Success stories

Three records for one booking

Katerina rents two properties in Nikiti — a maisonette near the centre and a house five minutes further out. Her season runs from May to September, and it is not five even months. July and August are full apart from two or three days. June fills from about the middle. September runs to somewhere between the 20th and the end of the month, depending on the weather. May is a single week, around the holidays.

Both properties were listed on Airbnb and Booking.com, and most guests came from Airbnb. The two platform calendars were connected, so that part worked.

Everything outside the platforms did not. When someone called or wrote on WhatsApp, Katerina put the dates in her Google Calendar, then in the notes on her phone, then blocked them in Airbnb. Three records, and none of them knew about the other two.

One booking still slipped through. She took a booking by phone for dates that were already reserved on Airbnb. A friend nearby had the same dates free in an almost identical property, and the guests moved there. It worked out, and it worked out by luck.

Quoting a price took almost as long as taking the booking. She opened Airbnb, found the free dates, checked what the platform was charging, worked out in her head what she could offer directly, and wrote back.

Everything was in her phone

The notes were not only for dates. For every direct booking Katerina wrote down the price she quoted, the deposit she received, and what was still owed. Before every arrival she went back through them to check who still had to pay.

At the end of each month she counted the nights from the same notes for the climate resilience report. After each booking she filed the short-term rental declaration, with the guest’s full name and passport number, which she asked for on WhatsApp. At the end of the year she checked her annual declaration against the same notes.

A season of bookings, prices and guest details lived in one phone.

What she set up

Katerina now has a booking website for both properties. One page for the maisonette, one for the house, each with photos, prices and a booking form.

The website holds the calendar. A booking on Airbnb or Booking.com blocks the same dates on her website. A booking she takes by phone goes in once, and blocks those dates on both platforms.

She sets prices for a date range herself, so a week in August is not priced like a week in May.

Card payments go to her own Stripe account. She also takes bank transfer, and cash for smaller amounts.

A website does not bring guests on its own. Katerina posts her properties on social media and in local groups, with the link to her own website. Shushko gives her the technical side. Finding guests is still her work.

Her second season

This is her second season with the website, and her fourth season renting.

She keeps the panel open on her phone. When a call comes in she can see which dates are free and what they cost, and answer while the guest is still on the line. Sometimes she opens her own website the way a guest would, puts the dates in, and reads the price back from the booking form.

Fewer people ask her whether she is free, because they can see the dates themselves. Before, twenty messages could arrive over one evening and most of them got the same answer — booked.

When someone asks for a week that is already taken, she can offer the days before or after it. On a platform, a guest who sees no free dates just opens the next property. Fewer days in her season stay empty.

Bookings also start arriving earlier in the year, before the rush on the platforms in May and June.

She no longer has to remember who still owes money. The website sends the guest a reminder when the rest of the payment is due, and shows her which guests arriving that day still have to pay. Card payments are recorded automatically. She marks bank transfers and cash herself.

She sends each guest a link and they fill in their own details. The details come back as a list, so the name and document number for each reservation are in front of her when she fills in the declaration. At the end of the month it also gives her the summary she needs for the climate resilience form.

A reminder arrives before each deadline. She still files everything herself.

This season the maisonette was booked for 118 nights and the house for 107. Across the two properties she took 33 bookings, and 18 of them came through her own website.