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Hotel & Airbnb Management / Short-Term Rental Tips | Three steps to unlock labor costs by up to 50%

Picture of Ben Day Ben Day May 14, 2026 10:36:57 AM

Marketing Technology Channel Distribution

Three steps to unlock labor costs by up to 50%

Both new Airbnb hosts and experienced hoteliers are dealing with the same problem – it’s nearly impossible to find and keep great staff (or in some cases, any staff). Labor costs are skyrocketing, and it’s estimated that in 2022, there are over one million unfilled hospitality positions in the US alone.

Modern hospitality professionals need to embrace change if they want to stay profitable while offering the great service their guests expect. There are three ways to do this:

  1. Discard out of date business practices and focus on what really matters

  2. Embrace technology to automate mundane tasks

  3. Improve your guest communication

Updating your business model and automating repeatable processes can reduce labor costs by up to 50% in certain hotels and hospitality settings. While some owners will add these savings to the bottom line, others will reinvest the gains into value-added services that drive guest satisfaction, rates, and profitability higher.

In the vacation rental market, these practices are more established.  Short-term rental managers, often in multiple locations necessitate that the latest technology has to be embraced to maximize efficiency. Some of these lessons are being learned by progressive multi-unit properties, lodges, and boutique hotels as staffing becomes an ever-growing issue.

Say Goodbye to Outdated Business Practices - End Daily Housekeeping

Arguably the biggest difference between hotels and short-term rental management is in housekeeping. While hotels typically offer daily housekeeping, short-term rentals do not – and the impact on the guest experience is minimal. During the COVID pandemic, many hotels have not offered in-stay cleaning. If guests haven’t complained, why would hotels return to this model when housekeepers are so hard to find? If you have the staff to support it, consider making daily housekeeping an optional extra in the same way airlines charge additional fees for extra bags.

Automate Everything – Even the Front Desk

The hospitality business has changed – services that used to require on-site staff can now be automated and completed before the guest sets foot on your property. For example:

Guest access

Payment Processing

Guest Screening

$1,000.000 Asset protection

Noise and party monitoring

  • Jetstream’s platform ensures that all payments are automated and taken prior to arrival – just like taking an Uber. Jetstream has a registration process that ensures all guests verify their identity prior to arrival. Once this process is complete, the booking is covered by $1,000,000 in damage protection, which means damage deposits are no longer required.

  • Our best-in-class privacy-compliant technology monitors our guests for noise issues, providing automated alerts and 24/7 follow-up by our customer service team to stop a party in its tracks and keep the neighbors happy.

  • Room keys and remote access can also be pre-assigned. Each guest can be pre-assigned their door code and either presented at check-in, emailed, or texted ahead of time. Late arrivals can now gain access 100% free of any interaction. Access tick, payment tick, guest verification tick.


Learn more about our full solution for STR marketing for hotels and resorts. Or click below to get a 12-month revenue estimate for your property.

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Of course, you can’t automate everything – technology can’t replace the warm and caring welcome of a professional host or concierge. However, consider the following scenario for a 50-room boutique hotel running at 80% occupancy:

In the old hospitality model, you would need two front desk staff for two shifts per day, plus a night auditor. With this level of staff, you can prevent guests from waiting at desks as forms are filled, IDs are checked, and damage deposits are collected. Across all staff, that adds up to 40 hours per day, seven days per week – which means you need to hire seven full-time staff members, plus a manager to organize the schedule, train, and lead the team. In today’s economy, finding and retaining good staff is increasingly difficult.

In the new hospitality model, all of these mundane tasks – filling forms, checking IDs, collecting damage deposits – are completed prior to arrival. Guests don’t have to loiter in the lobby after a long plane ride. In terms of staffing, this means you only need a single, six-hour “concierge” shift around the busiest check-in time. Better yet, your staff can focus on warm welcomes instead of paperwork.

Supercharge Communication

For a guest, there is nothing worse than discovering an issue in the middle of the night and not having anyone who can help. That’s why Jetstream has a 24/7 multilingual guest service team that works across four time zones on three continents. Using our cutting-edge technology and friendly communication, we’re able to respond to unexpected issues as they appear, rather than leaving a guest fuming.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can automate your processes and reduce staffing headaches, reach out to Jetstream today.