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The guest journey

Seven stages. Most tools cover the middle of them.

A guest goes through seven stages, from first thinking about a trip to telling friends about your place. Property management software is built for the middle: booking and the stay. Before that the platforms control things, and after checkout, by default, nobody does. This page shows where each tool stops, what the gaps cost, and how Book Them Twice and AI coworkers fill them.

  1. 1Awareness
  2. 2Discovery
  3. 3Evaluation
  4. 4Booking
  5. 5Experience
  6. 6Post-Stay
  7. 7Advocacy

Who covers each stage

Built from the feature rows on our comparison pages, which come from each company's own public pages, last checked September 25, 2026. Hover or tap a mark to see which features it counts.

Tool1Awareness2Discovery3Evaluation4Booking5Experience6Post-Stay7Advocacy
Your PMS + Book Them TwiceYesYesYesYesYesYesYes
Book Them TwiceYesPartlyPartlyNoNoYesYes
HospitableNoYesYesYesYesPartlyPartly
GuestyNoYesYesPartlyYesPartlyPartly
HostfullyNoYesYesPartlyYesPartlyPartly
HostawayAdd-onYesYesYesYesPartlyPartly
OwnerRezNoYesPartlyPartlyPartlyPartlyPartly
LodgifyNoYesPartlyPartlyYesNot listedPartly
UplistingNoYesYesPartlyYesPartlyPartly
BoostlyNot listedPartlyPartlyAdd-onNot listedPartlyPartly
MarketMySTRNot listedPartlyPartlyNot listedPartlyYesPartly
Enso ConnectNoNoYesNoYesYesPartly
YadaYesPartlyPartlyNot listedNot listedYesYes
HavenNot listedPartlyPartlyPartlyNot listedYesPartly
SecondStayNot listedPartlyNot listedNot listedNot listedYesNot listed
PriceLabsNoNoNoPartlyNoNoNo

Yes covers the stage   Partly covers part of it   Add-on only with an add-on or another tool   No not offered   Not listed not found on their public pages

How we marked each stage
  • Awareness: a guest referral program. Discovery: direct-booking website and channel sync. Evaluation: guest inbox and reviews. Booking: reservations, channel sync and dynamic pricing. Experience: guest inbox. Post-Stay: email and text campaigns to past guests. Advocacy: reviews and a guest referral program.
  • A stage is "Yes" only if every feature in it is built in. It is "Partly" if at least one is.
  • Guest referrals: on September 25, 2026 we checked the feature pages, help center and app marketplace of every PMS, booking-site, pricing and guest-marketing tool listed here at the time. None of those 11 has a built-in guest referral program. Hostaway offers one only through a marketplace app (JENIE). The "referral programs" the others advertise pay you for sending other hosts to their software, not for bringing guests to your property. We added three repeat-guest tools on September 26, 2026: Yada lists referral rewards in its loyalty program, Haven lists a "Referral program" without saying who it rewards, and SecondStay does not list one. Sources are on each comparison page.
  • "Your PMS + Book Them Twice" uses Hospitable as the PMS, because that is the connection in our standard setup.

Stages 2 to 5

PMS tools are strong here

Hospitable, Guesty, Hostaway, OwnerRez, Lodgify, Hostfully and Uplisting all run reservations, channels and the inbox well. Keep yours.

Stages 1, 6 and 7

That's where the holes are

After checkout, most PMS tools offer past-guest email only partly or as an add-on, text campaigns are rare, and no PMS on this page has a built-in guest referral program. Hostaway gets one only through an add-on. That's the part Book Them Twice is built for.

Do both

Your PMS plus Book Them Twice

Together they cover every stage except the platforms' own advertising. Book Them Twice reads from your PMS and never replaces it. That pairing is what we call an owned guest system.

Stage by stage: the hole, what it costs, and what fills it

1

Awareness

Someone starts thinking about a trip. Controlled today by: The booking platforms

The hole The platforms buy the guest's attention and keep it. Your past guests are the one audience you could own, and no tool on this list prompts them to tell anyone.

$1.455B

Airbnb's brand and performance marketing spend in 2024.

Airbnb 10-K, 2025

37%

of travelers were inspired to plan a trip by a conversation with a family member.

Expedia Group, Path to Purchase 2023 · Published by an online travel agency.

What it costs: You rent awareness from the platform on every booking. Modeled below as the referral hole.

