1. WHAT IS HOSPITALITY KINGS?
Hospitality Kings is a full service vacation rental property management company, including the best vacation rental homes in top U.S travel destinations. Hospitality Kings offers its guests the quality and consistency of a fine hotel experience, while taking the best advantage of the marketing, management, and return on investment for vacation rental homeowners.
2. HOW DOES IT WORK?
When you partner with Hospitality Kings, you’ll immediately see why our owners find it easy to reach their rental goals:
- You will never pay for marketing again. Hospitality Kings creates a professional and highly enticing listing for your property and promotes it on the top vacation rental websites, at no cost to you. We’ll even send a professional photographer to your property for free!
- You will never have to answer inquiries night and day. Our in-house team of Travel Advisors responds quickly to every inquiry, answers questions about your property, and confirms bookings 7 days a week − even on nights and weekends.
- You will get world-class support - from real people. We handle all pre- and post-stay communication with your guests and onsite partners, and our team is always just a phone call away.
- Manage onsite services your way. Hospitality Kings gives you a full range of options for managing on-the-ground services, including self-service, continuing to work with the people you already know and trust, or working with one of our vetted local partners.
- Enjoy a more profitable rental - entirely risk-free. There’s no cost to join, no term commitment and no hidden fees - just our incredibly low booking fee of only 20%!
3. HOW CAN I BE SURE IF MY PROPERTY IS GOOD FOR HOSPITALITY KINGS?
Hospitality Kings offers the most flexible management solution in the industry, and in order to provide the best service, we require every property to be clean and safe, and ready for guests as advertised.
- Your Hospitality Kings calendar must be kept up to date at all times to avoid the potential for double bookings.
- You must have approval from your city and (if applicable) homeowners association to operate your property as a short-term rental.
- We are currently unable to accommodate timeshares or properties located outside of North America.
4. HOW WILL YOU PROMOTE MY RENTAL?
Your rental will appear on the Hospitality Kings Vacation Rental website, which is rapidly growing a good reputation among travelers as the best site for quality vacation rentals. We also distribute your property on the major marketplaces for vacation rentals: VRBO, HomeAway, Airbnb, FlipKey, and TripAdvisor - but that’s not what makes our promotional efforts work so well. Anyone can create a listing. We create listings that convert browsing travelers into paying guests. Every listing site has its own algorithm for determining which properties will appear first in the search results, and it can be very difficult to crack that code to keeping your rental at the top of the results. We’ve got multiple teams devoted to ensuring your listing’s performance, starting with a professionally written and photographed listing and continuing through with ongoing analysis and optimization. Beyond our marketing efforts on the major listing sites, we use paid search and display ads to attract travelers who are looking for vacation rentals online, and our database marketing efforts will help to encourage past guests (currently at 250,000+ and counting) to book over and over again. Put simply? Hospitality Kings properties get more travelers to book, and we are constantly evolving our strategy.
5. HOW DO YOU HANDLE ON-THE-GROUND SERVICES?
Hospitality Kings offers flexibility when it comes to providing on-the-ground services to your guests. It’s our belief that owners know best how to service their properties, and we give you a full range of options for doing so with Hospitality Kings, including self-service, continuing to use your own trusted partners, or working with one of our vetted local partners. If you need help finding a reliable local partner, our ever- expanding partner network can help you with guest check-ins, housekeeping, maintenance, and more. Better yet, all of our partners are fixed-fee based so you’ll never get stuck paying excessive commissions for on-the-ground property management services.
6. HOW DO YOU DETERMINE THE PRICE FOR MY HOME?
You don’t want to leave money on the table at any time of year, and Hospitality Kings dynamic pricing strategy is designed to ensure that you always get the most bookings at the best possible price. To establish the optimal rates for your home, our analysts will start by performing an in-depth review of comparable rental properties in your area. Our dynamic rate engine will then continue to optimize your rates on a daily basis by accounting for a huge number of factors including occupancy, seasonality, and fluctuations in demand. We know that rock-bottom pricing is an owner’s worst nightmare, which is why our pricing strategy includes an essential precaution: we will never book your home for less than the “Minimum Nightly Rate” that you have pre-approved for a specific time period. That way you get the best of both worlds - no cut-rate prices, but no empty months on your calendar, either!
7. HOW DO YOU HANDLE TRAVELER INQUIRIES?
Hospitality Kings team considers strategical to answer traveler inquiries within minutes, or risk losing the booking. Our in-house team of Travel Advisors will respond quickly and professionally to every inquiry, pitch your property to past guests, and confirm reservations on your behalf. They’re available by phone, email, and live chat 7 days a week - including nights and weekends. Our Travel Advisors are also prepared to answer questions about your rental, using the information we’ve gathered during the on boarding process. You won’t need to continually answer questions like “Which rooms have TVs?” - we’ll be able to give the traveler that information on the spot.
