Israeli-born short-term rental property management platform Guesty has announced its Australian debut.
The launch will expand Guesty’s presence to 11 global centres throughout Europe, UK, US, Middle East and now Australia, with plans for further entry into Asia Pacific cities including New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Guesty has identified Australia as a key market with short-term rentals on the rise.
In 2018, the short-term rental total reservation volume was an estimated US$1b, with Sydney and Melbourne being the main contributors.
The aggregate data from AirDNA and Transparent suggests the country encompasses about 33,500 professionally managed short-term rentals using around 750 property management companies.
Co-Founder & CEO of Guesty, Amiad Soto, said Australia’s growing short-term rental market showcased the significant need for tech solutions to help property managers streamline operational task to scale and grow.
“We are excited to make an impact with our Guesty platform in the Australian market and support property managers to increase their inventory by relying on tools to help get their businesses to the next level,” Mr Soto said.
As short-term rentals significantly grow in popularity, properties and entire buildings are being snapped up by professional property managers and property management companies looking to oversee the hottest inventory in key destinations.
With more properties, comes more administrative work, particularly for individuals and companies managing hundreds to thousands of properties at the same time.
Guesty allows users to manage listings from multiple online travel agencies including premium partners such as Airbnb, Booking.com, HomeAway, Agoda, TripAdvisor and more.
They can also edit listings, handle guest communication, assign staff tasks and enjoy real-time dynamic pricing – all from the Guesty dashboard.
Mr Soto said thousands of users in over 80 countries utilise Guesty to streamline their short-term rental businesses, reporting a 150 per cent increase in revenue annually and a 100 per cent increase in listings annually.
The platform’s features include task automation, reporting tools, 24/7 guest communication services, a unified inbox to manage all guest correspondence in one place, and much more.
Driving Guesty’s expansion to Australia is the company’s recent US$35m Series C round of funding, led by Viola Growth, bringing Guesty’s total funding raised to US$60m.
Guesty Managing Director, APAC, Yoav Tourel, said the company was incredibly excited to increase their localised presence in Australia.
“In the next year, we aim to double our team with a focus on customer-facing, sales and marketing roles to strengthen our presence while continuing to focus on elevating the Guesty product to remain reliable and flexible in this fast-paced ecosystem.
“We look forward to building out our already robust Marketplace of Guesty vetted and approved third-party partners with additional Australian vendors who share our goal of making the lives of property managers easier.”
Property management companies already using Guesty include Optinest, Likehome, KozyGuru , Homehost, SoFun and more.
