At the 2019 VRMA International New Orleans, Ryland Nelson was looking for a solution that would take his direct booking strategy to the next level. Ryland runs FernieDirect, an 80 unit short-term rental manager located in beautiful Fernie, British Columbia.
With a new website launching, Ryland needed a way to ensure that frequent Fernie travelers came and booked with him directly, not with one of his competitors through an OTA. When he came across StayFi, he knew he found a solution that would deliver reliable, repeat guest bookings.
With StayFi, Ryland was able to quickly create his own custom-branded splash page through their online portal. Now all of his guests, no matter what OTA they booked on, are introduced to the FernieDirect brand when they log onto the WiFi for the first time. In addition, StayFi is collecting an average of 6 guest emails per booking, instead of just 1 or 0.
In early 2020, FernieDirect & StayFi partnered together to do an analysis of StayFi’s results and a survey of past guests. Here is what they found:
Not only did over 90% of respondents indicate they would want to book direct for their next stay, many commented how much relief they felt booking directly with a reliable business vs. booking an unknown on an OTA.
When Covid struck, Ryland was grateful he had a list of 1000s of past guests he could go to and advertise his units as a much-needed escape from the nearby city of Calgary. In addition, his proprietary guest list has given Ryland a leg up in attracting new homeowners to his rental program.
One added benefit Ryland did not expect is the drastic reduction in calls about WiFi issues in his rental units. There is now one set of WIFi instructions for all his properties, and all of the WiFi networks can be checked remotely on the cloud.
For us at StayFi, we are grateful to work with fantastic rental managers like Ryland, and are looking forward to launching new products to further enhance his book direct business.
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