Lodgify launches, attacks crowded vacation rental space with power punch

Lodgify, a new vacation rental marketing startup, launches today. From the get-go, the Barcelona-based company is candid about its global ambitions, allowing vacation rental owners and property managers from pretty much anywhere to centrally manage their reservations, and synchronise their property information across major vacation rental portals.

If this all sounds a bit too familiar, you’re right. Lodgify is entering a pretty crowded kingdom and going up against its king, Airbnb, but the fledgling company is coming out swinging, launching with differentiators that incude full-fledged mini-sites, central multiple property management, and, instead of competing head on, Lodgify is launching with an integration strategy of sorts.

Lodgify has already integrated with 9flats and Roomorama, while integration with HomeAway/VRBO is currently in progress.

Beyond the big players, Lodgify is launching its product at a time when many vacation rental portals have started offering renters the possibility to directly book and pay for their reservations online.

“We are doing for vacation rental owners what Shopify is doing for shop owners,” says Marco De Gregorio, CEO and co-founder of Lodgify. “In other words, we are making affordable and scalable technology available to vacation rental owners and helping them grow their accommodation businesses.“

Lodgify’s trump card “Channel Manager” feature enables vacation rental owners to automatically sync their existing property information and reservations with external listings on major vacation rental portals. Bookings from multiple sources are managed centrally from a Lodgify dashboard, and availability calendars are automatically updated on all sites.

“Listing properties on as many major portals as possible is crucial for successful vacation rental marketing,” says De Gregorio. “However, it is also extremely time-consuming to manually create and maintain all these listings and manage the incoming reservations. Our software solves that issue.”

Apart form 9flats and Roomorama, Lodgify plan to include 20 additional channels by end of the year.

Lodgify is also rolling out a commission-free “Book Now” function that enables vacation rental owners to offer a seamless booking experience on their own website — owners can accept credit card payments immediately or once the booking is confirmed.

Lodgify makes money through subscription plans for both vacation rental owners and managers with one to 500 or more properties. The integrated solution includes mobile- friendly website templates, a booking engine, reservation system and channel manager. Lodgify’s booking engine integrates with both Stripe and Paypal.

Lodgify’s Naveen Sharma tells us that Lodgify can handle all currencies — that includes the ones used in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. A vacation rental owner in Kenya, for example, can set up a profile website and display the rates in Kenyan Shillings, and accept payments in the preferred currency. That’s a nice touch.

Lodgify is available in 5 languages, but Russian and Chinese will follow soon.