feat that can entail cross-checking guest arrivals and departures with owner stays and housekeeping blocks. It can mean hunting down new guests. And automatically sending invitations to all previous renters can backfire since undesirable guests may choose to return.

How to Turn Vacation Rental Gap Nights Into Moneymakers

But gap nights offer an untapped opportunity to generate revenue for vacation rental homes, particularly if you know how to fill them in an efficient way that won’t drain your time or resources.

The smart solution is to extend the stays of departing or arriving guests. Adding nights for existing guests solves the problem of finding a new renter for a classic one-to-three-night gap, particularly midweek. It also saves resources spent on new guests like home inspection, housecleaning and messaging.

But there’s an art to turning extended guest stays into moneymakers. Here are five ways extended stays can help enhance your business — and help you make money.

	Increase value Yes, you’ll increase your income with every guest who extends their stay for a night or two. And that adds up. But extended stays can have other positive effects for your vacation rental business. Please your guests: Guests who have the time will appreciate the offer to stay an extra night or two, particularly at a discount. By offering them the option to stretch their vacation, they get to stay in vacation-happy mode a bit longer. Keep owners happy: In addition to the added rent, homeowners will be impressed by your initiative in finding fresh ways to make the property more profitable. Fewer turnovers also means fewer cleanings and less wear and tear on the house.
	Save money It’s cheaper to extend the stay of a guest who has already booked than to find a new guest for the home. Housekeeping expenses for existing guests are also significantly less than if new people rent the home.
	Save time with smart tech Smart software is the secret sauce that makes it quick and easy to identify gap nights and send messages inviting guests to extend their stay. Look for guest communication tools like Extend Guest Stays from RueBaRue that are designed specifically to facilitate extended stays and offer time-saving features like these: Easy interface calendar: A smart tech calendar like RueBaRue’s color-coded model provides a quick glimpse in one place of all guest stays, owner reservations and maintenance blocks so you can quickly identify vacant nights for extended guest stays. Message templates: With message templates, it’s easy to create a standard message inviting guests to extend their stay. An easy interface calendar means you can send messages by text and email to guests in seconds.
	Set your business apart from the pack Offering extended stays is a great way to distinguish your business and show homeowners that you’re on the lookout for innovative guest amenities that drive more revenue.