Whether you rent out one apartment or ten, everything starts with the setup: the right channels, clean listings, sensible rate plans and a price structure that follows the market. Get these right first, and everything a revenue manager does on top of them pays off much faster.
1. Know Your Position in the Market
- Who books your area, in which months, how far ahead and for how long.
- What comparable apartments charge, by season, on weekdays and on weekends.
- Where your apartments sit against them: location, size, view, parking and reviews.
This is where data beats instinct. In the markets where we already manage properties, we start from actual demand and booking data, not from what the neighbour charges.
2. Map Your Distribution
- Pick the channels that bring your guests: Booking.com, Airbnb, Expedia and your own website. More channels are not always better, because each one has to be kept in sync.
- Use a channel manager, so a booking on one channel closes the dates on all the others. Without one, a double booking is only a matter of time.
- The same apartment, the same photos and the same facts on every channel. Names that say what the guest gets: “Two-Bedroom Apartment with Terrace”, not “Apartment B”.
- Set it up properly once: room mapping, rate plans, policies, taxes and fees, payment settings, on every channel. It takes hours, and a mistake here repeats on every booking.
3. Rate Plans and Policies
- A flexible rate and a cheaper non-refundable rate. This is the pair Booking.com itself suggests as a starting point.
- A weekly rate, if your area gets longer stays.
- Cancellation terms that follow demand: stricter in high season, more flexible in low season.
- Cleaning fee, city tax and deposit shown the same way on every channel.
4. A Price Structure, Not a Price
One price for the whole year leaves money on the table in summer and nights empty in winter. A structure sets the rules once:
| Low | Mid | High | Peak | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Months | Nov to Feb | Mar, Apr, Oct | May, Jun, Sep | Jul, Aug |
| One-bedroom, weekday | 70 EUR | 90 EUR | 115 EUR | 140 EUR |
| One-bedroom, weekend | 85 EUR | 105 EUR | 135 EUR | 160 EUR |
| Two-bedroom | +35% | +35% | +35% | +35% |
| Minimum stay | 1 night | 2 nights | 2 nights | 3 nights |
- A floor price per season that you never go below.
- Event dates marked a year ahead, with their own prices.
- Live prices that move within these rules as bookings come in, with the structure itself reviewed every season.
5. A Website That Takes Bookings
A booking on your own website carries no OTA commission, and returning guests can book you directly. It does not need to be big. It needs to load fast and take a booking in a few taps. See Hotel Websites.
6. A Monthly Check
- Occupancy, ADR and revenue per apartment, against last year.
- Which channel brought which bookings, after commission.
- Reviews: what guests praise and what they complain about.
For the Booking.com side in more detail, see Booking.com Ranking: What Actually Moves You Up.
Who This Is For
This setup pays off from the first apartment, and the fewer units you have, the more each one counts: with eight apartments, one empty unit is 12.5% of what you can sell. In Apartment Rental Management, we build this setup for you, and then a revenue manager actively manages every unit, for short stays and long-term lets.