While the year may be drawing to a close, we’re still in fifth gear with our foot on the accelerator. November was another fantastic month for progress, and we’re excited to share what we’ve accomplished and what’s in store for the rest of the year.
Let’s dive in!
Product
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Landing pages
Grab the attention of guests with a sleek, modern, and customizable homepage.
Your homepage is the first impression a guest has of your business, and therefore the most important to nail. Elevate their experience, establish trust and credibility, and tailor your brand messaging by adding a header, subheader, and hero images.
To edit your landing page, go to your Landing Page Personalizations within Settings to spin up and customize a landing page like this one: hopevacationrentals.dtravel.com — don’t forget to let us know what you think and what customization options you’d like to see next!
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Custom subdomains
You can now customize the link you share with guests that enables them to book with you directly. This link will also be used on your landing page, booking engine, and listing pages.
To create your own Dtravel-hosted subdomain, simply visit your Custom URL Settings. You’ll also soon be able to host your Dtravel booking engine on your own domain.
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Lowered Dtravel Direct fee to 3%
Previously, Dtravel collected a 5% fee from each booking, charged only to the short-term rental operator. We listened to community’s feedback and reduced this booking fee to 3%.
As a result, the TRVL givebacks to operators has also been revised to 3%. Remember, regardless of whether your guest pays with credit card or crypto, you will receive a TRVL giveback for all bookings powered by Dtravel.
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Stripe fee options
Whenever a guest pays with a credit card on Dtravel, Stripe will automatically deduct a ~3% fee from your payout. Previously, Dtravel used to always pass this ~3% fee on to any guest that booked with a credit card. Now, you can choose whether you or your guests pay the ~3% credit card processing fee.
Go to your Fee Options to take advantage of this new feature.
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Enhanced security features
Dtravel is always working on ways to enhance security and keep your account safe. We recently added the latest version of reCAPTCHA to help prevent and triage fraudulent activities on our website. We also added some extra safeguards via Stripe to prevent guests from using fraudulent credit cards.
Integrations
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RentalWise
We officially added our third property management system (PMS) integration to the Dtravel ecosystem at the beginning of November. Unlike previous integrations, RentalWise was the first PMS to build toward the Dtravel OpenAPI. RentalWise provides operators with a powerful end-to-end property management solution and a seamless way to create a Dtravel-powered direct booking site. For operators who want to get started with Dtravel Direct, you can connect through RentalWise for as little as $7.50/month.
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Dtravel OpenAPI
For property managers who prefer not to switch from their current PMS, we've made it easy for anyone to build a Dtravel integration using the Dtravel OpenAPI. Simply email your PMS account manager and ask them to build toward the Dtravel OpenAPI by providing them with our easy-to-follow Dtravel OpenAPI documentation.
Events
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Plug and Play TC
The Dtravel team racked up more than a few miles last month, attending a number of events, the most notable of which was Plug and Play’s Silicon Valley Summit. Plug and Play is one of the top tech accelerators in the world, and over the last couple of months, the team participated in the Plug and Play Travel & Hospitality Accelerator Program. Dtravel made such a strong impression on Plug and Play and their corporate partners—which include some of the world’s leading travel brands, such as Accor Hotels, JetBlue, Amadeus, and CWT—that we were awarded the Startup Award for the Travel & Hospitality Accelerator Program!
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Phocuswright
Our very own Cynthia Huang spoke on center stage in front of a packed room at the 2022 Phocuswright Conference and at the Hospitality and Travel Technology roundtable. Dtravel was the only web3 company represented at more than one talk during the conference, and we were excited to see the amount of interest in blockchain technology within the travel community.
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Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator
Earlier this year, Dtravel was accepted into the Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator (BBX), one of the best university-based, non-dilutive blockchain accelerators in the world. Last month was the demo day and Dtravel’s Drew Currah presented in front of a room full of the industry’s leading investment firms, generating significant interest and resulting in several follow-up meetings.
What’s Coming Next
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More demand integrations
Closing out November was the announcement of our upcoming integration with Travala.com, the world’s largest blockchain travel distribution network. In addition to a premium direct booking site, paying lower fees, and earning TRVL rewards with each booking, property managers will soon have the ability to opt in to a new demand channel that will provide a significant boost to discoverability and direct bookings.
This demand channel isn’t available on any short-term rental platform and will give operators exposure to frequent, high-value travelers that are primarily looking to book with cryptocurrencies.
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More tooling customizations
Your Dtravel-powered booking site is an extension of your business and brand. It’s the way for you to connect directly with guests so that more of your guests’ payments go to you instead of OTAs.
We will be adding even more features and customizations in the coming months to put you in the driver’s seat of your booking site, including self-hosted domains, SEO tools, the ability to offer upsells to your guests, customizable subpages, and much more.
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More payment options
We know that Stripe doesn’t work for everyone and are working on providing more payment options that operate in more places around the world. Additionally, we’ll also make it simpler and easier for guests to pay with crypto.
Thanks for reading our update! We’d now love to turn it over to you. What features would you like to see Dtravel build to help elevate your short-term rental business? Let us know in Discord or Telegram!