Book Them Twice fills it with

  • Referral ask and a quarterly reactivation check on past guests Book Them Twice

AI coworker

No case study yet. We have not run this stage long enough on a real property to publish a result.

2

Discovery

They search and find listings. Controlled today by: Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com search

The hole Guests find you inside platform search, where the platform sets the ranking rules. Most PMSs let you build a direct-booking site, but nothing sends people to it or follows up with the ones who land there.

51% vs 21%

Share of US professionally managed short-term rental reservations in Q2 2026: Airbnb 51%, direct 21% (down from 25% a year earlier).

Key Data, U.S. Index Q3 2026

What it costs: Direct share fell 4 points in a year. Every point that moves to a platform pays that platform's fee (see Booking).

Book Them Twice fills it with

  • Follow-up for people who land on your site: a local guide and the case for booking direct Book Them Twice

AI coworker

No case study yet. Content and search work is in development and has no result to show yet.

3

Evaluation

They compare listings and ask questions. Controlled today by: Your inbox and your reviews

The hole A guest asks a real question and gets only the PMS's instant auto-reply. Review count and host responsiveness decide where you rank, and nobody checks that every question got a real answer.

Ranking

Airbnb's search ordering considers host responsiveness, cancellations, and ratings and reviews.

Airbnb Help Center, article 39

90% in 24h

Superhost bar: respond to 90% of new messages within 24 hours and keep a 4.8+ rating.

Airbnb Help Center, article 829

What it costs: No public number for inquiries lost to silence. On one real property 3 real questions got only the auto-reply in the nine weeks before an AI coworker started reading every inquiry.

Book Them Twice fills it with

  • Every inquiry captured, with a text alert to you and a 30-minute reply reminder Fill Your Nights
  • Recovery emails for inquiries that stopped before booking, and quote follow-up over five days Book Them Twice

AI coworker: Booking Steward

Reads every inquiry, drafts a researched reply and holds it for your approval.

Case study: 3 unanswered questions before, 0 since →

4

Booking

They pay. Controlled today by: Your PMS and the platforms

The hole This is where PMS tools are strongest. The hole is the fee: every platform booking pays it, including a returning guest who already knows you.

15.5%

The host-only Airbnb service fee most hosts pay (14% to 16% for the rest).

Airbnb Help Center, article 1857

5% + 3%

Vrbo pay-per-booking: 5% commission plus 3% payment processing. Hosts on a PMS don't pay the 3%.

Vrbo Help

What it costs: Modeled below as fee leakage on returning guests who rebook through a platform.

Book Them Twice fills it with

  • Direct-booking confirmation, then the guest joins your member-rate list Book Them Twice
  • Bookings and cancellations mirrored from your PMS. Your PMS keeps taking the booking. Fill Your Nights

AI coworker: Revenue & Occupancy

Checks occupancy against the market every day and finds what is stopping bookings.

Case study: 0 October bookings to beating market in 4 days →

5

Experience

They stay. Controlled today by: Your PMS inbox and your team

The hole PMS inboxes handle messages well. The hole is the stakes: ratings bunch near the top, so one missed door code or unresolved problem moves a listing down.

4.75+

Average Airbnb listing rating worldwide.

Airbnb Newsroom, Global Quality Report 2025

What it costs: No dollar figure we can source for this stage. A 4.6 is below average on Airbnb.

Book Them Twice fills it with

  • Door-code check three days before arrival, with an alert if the code hasn't gone out Fill Your Nights
  • Party guest check-in page with Wi-Fi and the house guide Fill Your Nights

AI coworker: Guest Experience

We are testing arrival-day and mid-stay checks on a real property. The sample is too small to publish yet.

6

Post-Stay

They check out. Controlled today by: Nobody, by default

The hole After checkout most tools stop. Platform rules bar you from marketing to platform guests with the contact details the platform gives you, and those details stop working. Without your own opted-in list, there is no thank-you, no anniversary and no invitation back.

Policy

Airbnb bars using guest contact information for marketing and moving repeat bookings off Airbnb.

Airbnb Help Center, article 2799

2 days

Airbnb temporary guest phone numbers expire two days after checkout (limited US/Canada rollout).

Airbnb Help Center, article 3764

CRM

Key Data tells property managers to invest in CRM campaigns and guest loyalty that convert repeat travelers into direct bookings.

