Are we approaching a tipping point where artificial intelligence will be a normal part of the guest experience in a short-term rental? The technology makes sense in this setting since there is no front desk like in a hotel and the product varies greatly from single-family residences to condos to yurts.
When guests can ask a smart speaker for things like restaurant recommendations and get the host’s own personal picks in response, it adds value to their stay. As more voice-enabled features are added, the tipping point is getting closer.
This story about what a voice-enabled future looks like for the vacation rental market was published four years ago. At the time voice technology was only used in a handful of vacation rentals run by trailblazing hosts. The idea was to equip a voice assistant with unique knowledge of the rental and the surrounding area, effectively turning it into a virtual concierge for the specific property. It worked.
Today there are more than 10,000 short-term rental properties using voice assistants. By the numbers, it is still a small fraction of the overall market; however, it is validation of the value that voice brings to the guest’s experience and the operations of property management companies.
The basic premise that a voice assistant can act as a virtual concierge for short-term rental guests is pretty well understood. But what are some more specific ways in which voice has been used in rentals?
Some early predictions were that voice would help property management companies re-take control of guest data from the online travel agencies. The theory was that personal data lost to an intermediary in the booking process might be recaptured through voice transactions.
Although this is not happening at scale – yet - impressive adoption rates by guests provide a glimpse of the impact that voice assistants may have on future marketing efforts. In 2021 Xplorie reported that a single occupied night drove an average of over six interactions with its SmartHost solution (over 24 unique interactions per reservation).
Google recently announced that it is shutting down third-party development for Google smart speakers. Other than smart home and media streaming, Google is dismantling its third-party development ecosystem, opting to push developers to creating apps for Android. This decision eliminates the option to use a Google Smart Speaker as a virtual concierge.
By contrast, Amazon is doubling down on the hospitality sector. The Alexa Smart Properties division has created a unique code base that protects guest privacy and enables special features that cannot be done with Alexa devices outside of the Alexa For Hospitality program. Amazon has also made it possible to leverage the combination of voice and a touch screen – a combination that holds significant promise for short-term rental use cases.
A recent academic research study on voice technology in vacation rentals offered some interesting insights:
With this in mind, we can expect to see solutions where the individual personalities of the host shine through the voice experience. One example of this is increasing use of personal welcome messages delivered by the voice assistant but recorded in the host’s own voice.
Smart speakers with screens will no doubt play a major role in the evolution of voice-based systems for short-term rentals. With the ability to provide digital signage sharing useful information to guests, hosts will increasingly swap out voice-only devices for those that can also display video.
While we don’t know where the tipping point is precisely, we do know that the value of voice tech is rapidly increasing for short-term rental hosts. With any luck, maybe the three-ring binder still found in many rentals can finally be sent into retirement.