I’ve been working on this tool for small hotel owners that essentially works like a Linktree. Initially, I thought it might be useful for real estate agents too, but I’ve come to realize that its primary audience is small hotel owners who need a better way to communicate with their real estate agents. There are existing tools available like Expedia, Booking.com, Airbnb, and Agoda, but their interfaces aren’t really intuitive. Besides, they don’t address the specific needs of small hotel operators.
Take my girlfriend, for example. She manages a small portfolio of serviced apartment buildings in Vietnam with around 60 rooms. Most of her clients come through real estate agents. Communication is mostly done through a local messaging platform called Zalo, which makes the process quite cumbersome. She’s constantly getting calls from local agents looking for potential guests, asking about availability, amenities, and check-in/check-out dates. Updating them manually is a tedious task she has to do regularly.
Seeing her deal with this routine made me think about creating a tool to streamline the process. At first, I made it for my own use, but watching her, I’ve been refining and evolving it to better cater to hotel owners like her. Explaining the entire process is a bit tricky, but essentially, I’ve pivoted from a tool tailored for real estate agents to one specifically designed for small hotel owners and serviced apartment operators.
I just wanted to jot down these thoughts to keep track of my progress. Eventually, I plan to tweet about this to gather feedback and hear from others in similar situations, especially in developing countries. I’d like to know if my observation holds true in places like Latin America, South America, Africa, and other parts of Southeast Asia. Let’s see how it goes.