Deactivate/Pause and Archive vs. Deletion
Planned
I'm creating another post since the last was closed to commenting and the response from Hostaway was very disappointing. This is obviously a huge request by users and needs immediate attention from Hostaway. This feature needs to be implemented ASAP! I also believe there are actually TWO functions that need to be added; Archiving and Pausing/Deactivating.
I don't want to have to delete a listing. I losing historical data like revenue, guest info, conversations, etc. is detrimental. Any professional host inevitably has churn. Clients sell, choose to stop renting, or even find another manager. Hostaway either forces us to pay full rates in perpetuity for an inactive listing, or forces us to delete the listing, losing everything. Archiving a listing to keep the data within the PMS is a necessary function. Hostaway is what I am paying for to be my system. I don't want to have to download data in an external format.
All that we need is an "Archive" button that disconnects it from everything and saves the listing data. It has to cost basically nothing to store the listing data; we shouldn't be forced to choose between deletion and full rate.
Further, the ability to Pause/Deactivate a listing is also necessary. Similar to most OTAs and software like Pricelabs. I have the ability to go in and pause/deactivate a listing that is temporarily inactive. We have homes that are only rented half the year. The ability to just pause these listings, and then activate them again when the time is right is an essential function. Clients are not happy that they have to continue paying fees while their home isn't being rented.
A simple toggle switch would be great. Check out Pricelabs and how they do this.
Other PMSs on the market have these type of functions and unfortunately the lack of these features might push us to have to go somewhere else. not having these type of functions is very inconvenient and creates major unnecessary costs.
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Official comment
Hello everyone. This is Yanni, Senior Product Manager at Hostaway. We’ve heard your concerns. Your data belongs to you. We understand that there are many use cases where you need to retain data even after a listing has churned—whether for tax or auditing purposes, or to make a business case to present to future owners that you are trying to sign.
In 2025, we plan to add functionality that will allow you to archive listings while retaining their financial and reservation data.
Thank you for your continued support and feedback.
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100% agree. I would utilise both Pause and Archive functions.
This is not just a "nice to have" feature. It is essential functionality.6 -
This is a great idea and much needed.
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Please see, "Deactivated Listings "Archive" vs. Deletion" by Chad from May/June 2024 and be sure to upvote.
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@Todd Hostaway have shut down the original thread.
This one is slightly different anyway, I prefer having the option to either pause or archive.
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@Todd I did :)
However, it has been closed for commenting and the response from Hostaway was very disappointing. I feel this is highly desired feature and so I wanted to bring it up again.
Plus, I'm suggesting something a little different. 2 options; Archive and Pause/deactivate.
Archive would basically shut down the listing, but keep all the data in Hostaway. There would be an ability to turn it back if you ever wanted to. This option would be good for clients that leave and listings that will not be active for many months or even a year or more. I imagine Hostaway's cost for this service would be very minimal and thus a price point of less than a few dollars a month would turn a profit for them and be much more reasonable than paying full price.
Pause/deactivate would allow you to temporarily remove availability from the OTA's but keep it active in Hostaway. This would be useful for temporarily inactive listings; clients that want to use their home for a month or longer, work being completed at the property and you're not exactly sure when it will be finished, or maybe even the desire to only take direct bookings. For a period of time.
Pause/deactivate7 -
The feature to deactivate and pause should totally have been a default feature available. It's not an issue and is a built-in feature for over 15 pms that we have tried. So Hostaway please listen to your customers input and implement the features that are actually needed and not those that are less relevant ror even used?
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This is indeed a very good point. The whole financial reporting section becomes useless if you can't compare the numbers with previous months or years if data of deleted listings will be deleted as well. It forces me to keep double administrations if I want the exact numbers.
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much needed for all the pm that have seasonal properties , would be a game changer
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Without a way to archive a listing (being able to keep the records, but not have the listing active and paying for the it) we are going to remove the listing. This then makes the financial reporting inaccurate.
It is bizarre this feature hasn't been available from start, as on the overview tab there is a box displaying the number of inactive listings. Which is always zero.
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Interesting observation @Sean. I've never noticed that before. So maybe there is a way to do it, but they haven't shared it with us yet...?
Yes. It seems very strange that we can't keep our data in the system without paying the full monthly price...
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Agreed! !!!
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It's an easy and obvious decision for Hostaway to NOT implement this at this point. It seems that it was simply an oversight to not implement the feature in the beginning. But now, at this point, I assume many property managers like us are keeping some listings alive and continuing to pay for them even though they are inactive because of the headache that would ensue from deleting them. If Hostaway were to implement this feature, I assume they'd see a decrease in revenue in the order of 1.5-4%. From their perspective, it makes no sense for them to implement this. The only way it would make sense is if a bunch of clients start to leave them for this reason, and if that means a drop in their revenue similar to what the implementation of this feature would be.
I think we're stuck, friends!
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This is a common problem and right from the start why we used an adjunct software to grab our data out. Now we offer it to others and do custom build outs of an Ops platform. You can find us on the marketplace! We can also help you get the data you have in Hostaway out if you need it prior to closing the listing. Serena with Hostvisors.
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