In addition to benefits such as having the opportunity to travel, improving communication skills, etc., a cohost also faces many problems when operating a rental apartment business. The cohost profession is not rosy. Do you know how difficult this job is?

In this article, let's learn about the difficulties a cohost may face.

1. Language barriers

Accommodation when appearing on the listing of OTA channels will attract many other guests from different countries. This is a very good growth opportunity for hosts as well as cohosts. However, this can also pose a problem: the language barrier.

Not all cohosts have good foreign language skills, and not all guests have good foreign language skills. To ensure good communication with guests, a cohost should equip themselves with foreign language skills, especially the most popular languages.

However, even if you can communicate in a foreign language, you will not be able to express your opinions in the details and completeness of using your native language.

2. Overbooking

Overbooking occurs when a cohost cannot control the booking. Usually, the number of bookings received exceeds what cohost can provide for guests, for example, on Saturday there are 3 guests booking apartments.

To avoid this situation, cohosts can seek the help of tools to help manage the operation and business of accommodation facilities. These tools will help cohosts capture the number of available rooms to have a suitable campaign, avoid overbooking, and cause discomfort for tourists.

3. Difficult to control and take care of customers from OTA channels

Usually, accommodation properties will be listed on multiple OTA channels, thereby reaching more customers. With cohosts, they can convince many customers to come to the apartment they manage, but it is also more difficult to control and take care of customers because they come from many different channels.

A little confusion can also make their experience bad, leaving a negative review. To ensure you can control and take good care of your customers, you can use support tools like Cohost.ai. Cohost allows you to synchronize platforms for more efficient multi-channel management, along with the support of virtual assistants.

4. Unable to track revenue and expenditure, loss of revenue

Another problem that many cohosts may face is the inability to track revenue and expenditure. Many reasons can lead to this problem. One of them is that cohosts may not be fully equipped with financial management skills to do this. Another reason is that the cohost is fully responsible for the operation of the apartment. There are many things to take care of, so they may be unable to keep a close eye on everything.

Without careful monitoring of income and expenditure, a cohost does not know the cash flows in and out, leading to the possibility of revenue loss. This is a very serious consequence. To avoid serious consequences, cohosts should be fully knowledgeable and equipped with supporting software if necessary.

5. Difficulty communicating with stakeholders

In addition to apartment guests, cohosts also work with landlords. The apartments are the property of the landlord, and the cohost is just someone hired to run the business. Usually, the opinions of the homeowners will carry a lot of weight. If there is a disagreement or, more seriously, a conflict about the accommodation business, the cohosts need to skillfully and calmly discuss to ensure the satisfaction of the host. 

Besides the host, the neighbors are also the people with whom the cohosts will have to regularly exchange. It can be said that they are the ones who have the most contact with guests after cohosts. If during the rental process, guests and neighbors have problems, cohost will be the one to solve it. 

You should clearly state the rules to guests, avoid disturbing neighbors. If the neighbor is not satisfied, it will be much more difficult to continue the business.

6. Paper and legal issues

In some places, short-term apartment rentals are restricted, or prohibited. In Vietnam, there are no specific regulations on the management of this business model. However, this issue is gradually receiving attention. If you don't want to be visited frequently by regulatory authorities for legal issues, pay attention. You can register an individual business model to legalize the accommodation business. 

Through the above article, Cohost hopes to have shown you the difficulties that a cohost may face when operating a rental apartment business. It can be said that, despite many difficulties, cohosts can all hone their abilities through here. Thank you for reading the article.