3 Steps to Ensure a Smooth Vacation Rental Changeover

Guests are cool – but changeovers can be a real drag and keep you on your feet day-in, day-out.

More bookings mean more changeovers, and the need to replenish guest amenities at an increased rate.

The vacation rental owners we interviewed also highlighted particular difficulties around,

If all this sounds familiar, this article covers a few changeover tips for you.

We have also created a Changeover Checklist for you to download and use at your convenience!

The first step to a smooth changeover is an easy to read, comprehensive list of all the tasks that need to be completed.

Detail each task down to a T for your cleaning team. Otherwise, don’t be surprised if basic things are not getting done. A well-structured checklist includes:

Click here to download eviivo’s free Vacation Rental Changeover Checklist!

With eviivo’s Interactive Cleaning Dashboard, your list can be shared online with staff who can easily access it via their mobile phones.

Aside from a strong checklist, consider asking your guests to contribute to the effort! You cannot impose it, but you can ask, and you would be surprised to see how many oblige. 

So, leave a ‘check-out list’ for your guests. It’s perfectly normal and acceptable to ask them to take some basic steps such as:

What many vacation rental owners are not aware of is that there are dedicated Airbnb cleaning services you can hire, which specialise in vacation rental changeovers.

A key perk to hiring an Airbnb cleaning service, rather than a standard cleaning service, is that you can typically outsource all changeover tasks to them such as:

However, small local cleaning businesses and independent housekeepers can be just as reliable and effective as larger Airbnb specialists, especially since you get to have a more personal relationship with them.

A local professional you can trust will often go the extra mile as they’ll know your property inside-out. This is sometimes preferable to larger companies who allocate the task to staff on a random basis.

Even if a cleaning service or a housekeeper does not advertise specific vacation rental cleaning services, you should discuss your specific needs with them as many will be perfectly capable of accommodating these.

Here are some tips to consider when shortlisting the vacation rental cleaner or maintenance service that will give you full peace of mind:

Find a service that understands your typical booking windows, and that their services may be required on short notice.

If you are hiring a small local firm or an individual cleaner, look for proximity and request local references.

If they are a large agency, review the processes they have in place to guarantee the timely cleaning of your property when one or another of their staff members does not turn up for work.

This should go without saying, but you should look out for vacation rental housekeeping professionals who are willing to stay a little longer (with extra compensation maybe) to ensure your property shines.

Remember, an unclean property is the ultimate guest deterrent!

Experienced vacation rental housekeeping professionals will listen carefully to your instructions on how to add those last few homely touches to your property before the next guest checks in. They should also report any potential damage they come across.

Always check a service’s reviews on a reliable website such as Google or Trustpilot. Or better yet, you can always count on word of mouth by other landlords in your area!

Accidents do happen, and hiring an insured cleaning service means that you will be compensated if any damage occurs at your property during cleaning.

Excellent communications between you and your cleaning team are key to getting the immaculate results you’re looking for and ensuring that the changeover is completed on time.

This, of course, becomes tricky when you’re managing your team remotely.

However, today’s technology allows you to streamline communications and do a lot more to keep your team organised.

Software such as eviivo’s Interactive Cleaning Dashboard lets you easily assign tasks to each person within your cleaning team, both online and via their mobile phone. 

With the ability to set up cleaning roles and control permissions by teams, companies or property sets, everybody is clear on what to do and there is no room for mistakes.

You can:

And if you’re more of a visual person, the dashboard is easily printed out so you can hand it over to your cleaning team! Click here to check it out.