Just one hour North of Berlin nestled in the beautiful Brandenburg countryside, sits Thomashof owned by Smoobu hosts Heike and Jörg. Read on to find out more about their story, and how they manage their vacation rental using best-in-class software since 2021.
The story behind Thomashof: Meet Heike and Jörg
Heike and Jörg are a team. Back in 2006, they were dreaming about a country life and were looking for a little getaway to escape Berlin during the weekend. After stepping into different places in Brandenburg, they then “discovered this farm and thought it was beautiful right from the start because it was still so original”.
The story will later on become Thomashof.
A place made in heaven
Once all the paperwork was done, they used the farm privately for their weekend in nature. Jörg shared: “From 2013 we started building vacation rentals here. And that’s how it all developed and now it’s 2024 and we’re just finishing the last of six vacation rentals”.
At Thomashof, everything is well thought out and the two hosts make a good pair: “I am a designer and Jörg is an engineer and we make a great team. I think of something and Jörg implements it!” shared Heike.
Heike and Jörg’s vision of hospitality
Around their beautiful farm, the two hosts build up a community that supports them making their vision of hospitality come alive. From Marco in the organic garden to Franziska who helps with the everyday operations and many other team members, Jörg, Heike, and the teams put a lot of effort into ensuring a seamless and positive guest experience.
About the guests and their target audience, Heike shares: “People come to us, often families, many families with small children, from the city, mostly from Berlin, who are looking for an authentic country experience“.
The challenge as a vacation rental hosts
From one vacation rental to a few, operations management can scale up quickly and it could start to be complicated and overwhelming to have a look at everything and keep everything up-to-date: from the update of bookings calendars across all platforms to collecting guest information, ensuring a fast and personalized guest communication along the guest journey or generating invoices.
As Heike shared with us:
“At the beginning, it’s easy to think you can manage everything yourself. We came to Smoobu relatively quickly and it worked very well.”
Unveil the story behind Thomashof with Heike and Jörg
How does Smoobu support Thomashof’s hosts daily?
To help and support their daily vacation rental operations at Thomashof, Heike, and Jörg have been using Smoobu since 2021.
Simplified daily management operations
When it comes to choosing software to help you manage your vacation rental activity, it could be complex, and multiple criteria are considered. One of the criteria for Heike and Jörg was ease: “It is very important to us that when using the software, it is easy to use, for us as hosts, but also for the guests”.
No more double bookings
Keeping an eye regularly on your multiple booking calendars could be tough and manual calendar updates are very demanding and time-consuming. One minute of inattention could lead to double bookings and troubles. On this topic, Jörg shared:
“What’s nice about Smoobu is that there aren’t double bookings.”
In their case, an automatic booking calendar synchronization is needed to diversify their touchpoints with future guests, Thomashof’s vacation rentals are promoted on different booking platforms that Smoobu integrates: Airbnb, Booking.com, and Charming Hideaways.
Stay in control
Using Smoobu, Heike, and Jörg have full control over their vacation rentals and their management. With different features, such as a channel manager, guest guide, automated communication, and booking engine, Jörg mentioned that: ”the platform is arranged, and it helps us to have control so it is vital for everyday life renting our vacation rentals”.
Track revenue and occupancy rate
Checking the occupancy rate is a good indicator to see if the performance of your vacation rental activity is on track or if some adjustment needs to be made to reach your targets. Something Heike likes about Smoobu is that you can “easily check the occupancy of your vacation rentals and how much revenue we will generate”.
On top, you can see how your different connected booking platforms are performing, including the revenue made and occupancy rates.
In a nutshell:
- 5 (and soon 6) vacation rentals managed with Smoobu
- Easy to use for hosts
- No more double bookings
- Integration with many booking portals such as Airbnb, Booking.com, and Charming Hideaways
- Stay in control of your vacation rental activity
- Occupancy rate and revenue valuations
When asked about sharing tips for hosts or future hosts, Heike shares:
“Some people fear digitalization, but I think it’s super easy to handle. And yes, we can’t cope without it anymore. It makes work a lot easier”
Simplify your vacation rental management like Heike and Jörg
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