This is an interview with the property owner of one of the most beautiful lodgings in Oman – Hanging Terraces.
“We started in September 2024 as a family owned business. We provide lodge services in the middle of the Sultanate of Oman mountains. Our Lodge is based on restoration of houses that are 400 years old.”
This is how Mustafa Al Riyami describes their property business – Hanging Terraces.
This is a wonderful historical place for tourists who search for Grand Canyon views, terraced gardens, and dramatic cliffs – one of the best viewpoints in Oman.
But why are guests attracted to this particular lodging? No one knows better than the owner:
“The restoration and the final touches in the place. We kept the place as it was in the past but we made it ready to be used while keeping the authentic old touch. The location is stunning as the lodge is located on the edge of the great valley so that the views are amazing.”
Such a great property needs a branded website, and looks like Mustafa has managed to craft a great online presence. How do guests make a booking? The website comes with the direct booking widget from BNBForms + synced to bookings from Booking.com. Mustafa explains:
“Booking.com is the only OTA channel that we are using as of now. We face some sync issues from time to time but that is manageable. One improvement here is needed, if BNBForms can bring extra details from the booking not only the reservation number that will add a great value and safe us huge effort. Data like: names, emails, contacts if provided.”
Mustafa has just pointed out a key limitation of iCal OTA syncs: limited client information, as their primary function is to block dates and prevent overbooking.
For accepting direct bookings, BNBForms is their first software:
“The only software we used is BNBForms since the beginning of our services. No issues or concerns so far as the solution is fully functional and comply with our needs.”
As a B&B booking software providers, we’re even more interested in the booking process and website building routines of property owners. What’s the choice of Hanging Terraces?
“We are 100% family business and therefore, we have built our website through the tools given by the hosting service provider. Our website is hosted in GoDaddy and they provide some tools for website building among the subscriptions.”
BNBForms supports various website builders – and can be embedded as an iFrame or a code snippet to it (no tech skills required). Just like Hanging Terraces, many BNBForms clients use the GoDaddy website builder services.
We also asked Mustafa how well things are going with the booking process. Do they accept automatic online reservations or add them manually? How much time do they spend on booking management? Between 2-4 minutes per booking, they say!
“We do both when it comes to the inbound bookings. The auto bookings are streamlined and captured in our system directly. We just need to confirm it so that auto emails are sent out. Manual bookings are fairly easy so that we spent between 2-4 minutes to complete one full reservation.”
In the first step of the booking form, they use a multi-property availability calendar, which is a quick preview of availability across the rooms.
Guests can view rooms on the site, and then quickly jump to the availability.
What other features of BNBForms do they use? Mustafa provides a lot of details:
“We were searching through the web on what can be used as an out of box solution to manage our Lodge. BNBForms was the most convenient, robust and easy to use solution. Furthermore, the solution was easy to set up as we were able to set up 12 units in a couple of hours. The most feature that really helped us in the ready integration with our website and the other OTA systems.”
Of course, there is no 100% perfect solution, so that he mentioned areas that could be improved to better serve their business:
“Couple of things can be improved like: Reports (if we can build our own reports that will be great), Invoices (if we can white label the invoices that will be great indeed), if we can integrate the solution with WhatsApp so that all communications can be captured and finally if the solution can provide the facility of handling B2B like contracts, reservations that will add a great value.”
He also adds that reports are the main pain as they are creating those reports manually and it takes a lot of time and effort.
For other property owners reading this story, we asked Mustafa to share what he thinks is the most important thing for maximizing the profits of a vacation rental website. His response fully aligns with the realities of the business:
“Team effort and website exposure. Also, attractive designs and offers might maximize profits.”
However, direct booking websites are hard to promote and compete with OTAs. What’s the Hanging Terraces way to improve SEO and build trust with potential guests?
“Our website prices are sometimes lower than OTAs. Also when it comes to the SEO, we might be able to upgrade and change rooms easily. Moreover, direct bookings contain extra details around the place, food, activities, points of interest, etc. the thing that we are missing here is the reviews which I believe we link either booking.com or google reviews to.”
But direct bookings started coming in quickly!
“It took us a few hours to get the first direct booking and we were really pleased with it.”
Finally, we asked Mustafa: do you have any recommendations for anyone starting out in the vacation rental industry? His practical piece of advice is:
“Start by having your rental materials ready then go for solutions, otherwise you will be lost on the demand of the systems.”
So, prepare your property and business basics first, then choose the tools! BNBForms is ready to help you take direct vacation rental bookings from your site at any moment.
