Every good business owner knows that you have to invest in your employees if you want to grow. That doesn’t just mean paying them more (that’s always great for improving your turnover rate though). You need to give them the tools they need to excel in their role and take on new responsibilities. For this, you’ll need some high quality vacation rental training resources.Unfortunately, there’s a few snags when it comes to vacation rental education. It’s a young industry with little direct regulation and no established bodies of certification. It’s also an industry that’s growing and changing very quickly.

Finding trustworthy, up-to-date, and cost-effective educative materials in this field is going to be difficult. Today, we’re going to take a look at some staff training options to help you make an effective investment in your employees. Note: the following resources are also helpful for VR business owners / managers as well – you can never know too much ;)

Vacation Rental Training Resources

A typical vacation rental business requires numerous areas of talent – digital marketing, property management, hospitality, accounting, etc. If you want to expand your business and compete with the best, you’ll need to have expertise in every facet.

In addition to general vacation rental training & education, we’ve also compiled some more field-focused resources. This is particularly important in the realm of VR marketing.

General VR Training

VRMA
$350+ (Membership)

Subjects:

• Housekeeping
• Human Resources Management
• Marketing Management
• Reservations and Sales
• Customer Service Training

VRMA’s training program is part of their annual membership package, which starts at $30 per month. It’s by far the most complete program in terms of how many aspects of the VRM business they cover.

VRMintel
Free

Subjects:

• Designing Your Website for More Bookings
• Formulas to Audit Your Revenue Performance
• Intro to Dynamic Pricing and Yield Management

+ More

VRMB
$40_/mo

Materials include:

• Workshop recordings
• Courses
• Checklists
• Weekly Digests

HomeAway
Free

Subjects:

• Vacation Property Management Marketing 101
  
• Yearly Vacation Rental Management Trends
  
• Zen and the Art of Property Management

+ More

Includes videos, guides / articles, blog, demos, and events.

VR Marketing Training

BuildUp Bookings
(Hourly)

Training areas:

• SEO
  
• Conversation Rate Optimization
  
• Paid Search
  
• Email Marketing
  
• Social Media
  
• Display Advertising

BuildUp Bookings offers one-on-one training sessions for an hourly rate – perfect for complex digital marketing subjects.

Padlifter
Free

Subjects:

• Providing a Phenomenal Guest Experience
• Understanding Your Target Guests
• How to Score 5-Star Reviews

+ More

Padlifter is a 100% free resource, but the focus is on Airbnb only.

Housekeeping Training

IICRC HCT
$250 – $275

There aren’t many housekeeping training programs out there, but the IICRC is by far the most respected. They offer numerous certification sub-types, but the most applicable to vacation rental businesses is the HCT (House Cleaning Technician) certification.

The certification courses are taught by IICRC-approved schools and instructors. The best way to find a local training course is to perform a Google search for “IICRC HCT certification [your location]“. The IICRC website has a course locator as well, but it’s not always up to date.