As we have discussed repeatedly in this blog, the party problem is significant and growing. When parties occur, OTAs, community organizations, and even law enforcement organizations hold hosts and owners responsible. Operators that seek party prevention peace of mind have several monitoring options including human or automated monitoring.
Humans in the Loop
Traditionally, hosts take a hands-on approach to monitoring their properties, and sometimes this is a good strategy. In hosted properties, parties are not a problem. In unhosted properties, if you have a host or a host surrogate that lives very near the rented property, they can check on the property in person. In many cases, if the guest knows that the host is near, problems can be avoided.
However, for many remote operators, monitoring a property in person is not efficient and often not possible. It is especially true in the case of large, multi-property management scenarios. One of our customers used to drive around his city in a truck and check every property. To go from one property to another, it could take up to 40 minutes. As you expand your portfolio, it becomes increasingly difficult to check in person every property all the time.
Automate Monitoring
The best practice in 2021 is to leverage one or more technologies that make monitoring for large gatherings and parties both easy and scalable. Key considerations when evaluating technology solutions include privacy, effectiveness, and cost. Over the next few blogposts, we will discuss the pros and cons of the three most common monitoring technologies: video surveillance, sound monitoring, and our approach, Wi-Fi sensing.
