The Vacation Rental Manager Professional (VRMP) courses were originally designed as part of the VRMP Certificate program. Now available individually, these courses will help sharpen your skills, increase industry knowledge, and improve your business savvy. Perfect to use as onboarding and training resources for new employees or to compare your practices against the industry, there is something for every area of your business.
For those interested in advancing your career and gaining a competitive advantage by taking all five modules, consider demonstrating your mastery by obtaining your VRMP Certificate.
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Business Operations ($150)
Learn the essential aspects of managing a successful vacation rental business in this four-part online course.
Learning Objectives:
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Understand and apply key financial principles, including budgeting, financial statement analysis, and KPI tracking, to ensure profitability and financial health.
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Develop a staffing plan, conduct employee performance reviews, and comply with employment laws to effectively manage human resources in a vacation rental company.
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Implement operational standards for housekeeping and maintenance teams, ensuring compliance with safety regulations and government policies while optimizing resources and staff performance.
Accounting and Finance: Basic accounting and financial operating principles will be covered in this module, including defining basic accounting terms, creating an annual operational budget, and reviewing and analyzing monthly financial statements, key performance indicators, and drivers of profitability.
Human Resources and Personnel Management: The Human Resources and Personnel Management module will discuss critical components of managing employees at a successful vacation rental company. This module will cover creating a financially-viable staffing plan based on regulations, company performance, and industry trends. It will also discuss implementing the employee performance review process and ensuring access to training and development opportunities for staff. It will further cover employment laws and regulations to help ensure that your company is in compliance.
Housekeeping Management: The Housekeeping Management section of the course will focus on establishing a company cleaning and laundry standard for all rental properties and articulate the critical importance of developing a standard property appearance protocol. The course also will cover ensuring compliance with government regulations and safety policies as well as demonstrate how to optimally operate your housekeeping staff and effectively manage resources.
Maintenance Management: The Maintenance Management module discusses how to establish a company maintenance standard and when to implement reviews and updates to this standard. It also covers how to ensure compliance with government regulations, OSHA regulations and safety policies and discusses the basics of spa and pool care. The module will also include the critical importance between the maintenance and housekeeping department’s roles and responsibilities.
Reservations and Sales Management: The Reservations and Sales Management module provides resources to ensure staff are following industry best practices and providing personalized selling experiences for guests. The module will also identify key action tasks that a manager needs to take to oversee the reservation and sales team as well as how to implement best practices for success. It will also review establishing company standards and implementing KPIs for the reservations and sales team.
Business Planning and Organizational Management ($150)
This course covers industry trends, legal regulations and compliance, ethics, insurance and liability, green initiatives, and emergency and disaster planning.
Industry Trends: The industry trends module covers the ever-changing dynamics of the vacation rental landscape by discussing current issues that are facing the market. The course discusses changing market dynamics from an increasingly competitive marketplace, changes in travel trends and regulatory standards, new technology and changing guest expectations.
Legal Regulations: The legal regulations module demonstrates how to utilize available resources to ensure compliance with existing state, local, and federal regulations that apply to property owners. It will also demonstrate how to source federal, state, and local business tax liabilities that relate to your management company as well as the state and/or local sales taxes and occupancy/lodging taxes that apply to your rentals and who is liable for those payments.
Ethics: The Ethics modules articulates the importance of codes of ethics and responsibility in the VRM industry. Gain increased awareness of the VRMA member code of ethics, the real estate licensure code of ethics, and develop and adhere to your own company code of ethics from this module.
Green Initiatives: This module will discuss the various green initiatives currently being implemented in the vacation rental industry as well as the benefits and impact of incorporating these initiatives into your business practices.
Emergency Disaster Planning: Emergencies and disasters are unfortunately a very real part of vacation rental management. This module will cover how to develop a disaster plan, put that plan into action and how to review and identify areas for future improvement. It will also discuss how to assess disaster plans and emergency needs in your local area.
Marketing and Promotion ($100)
This course covers marketing and promotion, including brand positioning, owner-targeted marketing, guest-targeted marketing, and public relations within your community. Learn the methods to identify target markets and assess competition as well as how to develop marketing strategies for promotion. Participants will examine the critical importance of identifying and articulating your company’s value proposition and core values of your brand. Finally, observe how to develop strategies to market your business in your local community and build public relations.
Guest Relations ($100)
This online course focuses on guest relations and the essential strategies for delivering exceptional customer service in the vacation rental industry. Participants will learn effective methods for managing guest expectations, maintaining high service standards, and resolving potential issues proactively to ensure positive guest experiences and build lasting relationships.
Owner Relations ($100)
Building strong relationships with property owners and acquiring and retaining vacation rental inventory are essential for growing your business. Key topics of this course include how to analyze performance of your rental properties and inventory acquisition strategy as well as discuss how to establish KPIs to monitor homeowner satisfaction. It will also discuss the manager’s role in defining expectations and requirements for new homeowner and company partnerships.