Key Data, U.S. Index Q3 2026

What it costs: Modeled below as missed repeat stays from guests on your own list.

Book Them Twice fills it with

  • Thank-you email the day after checkout Fill Your Nights
  • Returning-guest invitations to opted-in guests, anniversary email and text, and win-back emails Fill Your Nights

AI coworker: Guest Experience & Reviews

Found that the automatic post-stay review request never actually asked for a review, and rewrote it. It also answers every review.

Case study: 7 reviews unanswered for up to 54 days, cleared in one afternoon →

7

Advocacy

They tell people. Controlled today by: The platform's listing page

The hole A guest's praise builds the platform's page, not yours. Reviews go unanswered, and nobody asks happy guests for a referral.

+16%

A referred customer is worth at least 16% more than a similar non-referred one.

Schmitt, Skiera and Van den Bulte, Journal of Marketing, 2011 · Banking data, not lodging.

+12%

more reviews, and +0.12 stars, when hotels start replying to reviews.

Proserpio and Zervas, Marketing Science, 2017 · Hotel data, not short-term rentals.

What it costs: Modeled below as missed referral stays.

Book Them Twice fills it with

  • Five-star reviews flagged with suggested replies; anything lower comes to you first Fill Your Nights
  • Referral ask and quarterly reactivation Book Them Twice

AI coworker: Guest Experience & Reviews

Replies to every review within a day and finds the review request that never asked for a review.

Case study: review replies went from 0 of 7 to 12 of 12 →

What the holes cost

A model of stages 6 and 7, by portfolio size

This is a model, not a result. The dollar figures come from the inputs below. Nothing here was measured from a real operator. Four of the inputs are our own guesses because no public source exists for them, and we show both a conservative and a moderate version. The totals are booking revenue, not profit: cleaning and operating costs are not taken out.

Inputs from published sources

Nightly rate$225Below Key Data's Apr–Jun 2026 US averages ($283–$390), on purpose
Occupancy45%Key Data, June 2026 paid occupancy 45.2%
Average stay4.3 nightsKey Data, May 2026
Stays through a platform79%Key Data Q2 2026: direct = 21% of reservations
Blended platform fee12.89%Airbnb 15.5% and Vrbo 8%, weighted by revenue share. Booking.com publishes no standard rate, so it is left out
Direct card fee2.9% + 30¢Stripe standard US pricing, taken off every direct stay

Inputs we had to guess

ConservativeModerate
Guests on your own opted-in list25%40%
Of those, return within a year anyway10%15%
Extra stays per list guest from thank-you, anniversary and win-back2%4%
Referred stays per list guest when asked1%2%

The conservative list share is close to the 21% of stays that are already direct bookings. It does not assume you can market to platform guests using details the platform gave you.

Output per year

UnitsGross bookingsPlatform fee on returning guestsMissed repeat staysMissed referralsTotal, conservativeTotal, moderateFor context: platform fees paid
2$73,912$145$359$179$683$2,071$7,527
10$369,562$727$1,794$897$3,417$10,354$37,633
30$1,108,688$2,181$5,381$2,690$10,252$31,062$112,899
  • On conservative inputs the post-stay and advocacy holes come to about 0.9% of gross bookings; on moderate inputs, about 2.8%. The three hole columns show the conservative split.
  • Against our own annual prices: at 2 units on conservative inputs ($683), the holes come to about two-thirds of Fill Your Nights ($1,037 a year); on moderate inputs ($2,071), about twice it. At 10 units the conservative total is about 1.2 times the Book Them Twice level ($2,787 a year).
  • "Platform fees paid" is what you already spend renting awareness and discovery from the platforms. It is context and is not counted as a hole.
  • Change any input and the result moves in proportion. At 10 units, a $175 or $300 nightly rate gives $2,657 or $4,558; a 21% or 40% list share gives $2,871 or $5,468.

See your own seven stages

On the demo we map your current tools to the seven stages and show which holes Book Them Twice would close, using your numbers instead of ours.

Get a demo →

Sources were checked on September 25, 2026. Research on reviews, referrals and retention comes from hotels, retail and banking and shows direction, not a short-term rental forecast. Platform policies limit how you can contact platform guests: Book Them Twice sends only to guests who opted in to hear from you. Competitor details come from each company's public website; see the comparison pages for sources on every feature. All product names are trademarks of their owners; Book Them Twice is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them. Results are not guaranteed; see our earnings disclaimer.