The way people choose where to stay is changing. Research from McKinsey found that 63% of travelers say the range of local activities influences where they choose to stay. Guests are no longer just booking accommodation, they're choosing the destination and the experience that comes with it.
For property managers, that's a huge opportunity. As professionally managed rentals continue to raise the standard, it's becoming harder to differentiate on the property alone. Great interiors, seamless check-in and thoughtful amenities still matter, but they're increasingly expected, not noticed.
The next opportunity isn't simply improving the property itself. It's helping guests experience everything around it. Guests are increasingly choosing accommodation as part of a wider travel experience, and that gives property managers the chance to play a much bigger role in how people discover and experience a destination. Rather than competing solely on amenities or price, you can differentiate by helping guests experience a destination like a local.
Build relationships, not just recommendations
When guests come to a property manager for recommendations, they aren't looking for the same five places already surfaced by Google or TikTok. The best recommendations come from genuine local knowledge, the kind that can't be scraped or ranked.
Building that starts with a small, trusted network of cafés, restaurants, activity providers and independent businesses that can be recommended with confidence. In practice, that means time on the ground: walking the neighborhood, going into local businesses, introducing the property, trying the food, negotiating a small discount for guests where possible. These relationships rarely form on the first visit, but regular visits to the same handful of businesses tend to build recognition, and eventually trust, over time.
Done well, these partnerships work in three directions at once. Guests get a better, more custom experience. Local businesses gain customers. And property managers open up a new line of ancillary revenue that has nothing to do with cleaning fees.
Make recommendations personal, not generic
The property doesn't change from guest to guest. What they need from it does. A family traveling with children wants a different experience and different recommendations than a couple celebrating an anniversary, or a remote worker settling in for a month.
Rather than handing every guest the same welcome guide, tailored itineraries or recommendation lists built around why they're traveling go a lot further: "Best spots for couples," or "Rainy day activities for families." AI makes this easier to produce at scale, feeding an LLM as much detail as possible on each attraction or business, then asking it to pull out the specifics that matter for each type of guest.
Personal doesn't have to mean spending hours getting to know each individual guest. The upfront work of segmenting guest types is what makes the experience feel personal, repeatably and at scale.
Sell the neighborhood as much as the property
A few years ago, sharp photos and a well designed interior were enough to make a listing stand out on the OTAs. That's no longer true. As professionally managed rentals converge on quality and design, location and local knowledge are becoming the stronger differentiators.
The listing description itself can be the difference between a guest choosing one property over a near identical competitor. It should tell the story of the property and its setting, appealing to guests' emotions and offering more than the amenities and photos already do on their own.
That storytelling shouldn't stop once the booking is made. Pre-arrival communications are an underused opportunity to keep building the picture of the neighborhood: local favorites, hidden gems, the kind of experiences guests won't find listed on a booking platform. According to our internal Localbird data, 74% of experiences are booked before check-in, so a guidebook on arrival is already too late.
Measure what guests actually value
Assuming the recommendations are landing isn't good enough. A simple checkout survey, asking guests which experiences or restaurants they visited and enjoyed, generates real data instead of a guess. Reviews are worth mining for the same signal: repeated mentions worth acting on, recommendations worth retiring. If a café keeps coming up that isn't already part of the network, that's worth a visit and an introduction. A partnership might follow.
Understanding what guests genuinely remember, rather than what property managers assume they'll remember, is what allows the experience to keep improving.
Guests remember how a destination made them feel
A survey from Airbnb found that 64% of guests said staying in a rental helped them feel a closer connection to local culture than staying in a hotel would. None of that requires a unique or historic property. Photos of local attractions on the walls, a welcome basket of local produce, and recommendations that feel earned rather than generic all help build a connection between place and property that guests carry with them long after checkout.
In an increasingly competitive market, that connection to the destination is one of the clearest ways left to stand out. Through better communication, simple marketing and genuine relationship building, property managers can help guests actually feel their stay rather than simply pass through it. The payoff shows up in better reviews, repeat guests and referrals, and stronger relationships with the communities these properties sit inside.
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