Agoda Outside Publishes Vacation Rental Handbook

Agoda Outside recently released At Home Around the World: The Short-Term Rentals Handbook for Guests, Hosts, Neighbors and Governments, a compilation of research and guidance on the value and benefits of home-sharing. Agoda Outside is the outreach and public affairs arm of Agoda, a Southeast Asia-based subsidiary of Booking Holdings and a booking platform for accommodations, flights, and airport transfers.

“This handbook is written for all the stakeholders in the short-term rental community: guests, hosts, communities, and governments,” said Peter L. Allen, managing director of Agoda Outside. “We strongly believe that everyone needs to work together to maximize the benefits of the growing home-sharing economy.”

Allen wrote the book together with Robert Rosenstein, co-founder and chairman of Agoda. Topics range from the economic benefits home-sharing provides to communities to practical tips for first-time hosts and guests, but a primary mission of the handbook is to help governments create effective short-term rental legislation.

“Through our conversations with regulators and neighborhood advocates around the world, we realized that governments are struggling with how to understand and anticipate the role that home sharing plays in their cities. As this relatively new industry has emerged, a patchwork of regulations has been created,” Rosenstein said in a release. “We wanted to collect the lessons from these natural experiments and start to showcase how the successful approaches work.”

“One of the biggest takeaways from At Home Around the World is a broader perspective: Property managers will see their business from the point of view of other people involved in the local host rental ecosystem,” Allen said. The book is also a reminder that property managers should understand their customers, keep a sharp eye on the competition, comply with regulations and tax requirements, and continue to innovate, he said. The book includes a list of new businesses to help property managers be successful, as well as important perspectives from guests, neighbors, and government officials.

The book can be downloaded from its accompanying site, VacationRentalHandbook.com.