New Escapia features help you manage smarter

In this webinar, you’ll get to see a quick update on our vision for Escapia as well as new features and functionality of what’s coming. As always, Escapia is dedicated to delivering the new functionality that you’ve asked for, faster, to provide the best vacation rental property management software that we could. Being the largest property management software in North America and Australia wasn’t enough for us – we want to continue to build and improve upon our offering to continue supporting you as you scale your business. 

Our teams depend on you and property managers like you with one-on-one phone calls, surveys, forums, our Customer Advisory Board, and even these live Q&As! We’re also dedicated to speed in delivering you the game-changing features you want like the Performance Dashboard (and some of the features included in this presentation!) as we redesign the software and add new features.

Our vision for your team is building a future for Escapia as technology that helps you manage smarter. We’re providing proven full-featured vacation rental software solutions paired with 30+ years of experience in the industry. This results in incredible tools like our to-the-penny accurate vacation rental trust accounting software, around the clock support, and business guidance that you can trust. 

Alongside that guidance, we’re working hard on automation that simplifies your tasks and daily work. You’ll be able to do more with less time required in software, and you’ll see that across a lot of our announcements today!

Since Escapia live in fall of 2020, we’ve published 20+ significant product enhancements and 10+ new feedback forums to collect your feedback. These forums guided our solutions in both rates management and guest communications!

We’re also proud to announce that some of these new updates are available in your software today!

First up, Escapia is introducing new ways in how to make your Vrbo stand out with Flexcation amenities to attract Vrbo travelers. You’ll be able to highlight the amenities travelers need to work and learn remotely by selecting these Vrbo amenities (such as office essentials, “Wireless internet” and “Free wifi”) from your standard amenities in Escapia. Expedia’s research has already proven that these are amenities your guests are searching for, and Escapia is the first vacation rental property management software to introduce these amenities.

Additional improvements come into our booking channel filter for our Automated Payments tool. This is a huge time saver that will allow you to exclude specific channel bookings or use automated payments only on the channels that fit your business. Certain channels may be best handled manually, and we want to empower your team to do so!

Lastly, we’re adding enhanced reporting for visibility and compliance, particularly for those who may fall out of the traditional fiscal year. We’ve also added two new vacation rental trust accounting reports (the Three Way Reconciliation report and Advanced Deposit by Unit report) and comprehensive folio audit exports.

One of the biggest features we’re proud to announce is our game-changing new Rates Manager. Starting in last fall, we began piloting the new interface and experience to users to collect feedback and improve upon the functionality. We’re just around the corner from opening access to all Escapia users, and this goes beyond a new coat of paint – we’ve built our vacation rental pricing tool from the ground up based on industry and partner feedback for a modern rate management solution. You can react to the changing market conditions by:

• Saving time with a simplified interface and experience
• Maximizing revenue with power and flexibility
• Adapt to changing market conditions on the fly

The tool goes beyond simple vacation rental pricing strategies. You’ll be able to create separate booking restrictions (no more duplication!), quickly view rates and change and set rates on the go and adjust by percentages/special periods to temporarily override as needed. These prices will update on Vrbo in less than 5 minutes to make your vacation rental pricing strategy a real-time approach. 

The new Rates Manager tool already has many things that you need to be successful, and several planned updates, including:

• A population tool to help you get up and running faster with new units
• Weekly and monthly discounts to attract longer stays
• The ability to override check-in/checkout options for special events and holidays
• And a whole lot more!

Today we’re excited to announce EscapiaConnect, our all-new vacation rental channel manager solution that sits directly inside our vacation rental property management software solution. EscapiaConnect will help you reach the right travelers and easily take advantage of top channels like Airbnb, Booking.com, Google, and Expedia. You’ll also be able to enjoy a simple flat-rate pricing model that doesn’t rise as your bookings increase. 

EscapiaConnect is already integrated into our software and in a pilot program for our users. You’re able to quickly select the channels you’d like to connect with, and Escapia will walk you through connecting to those channels step-by-step in pulling reports, adding units, or listing existing units. This is your chance to more easily manage the channels you work with today, or test out new channels! The feature also includes distribution summaries that can help you identify where you’re already listing units and where there may be opportunity to list. Feeling lost? You’ll also be able to connect directly to support to get help in ensuring your listings are properly built out.

Last but not least, we’ve got a few other exciting updates coming your way soon. We’re working on expanding our payment provider options within Escapia, and we’ll of course continue to support our existing vacation rental payment provider options. The team is also dedicated to PCI compliance and bringing extra security to how we collect and store data to ensure our customers, their guests, and any data that comes in is safe and sound. Lastly, we’re working to make it easier to update your billing information without contacting support to keep frictionless action better!

We couldn’t just leave you with the coming soon – we wanted to give you a sneak peek at what we’ve been working on to improve your vacation rental software experience!

First is a powerful vacation rental unified inbox tool. The Escapia Communications Hub is a centralized and simplified guest communication tool that is a single unified hub within Escapia. To start, Vrbo messaging and Vrbo text messaging communication will be enabled across units, with an end goal of a true unified inbox across all channels. This will be empowered by time-saving guest communication automation and templated responses to free up staff time and availability and reduce the back and forth across channels/units.

We’re also working on an improved unit editor and wizard to expand upon the more modern, user-friendly experience throughout Escapia. This is an important part of updating and modifying your workflow, including an easier way to update bedrooms and bathrooms to better reflect the unique details of your units.