Guests message
at 3am.
Setting a property up is the easy part. Answering it, pricing it, cleaning it and keeping its review score intact for years is the business. That is what the desk is for.
Eight lines of work.
Scope is set per venture in a service schedule. This is the full menu; your agreement names which of it applies to you.
Guest communication
Pre-booking enquiries, booking confirmations, check-in instructions, in-stay problems, late arrivals, complaints and post-stay follow-up, across every platform the property is listed on, around the clock.
Booking & calendar
Multi-platform calendar synchronisation through a channel manager, minimum-stay and gap-night rules, cancellation and relocation handling, so the same night is never sold twice.
Pricing
Rates reviewed against local demand, seasonality, events and comparable listings, and adjusted continuously rather than set once. This is the single largest lever on revenue and the one individual hosts most often ignore.
Cleaning & turnover
Scheduling cleaners against the live calendar, confirming completion with photo evidence, tracking linen and consumables, and escalating when a turnover risks missing a check-in.
Reviews & ranking
Every review answered, complaint patterns tracked and fed back into the property, listing content and photography refreshed. Ranking decays quickly when neglected and recovers slowly.
Maintenance coordination
Faults logged, contractors dispatched, access arranged, work verified and invoices checked. Coordinated by us, performed by people on the ground.
Compliance calendar
Registration renewals, safety certificates, lodging tax filings, insurance dates and platform requirements tracked, with escalation before deadlines rather than after.
Reporting
A monthly pack covering occupancy, average nightly rate, revenue per available night, cost lines against plan, review scores and incidents, plus a quarterly review call with a written record.
An India-based desk covers the overnight window in both target markets, which is exactly when guests message about a lock that will not open and when an owner is asleep. This is one of the few places where the distance is an advantage rather than something to be managed around.
What a desk can and cannot do.
Written into the agreement. It protects you as much as us, because a promise we cannot keep is worse than a gap you planned for.
Six verbs
The desk can coordinate, verify, record, communicate, monitor and report. Nearly everything a short-stay business needs day to day falls inside those six.
- Answer a guest at any hour, in the guest's language where needed
- Dispatch a cleaner or contractor and verify the work was done
- Adjust pricing within an agreed band
- Handle a complaint, a refund request or a platform dispute
- Track every renewal, certificate and filing date
- Report performance against the plan every month
Anything needing presence, licence or authority
- Physically cleaning, inspecting or repairing the property
- Attending an incident, a break-in or an emergency in person
- Signing a lease, a purchase contract or a licence application on your behalf
- Giving legal, tax, immigration, property or investment advice
- Deciding to evict a guest, pursue a claim, or terminate a lease
- Holding client money where regulation prevents it
Each of these is mapped at setup to a local contractor or a licensed provider, with a documented handoff and a stall rule if it is not actioned.
What we can decide without asking you.
A schedule to the management agreement. The point is that neither side is guessing when a guest is locked out at midnight your time.
| Decision | Akontec may act | Reserved to you |
|---|---|---|
| Routine spend | Up to an agreed per-item and monthly limit | Anything above the limit |
| Nightly pricing | Within an agreed band | Changes outside the band |
| Accepting a booking | Against agreed criteria | Exceptions to criteria |
| Goodwill refund | Up to an agreed cap per stay | Above the cap |
| Emergency repair | Up to an agreed limit, immediately | Major works |
| Changing cleaner or contractor | Yes, against performance evidence | — |
| Damage claim against a guest | Prepare and lodge | Decide to pursue further |
| Insurance renewal | Put to market, present options | Select and bind |
| Delisting or pausing a property | Recommend | Decide |
| Legal proceedings | Never | Always |
| Adding a property | Model and recommend | Approve and fund |
Short-stay is one of the few ventures where round-the-clock cover is genuinely necessary rather than an upsell. A guest arriving at 2am to a lock that will not open is a one-star review and a refund if nobody answers. We will tell you honestly which coverage level your portfolio needs.
Measured on what we control.
Measures are classified before they are agreed, because holding a desk to account for something it cannot influence produces theatre rather than performance.
Controllable
Entirely ours. First response time to a guest message, turnover confirmed before check-in, review response rate, compliance deadlines met, reporting delivered on time. Service credits attach to these.
Influenceable
We affect the outcome but do not decide it. Occupancy, average nightly rate, review score, repeat bookings. Reported and reviewed, but not credit-bearing.
Observable
Reported because you need to see them, outside our control entirely. Regulatory change, platform algorithm and policy shifts, local competition, seasonality, insurance pricing.
Where we miss an agreed Controllable measure, a credit against the monthly management fee applies, capped as stated in your agreement. This sits alongside the profit share, which independently means a badly run property costs us money.
See what the desk would cover for you
Scope, hours and reporting are set per portfolio. We map it on the first call.