Customer Story: Using Touch Stay for better remote hosting

We talk to Touch Stay user Rosana Sorensen about how her Touch Stay guidebook has helped her be a better host even when hosting at a distance.

Acing the remote hosting game

Since the pandemic struck, many vacation rental hosts have had to step back from meeting-and-greeting guests in person for obvious health and safety reasons. As a result, more hosts have started hosting their guests remotely. And for many, Touch Stay digital welcome books have played a key part in that transition.

We spoke to Rosana Sorensen, a Touch Stay Rock Star who’s highly experienced in remote hosting – she’s been greeting guests at a distance since even before the pandemic started. Read on to find out how she’s used Touch Stay to become a more effective remote host. And, if you’d like to listen to the soundbites from our interview with her, click play on the audio clips throughout this article.

About Rosana’s vacation rental business

Rosana’s journey into vacation hosting was an accidental one. After searching for a property for investment purposes, she and her husband stumbled upon a beautiful home in the south of Utah which just happened to be a vacation home. She explains that after first checking the house out, they “just felt good about it” – until she realised she was the one who was going to have to run it!

With no experience in vacation rentals, and living three and a half hours away from the property, she said “she panicked a bit”, confessing she didn’t know what she was doing. But, she quickly learned the ropes, and explains that it’s grown into something she does because she loves it – not just financially.

"There’s really joy in helping family and friends make memories together. It’s just something I really love doing, and it makes me happy when I get that note back or when I check on them and ask them how the check in was, and they are just like “it’s lovely, we love it” – it makes me happy and I absolutely love it"

Learning to thrive as a remote host

While Rosana’s used to hosting remotely, she explains she’s had to find ways to make the meet-and-greet process easier because she’s not there in person.

She explains how Touch Stay has been fundamental in helping her communicate with guests from a distance.

"I do an “about us” section so the guests can get a feeling about who we are. I also send them a Touch Stay guide ahead of arrival, and there’s so much detail and information in there. I think this helps because guests might wonder, “I’m not going meet this person… Is this person really legit?

But when they get the Touch Stay guide, they think, actually yeah, they’re very professional, there’s a lot of information here. I feel like that makes my guests feel more comfortable about checking into a place where they’re not going to meet me."

Making guest communications easy

In a world of endless information, Rosana also speaks about how Touch Stay has helped make information easy and digestible to read – especially when guests are looking for quick, trustable takeaways when their hosts aren’t available.

“I hear a lot that people don’t read, but I also think that Touch Stay actually makes information easy to read and find what you’re looking for, instead of just trawling through a long email (which I have been known to send!)

But Touch Stay makes it so easy – the user can just go there and find out what they need to take. All you need to do is go and look – and you’ll know if you need to bring coffee, a hair dryer, etc. It’s so well categorised, and you don’t need to read a long thing to find out “yes they do provide coffee”

Remote hosting and guest privacy

Rosana also explains how she thinks guests are starting to prefer to be left to their own devices when they check in, preferring to get on with things without the help of a host. She also thinks this trend of guest privacy and autonomy is something she thinks Touch Stay can help facilitate.

"I think people are going to need Touch Stay – and I think people are going to want more private entrance into homes and check ins.

I know people delight in welcoming their guests, and that brings them joy – but I think that there’s a way to do it and bring joy to yourself by hosting and still do it remotely and just let people get on with their vacation!"

Final thoughts on Touch Stay

As a seasoned remote host, Rosana has a lot of positive stuff to say about how Touch Stay helps her be a better remote host. We’ll let her do the talking:

"I love Touch Stay – it has really been so nice, because I was originally trying to do the book on Airbnb, the one on VRBO Home Away, and I was trying to keep up and fill in all the information everywhere, and then when I found Touch Stay, I was all over that – I was like, this is it!

And it’s so pretty, it’s laid out so well, they keep making these awesome improvements. – and it’s easy for me to track and see who’s looked at it and who’s not looked at it. And it’s easy – if I want to add a restaurant it’s so easy, I just type the name in and it finds the picture and it pins it.

I can be more detailed about my answers, and I feel more motivated to write more detail – because I only have to do it once! It’s so convenient, it’s so well done – I’ve really really liked Touch Stay."