Overview
The team at vacation rental property management company Bark Point Ventures cares deeply about local communities in Northern Wisconsin, and by providing exceptional experiences to their guest they encourage travelers to respect these communities in return.
Bark Point Ventures needed an innovative technology partner to effectively communicate with guests while growing their business. They found the perfect partner in Hostfully, unlocking efficiencies and automating operations to drive a surge in booking from various channels. With Hostfully’s capabilities, 40% of Bark Point Ventures’ now comes from Vrbo bookings.
Challenge
When Erin Hutchinson founded Bark Point Ventures 8 years ago, she tracked her bookings across all distribution channels on a spreadsheet. During the pandemic, Northern Wisconsin area got re-discovered by local visitors, accelerating the vacation rental business. Today, Bark Point Ventures looks after 40 properties along South side of a lake shore in Northern Wisconsin. Manual spreadsheet updated were no longer effective for their business.
As Bark Point Ventures kept adding new properties, it became increasingly more complicated and time-consuming to track all bookings and guest communications across various channels, which in turn made it harder to deliver consistent quality of service.
Bark Point Ventures needed to bring guest communications and reservations together into one place, and it was also important to find a software that could support their scale and had an excellent integration with Vrbo – the key distribution channel for driving bookings in low-season.
Solution
Erin Hutchinson strongly believes that the investment in technology drives ROI. She used her background in tech industry to find the right partner that could support their needs and growth ambitions. In 2022, Bark Point Ventures integrated with Hostfully.
Hostfully made it easier and more seamless to list and promote new properties on Vrbo – a channel that currently drives 40% of Bark Point Ventures’ business.
With Hostfully we could push all our listings on to Vrbo and start managing all our Vrbo guest communications and listings in one place. We even saw a drastic increase of bookings coming from Vrbo following the integration with Hostfully for properties where we struggled to boost occupancy.
Bark Point Ventures want to ensure that their clients are getting the best value out of services that they provide. Hostfully unlocked integrations with distribution channels like Vrbo, which drove a higher ADR and occupancy level for Bark Point Ventures’ properties compared to similar properties in their location.
“The compelling reason for choosing Hostfully was not only their technical functionalities, but also the commitment of service to their customers. They understand the needs of vacation rental companies like mine. I have been impressed by Hostfully team’s industry knowledge and responsiveness. It’s a fun partnership!”
