At my first conference, I was stumped at every conference by the endless amount of acronyms and industry buzzwords. So I created a glossary to explain what those terms mean, so you don’t have to sit there and pretend as I did.
ADR – Average Daily Rate
This is the total reservation amount divided by the number of nights i.e. A 7 night reservation for $1,400 has $200 ADR ($1,400 / 7 = 200)
Booking Window
This is the number of days between the time a guest booked a reservation and when they check-in. If I make a booking on January 10th for a stay on April 1st
PMS – Property Management System
This is a system that keeps track of every property, content, availability, rates, reservations, and normally accounting
RMS – Revenue Management System
This is a system that forecasts and sets the pricing for your properties to hopefully generate more revenue. This often uses third-party data of competitor’s rates, build-up of bookings, booking window, event calendars, & other data such as flights to forecast price & occupancy.
OTA – Online Travel Agency
A marketplace that allows travelers to search and book an aggregated amount of travel. i.e. Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, Expedia this might also be known as a listing site to some managers.
PM – Property Manager
A business that manages mainly other people’s properties and handles the marketing, reservation, guest communications, check-ins, payments, cleaning & maintenance of a home, and many other things.
Channel Manager
This system connects properties to many OTA’s (Online Travel Agencies) with your property management system keeping the content, availability, rates, & reservations in sync between the many systems through the use of API’s
API – Application Programming Interface
This is the piece of technology that allows different software to talk to each other for instance API’s connect the property management system, channel manager, OTA, & Merchant Processor’s
Booking Engine
This is the piece of software that often includes the search widget and checkout page that allows a property manager to put their home on their own website and accept guest bookings.
CRM – Customer Relationship Management
Software that keeps track of all your guests and information about them. It may also keep track of email and phone communication, contracts, and signed documents.
Merchant Processor
This is a software provider that allows you to accept credit cards from guests and get the funds dispersed into your bank account. Merchant processors normally accept multiple card types MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and handle debit & credit cards. This connects to your other software systems through API’s. Some can also offer eCheck’s, in-person, or card present processing.
Popular Merchant Processors include
Vrbo – Vacation Rental By Owner
One of the largest vacation rental marketplaces that also owns HomeAway which used to be the name of the parent company and VacationRentals.com, FeWo Direkt, Stayz, Bookabach.co.nz, HomeAway.co.uk, Abritel.fr, OwnersDirect.co.uk, Homelidays.com, BedandBreakfast.com, RealHolidays.com.au, Toprural.com, TripHomes.com more info here
VRMA – Vacation Rental Manager Association
Association of professional vacation rental managers that provide, education, training, accreditations, lobbying for the industry, & hosts educational events and tradeshows.
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