The summer season can arrive sooner than you think. First, individual enquiries, then weekends start filling up, and suddenly you find yourself needing to respond to guests, update availability, manage payments, and check bookings from multiple channels all at once.
It’s precisely then that the small things emerge which don’t cause much bother out of season: an outdated room description, no automatic message, an incorrect price, an unconfirmed reservation, or a date that hasn’t synced across all platforms.
That's why it's worth doing a quick check of the facility before the season – not only physically but also in the booking system.
Below you will find a simple checklist that you can go through in 7 days.
Day 1: check availability and booking calendar
To start, ensure all bookings are entered in one place. Check arrivals, departures, availability, technical blocks, and provisional bookings.
This is a good time to remove outdated blocks and ensure that every room, apartment, or cottage has its availability set correctly.
During the summer season, even one mistake in the calendar can mean unnecessary stress and extra phone calls.
Day 2: Organise sales channels
If you sell accommodation through Booking.com, Airbnb, your own website or other portals, check that availability is up-to-date across all channels.
Manually overseeing several properties during the season quickly becomes inconvenient. Therefore, it's worth using a Channel Manager, which helps synchronise bookings and availability in one system.
This way, you don't have to check each portal separately every time a new reservation appears.
Day 3: Check prices and pricing plans
Before the season, it's worth reviewing prices, packages, and pricing plans. This isn't about a complicated pricing strategy, but about simple order: are the prices up to date, do weekends have the right rates, is the non-refundable or last-minute offer set correctly.
It's easier to manage changes in the PMS system because you don't have to correct everything manually in several places.
This is also a good time to check if the guest sees the clear booking conditions before confirming it.
Day 4: prepare automatic messages for guests
During the season, repetitive communication takes up the most time. Booking confirmations, payment reminders, directions, check-in times, house rules – these are messages that are often sent many times a week.
Instead of writing them manually every time, it's worth preparing ready-made templates or automatic messages.
This way, the guest receives the necessary information on time, and the owner or reception doesn't have to remember each message separately.
Day 5: Check payments and advance payments
Before the season, it's worth ensuring that the payment rules are clear. Should the guest pay a deposit? Is payment made online? When is a booking considered confirmed?
A lack of clear rules leads to unnecessary questions and uncertain bookings.
An online booking system with payments helps to streamline this process: the guest selects a date, makes a booking, and immediately knows what they need to do to confirm it.
Day 6: Prepare the team and system access
If you have reception, cleaning staff, or additional people working with you during the season, check that everyone knows where to look for information.
Who sees arrivals and departures? Who can edit bookings? Who replies to messages? Who checks payments?
The more arrangements there are "in the head", the higher the risk of errors during the season. It is better to set up user access and organise tasks in the system earlier.
Day 7: follow the guest's path
Finally, do a simple test: go to your website or booking link as if you were a guest.
Check if you can easily select a date, view availability, read the terms and conditions, make a booking, and receive confirmation.
This is a quick way to catch problems you might not notice on a daily basis: an outdated description, missing photo, unclear price, or a booking process that's too long.
How does a mobile calendar help prepare a property for the season?
W mobile-calendar It allows you to consolidate the most important elements of pre-season preparation in one place: bookings, availability, prices, guest communication, and payments. This means you don't have to switch between multiple dashboards, spreadsheets, and notes to check what's happening at your property.
Before the season, you can start with a booking calendar – check arrivals, departures, available dates, and any blockages. This allows you to catch errors faster, before the busiest period begins and every mistake starts to mean extra phone calls or messages.
Online booking system It helps to accept bookings directly through your own website, and guests can check availability themselves, choose a date, and go through the booking process. During peak season, this is a big help, as some of the work that would normally require contacting reception can be done automatically.
If the object uses different sales channels, Channel Manager It helps synchronise availability with OTA portals. This means that when a booking appears, you don't have to manually update each listing separately, which reduces the risk of errors and saves time during peak weeks.
With mobile-calendar, you can also organise pricing plans, for example, standard, non-refundable, or last-minute offers. It's not about a complicated pricing strategy, but about conveniently managing what the property already offers – so that prices and conditions are clear for the guest and consistent throughout the booking process.
Automated messages are also an important part of the preparation. Before the season, it is worth setting up or refreshing templates for confirmations, reminders, directions, house rules, or payment information. This ensures guests receive the most important information in a timely manner, and the owner or reception does not have to send each message manually.
Online payments, in turn, help to reduce the number of uncertain bookings. The guest can immediately pay a deposit or the full amount of the stay according to the property's settings, and the booking is easier to manage in the system.
Additionally mobile application It allows you to check the most important information even outside of reception. This is particularly useful during the season when the owner or staff are not always at the computer yet still need to quickly check a booking, availability, or stay details.
In practice, a mobile calendar helps to prepare a property for the season not through one big change, but by organising many daily details: the calendar, availability, communication, payments, and handling bookings. And it's precisely these details that most often decide whether the season goes smoothly or in constant chaos.
