Policy: Christmas, Boxing & New Year’s Day Arrivals and Departures

Company Position:

Property Providers’ vision is to “Help People Live Better” by being Sydney’s most flexible residential rental company. This vision is driven by three core values; Passion, Performance and Profit. Importantly, we seek profit not through dollars and cents, but through the pursuit of our guiding principle that all successful long-term partnerships have a foundation of mutual investment, respect, risk and commitment. We aim to create these virtues in all our relationships and touch points with long-term leasing tenants, short-term rental guests, employees, suppliers, partners, and our property owner partners.

Document Purpose:

The purpose of this document is to communicate the company’s policy as it relates to Christmas, Boxing and New Year’s Day guest arrivals.

Policy Objectives:

To be clear, concise and consistent regarding what the company’s position is.
To “Help People Live Better” by proactively supporting staff rest, recovery and family time.
To ensure the company has the highest probability of delivering a positive guest experience.
To consider “out of the norm” or “exceptions” of instant bookings whereby channels do not allow the company to exclude these days from a technical logistical standpoint.

Agency Policy:

Property Providers will not accept guest bookings that require a Christmas, Boxing or New Year’s Day arrival. Note: The only exception is when a property is “Instant Book” marketed and the booking is >=$10,000 in rent.

Exceptions & Operational Mechanics for “Instant Bookings”:

Instant Bookings that are made on Christmas, Boxing and New Year’s Eve are to be cancelled by Property Providers unless they are a minimum booking value of $10,000 and are located within our core strength geographical footprint.
Property Providers accepts that there is a channel cost of cancelling these bookings and we consider this a cost of doing business, a cost of supporting our staff and our company’s core purpose of “Helping People Live Better.”
Under NO CIRCUMSTANCE WHATSOEVER should a back-to-back booking be taken on these days. The booking agent in these circumstances should act in a fiscally responsible way and in the owner’s best interest to get the incumbent/previous booking to book initially through these days (i.e. checkout on the 27^th of December or the 2^nd of January).
When a booking is taken for a Christmas, Boxing Day or New Year’s Day arrival, the booking agent is responsible for facilitating a positive guest experience (i.e. this means gaining the approval of the operations team and particularly the Housekeeping Supervisor) that he/she is confident that we can seamlessly execute it).
For these bookings, the Booking Agent and Housekeeping Supervisor should organise a lockbox at the property for the guest to use (including effectively communicating with that guest) to facilitate the best possible guest experience. We understand that these days are precious to our guests as well.

Rationale:

Property Providers’ core purpose is to “Help People Live Better.” We, therefore, believe that it is important to be respectful to our staff and to allow them adequate time to rest and recover during these special family-centric times.
The ability to deliver a positive guest experience is severely compromised on these three days of the year as it is very difficult and expensive (double or triple time wages) to motivate the housekeeping team to work.
Our experience is that Housekeeping Staff is unreliable on these particular days, which presents unacceptable risk (financially, to our reputation and brand) on these days.
The vast majority of our prospective guests are willing to compromise and will adjust their plans if the booking agent is effectively persuasive.
Many of the properties that we manage are owner’s homes which may be of varying standards of being “guest ready.” This can lead to unpredictability and therefore an operational risk that is difficult to predict and manage.
These three days represent less than 1% of the year.
On New Year’s Eve day, there are often road restrictions in place because of Sydney’s world-renowned fireworks display which could make it very difficult or impossible to adequately access the property by car.
Should there be an urgent repair and maintenance issue (which would disrupt the guests’ peaceful enjoyment and warrant compensation), it is almost impossible to get trades to accept and complete work orders on these days. Hence this presents an unacceptable risk.
Importantly as a result of the evolution of the marketplace and the rapid adoption (and customer expectation of instant booking), the company recognizes that in very isolated cases we are unable to control bookings from being made on these days. For these exceptions, the following applies.

Summary:

As stated above, our guiding principal is that all successful long-term partnerships have a foundation of mutual investment, respect, risk and commitment. We seek to pursue only win-win relationships and outcomes. In this regard, our default position is that our staff should come first on these special days and no amount of money or other motivation is worth the trade-off.