8. HOW DO YOU FILTER POTENTIAL GUESTS?
One of the most important things for us is to assure you receive the most respectful and nice guests, and we’re fully committed to help you to examine and filter them effectively. Hospitality Kings lets owners make their own rules for who is and is not permitted to rent their property; for example, if you would like to set restrictions about the amount of guests permitted, age limit, a no-pets policy, or any other restrictions on your guests, we will filter travelers accordingly. Travelers who make reservations over the phone will be asked questions by our Travel Advisor team regarding their intentions for the trip, the make-up of their party, and various other filter questions designed to reveal a potentially problematic guest. In addition, our vetting system scans every online booking for common “red flags” such as:
- A different name on the reservation than the one on the credit card used to book.
- A traveler whose home address is near your property.
- Large groups of adults traveling without children.
9. HOW ARE GUEST PAYMENTS HANDLED?
All Hospitality Kings bookings are processed using a credit card, and guest payments will be released to your bank account 2 business days after the guest’s check-in date. This is the easiest and safest system for guests, and offers you increased protection against fraudulent payments. Hospitality Kings homeowners must maintain a merchant account with our payment processing partner, Stripe. Stripe charges a credit card processing fee of 3% on payments made within the United States and 5% for international transactions. Every payment processor charges a percentage fee for the ability to take credit cards online, and we’ve negotiated the lowest possible rate for our owners to ensure they can keep their total costs of vacation rental ownership down.
10. WILL YOU HELP ME COMMUNICATE WITH GUESTS?
Yes. Hospitality Kings will assist you with all pre- and post-stay communication with your guests, including booking confirmations, payment notifications, check-in instructions and review requests. We also provide direct communication with your chosen housekeeping service when a new booking is made, and reach out to your local contact directly if a guest reports an issue that needs in-person attention.
11. HOW DO YOU HANDLE SECURITY DEPOSITS AND PROPERTY DAMAGE?
In lieu of a security or damage deposit, Hospitality Kings homeowners are covered by our industry-leading Property Protection Plus insurance program, which is fully backed by Assurant. Travelers pay a non-refundable fee of approximately $14.50 per night directly to Hospitality kings at the time of booking your property. This fee provides you with up to $3,000 in property damage protection and $1,000,000 in liability coverage while guests are visiting your home. Damage protection coverage helps our owners avoid one of the common headaches of vacation rental: disputes with guests over what portion of the deposit to refund in the case of small accidental damages. The Property Protection Plus program ensures that you can easily get broken or damaged items replaced without having to dispute with - or upset - your guests. Per the terms of our Rental Agreement, guests are responsible for any damage not covered by, or exceeding the coverage of the Property Protection Plus insurance program. If such damages occur, Hospitality Kings has the ability to assess a post-stay charge directly to the guest on your behalf. Property Protection Plus also provides you with liability coverage while your property is being used as a short-term rental. Most homeowners and landlord policies do not cover your liability for this specific use, which can leave you vulnerable. Hospitality Kings keeps you protected with up to $1 million in liability coverage on every reservation.
12. CAN I STILL ENJOY MY HOME FOR PERSONAL USE?
Sure! You are free to block your Hospitality Kings calendar for personal use at any time as long as your property is available during your desired dates. However, if you’re planning to use your home for the majority of the year, our service might not be the best fit for you.
13. WHAT ABOUT YOUR FEES?
We have a very low 20% booking fee, which is only charged when we secure a reservation on your property. There’s no sign-up fee with Hospitality Kings, no commitment to a contract period, and no cancellation fee.
Hospitality Kings commission-based pricing structure means we only make money when you make money, which keeps us 100% motivated to maximize your rental income. Our owners don’t stick with us because they have to finish out a contract - they stay because they love the service they receive and the rental income they’re making as a Hospitality Kings owner.
14. HOW CAN I GET STARTED?
You can get started by speaking with a Vacation Rental Advisor and completing a brief homeowner application, which helps us determine if Hospitality Kings can be a good fit for you. You’ll then sign up by agreeing to our terms and conditions, providing some basic details about your property, and setting up a merchant account so we can send guest payments directly to your bank account. Once the paperwork is completed, you’ll meet your on boarding Manager, who will take you through a detailed on boarding call. This is where we get in-depth on everything there is to know about your property so we can field inquiries and answer questions on your behalf. During the on boarding call you’ll set up an appointment for professional photography. We’ll cover the cost of the shoot, but we do ask that you follow our guidelines for preparing your property to ensure we get great results. Once we have the photos, we’ll send all your details over to our Marketing team, who will build a professionally optimized listing for your property, complete with your professional photos, a great description, all your property details, and dynamic nightly rates. We’ll then show you your new listing for final approval. If everything looks good, our team will begin fielding traveler inquiries and confirming bookings on your behalf! The entire process takes about three weeks for owners who are ready to have their properties photographed right away. (Though we’ve been known to get properties up and running in as little as 10 days if an owner is able to schedule a shoot and give us all the information we need quickly!)