Launching, developing and scaling a vacation rental management company with eviivo Suite™

OPERATIONS

This short-term rental (STR) company operates 23 holiday lets spanning the UK’s scenic Yorkshire East Coast and the tranquil countryside of Southeast Spain. The diverse range of properties, comprising lodges, cottages, and villas, are all finished to a high standard and designed with their guests’ needs in mind, creating a truly home-from-home atmosphere.

Why it matters: The family-owned business is managed by mum-of-two Sarah, who switched to property management following a successful career in banking. Since diversifying into the world of STR holiday lets, her portfolio has scaled from 2 to 23 properties in just 2 years, including expansion internationally.

Vacation rental owner Sarah has used the full range of products in eviivo Suite to build her business. The in-built channel manager has enabled her to accelerate bookings for her own properties and those that she manages. Owner management tools have helped her build trust with her clients, develop a great reputation, and grow largely organically through client referrals. Meanwhile, eviivo's mobile app allows Sarah to manage the business 'on the go', so she has flexibility to continue expanding her portfolio while raising her two young children.

Top 3 Core Objectives: Following her career change, Sarah needed assistance getting her first couple of properties set up and online. She had plans for rapid growth and also wanted to ensure that she was able to manage the business from anywhere, at any time, while raising her family.

List on leading OTAs: Sarah wanted to expand her properties' visibility on leading OTAs, while managing opt-ins and updates of everything, from rates and availability to images and content, in one place.
Scale portfolio quickly: She needed a system that allowed new properties and OTAs to be onboarded efficiently. The ability to copy operational information and T&Cs automatically was key.
Manage business completely remotely: Sarah needed a property management mobile app that simplified remote operations and helped her built trust with property owners by giving them controlled access to track their property's performance.

Innovators Mentioned

KAF Properties

eviivo

Sarah Flynn

Business Owner

KAF Properties

"The confidence I have managing remotely with eviivo Suite reassured me that […] I can now look to take on clients anywhere."

Sarah Flynn

Business Owner

👍 Business Owner Sarah Flynn said that growth has been swift; starting with two properties when first partnering with eviivo Suite in 2022, the business quickly grew to 10 properties by the end of 2023. It now comprises 23 properties. Being able to manage her UK properties remotely inspired the addition of Spanish properties to her portfolio in 2024:

"The confidence I have managing remotely with eviivo Suite reassured me that […] I can now look to take on clients anywhere."

⚖️ The selection process: During their research process, Sarah Flynn evaluated eviivo's product differentiators, customer support, and holistic value as a strategic partner and ultimately decided that eviivo was the best fit solution:

Business Owner Sarah Flynn said, about their decision: "I chose eviivo Suite based on recommendations from several property management forums, I had a demo of eviivo Suite and was attracted by the platform’s comprehensive features and ease of use."

📈 The results: Comparative data from the company’s two original properties shows a significant increase in year on year (YOY) performance. Both properties saw a 32% increase in the number of bookings, and respective YOY increases of 25% and 23% in total transactional volumes. With the portfolio itself now up to 23 properties, Sarah's dream is "to get the business to 100 properties worldwide in the next few years.”

eviivo’s in-built Channel Manager has allowed Sarah to set up connections to OTAs “in a matter of a click”, requiring no separate contracting with individual OTAs and saving days in set-up time. The depth of eviivo’s OTA integrations saves Sarah hours that she would otherwise have to spend updating rates, availability, pictures, facilities, and amenities on individual extranets.
Sarah keeps her clients informed on their properties' performance with clear key performance indicator reporting and statements of accounts. Through eviivo’s controlled multi-user access, she has given property owners their own logins to eviivo Suite, effortlessly providing “the transparency [that] builds real trust with my clients.” While her cleaning teams can login to the Cleaning Dashboard for timely, precise information and instructions, Sarah can manage here day-to-day on eviivo's award winning mobile app.
To keep operations centralised as the business expands, Sarah uses eviivo’s booking calendar to view and manage all her properties in one place. Guest communications are also streamlined thanks to eviivo's unified messaging inbox. For Sarah, “being able to see and respond to messages from bookings made by all the OTAs in one place makes communicating so easy – no need to spend hours logging into their different extranets”.