Why We Started ¥30,000/Month AI Minpaku Management
“Isn’t it too cheap?” “Is it just AI with a management label?”
We hear these worries often. So let me, as CEO, explain how this service began.
It Started With Running My Own Rental
I’m Takuma Takahashi, CEO of BizPato Inc. I’ve run my own vacation rental since 2018.
Since then, through big changes like the new Minpaku Act and COVID, we’ve kept managing vacation rentals through trial and error.
We Thought Hard About Hosts’ Profit
Especially after COVID, we built annual budgets and tracked actual results against them, reviewed every detail of our listings, adjusted prices by hand, and thought long and hard about how to maximize annual revenue. We also built our own system of bilingual Japanese-English staff handling guests manually, 24/7.
We believed all of it would lead to more revenue and profit for hosts, and in turn to the luxury villas we aim to operate. As a result, we’re confident our quality is among the top in the vacation rental management industry.
Still, Can We Keep Doing Things the Same Way?
Meanwhile, more vacation rentals and more competitors made it harder to grow revenue as before, no matter how hard we worked. Year-on-year drops of 10% or 20% are said to be normal.
I wondered whether we should keep doing the same thing forever.
What we want is not to provide a “good management service.” We believe our role is to leave profit in the hands of hosts and investors. High management fees, high costs, and little profit left over. That felt wrong.
AI Does the Work, People Back It Up, So Fees Can Drop
So we divided the roles. Pricing and guest communication are AI-based, and people handle what AI can’t. By cutting labor costs to the minimum, we could lower our fee too. That is AI Minpaku Management at ¥30,000 per month.
AI sets prices using a database of competitor prices, past booking patterns, tourist high and low seasons, nearby events and more. AI also replies to guests, but you’re never left hanging when it doesn’t know. Staff are on standby 24/7 and step in when needed.
Revenue may dip slightly compared with before. But because the fee drops so much, we believe the profit you keep will actually increase. Many owners have kindly switched from other management companies. They tell us revenue is about the same, and even if it dips slightly, lower fees mean more profit, so this is better.
Good for Owners, Us and Guests (“Sanpo Yoshi”)
Owners, us and guests. We believe all three benefiting is how we put into practice sanpo yoshi, the “good for all three parties” philosophy our company has always valued.
Lower management fees, more profit in your pocket.
AI covers the labor, so we can grow comfortably as the number of properties increases, and our profit grows too.
Along with AI’s quick replies, staff on standby 24/7 step in when needed, so guests enjoy a highly satisfying stay.
We’re Not Just a Company Using AI
We’re not an AI company that just runs bots. We have thought long and hard about how to truly care for guests and truly increase hosts’ profit. The answer we finally reached was lowering the management fee. Please remember that this was only one option.
That’s why we’re confident in our quality. Some basic vacation rental rules may feel a bit inflexible. But it’s all to increase hosts’ profit while keeping guests satisfied. Thank you for understanding.
Tell Us About Your Property
We’ll explain exactly how your take-home profit would change.