Guest Experience & Operations Manager

About the Role

Adventure Awaits Stays is a short-term rental portfolio across Texas and the Gulf Coast. It includes Canyon Lake Retreat (eight lakeview suites plus a three-bedroom home), Hilltop Haven in Leander, a Jonestown Hill Country estate and Surfside and Duneside on the Gulf. We sell memorable stays, not just beds. Right now our operations aren't living up to that.

This hire is the person who gets the portfolio back on track. You will own the guest experience from inquiry to review, keep the operational machine running in OwnerRez, and make sure pricing, cleaning, maintenance and communication all work together. The founder is based in Italy, so you need to run the day-to-day without hand-holding and flag only what needs a decision.

Hours of Operation: 6 PM to 6 AM CST/ 5 days per week (Tue, Wed off)

Mission for the First 90 Days

1. Stabilize guest experience: fast responses, fewer complaints, and a rising review average.
2. Clean up the operational backlog at Canyon Lake Retreat, where guest reviews have surfaced recurring problems (Wi-Fi, lockouts, cleaning consistency, maintenance, pests, and safety items).
3. Get calendars, rates and listings accurate and consistent across Airbnb, VRBO and direct booking.
4. Put in place repeatable systems (SOPs, checklists, reporting) so the portfolio doesn't depend on one person remembering everything.

Core Responsibilities

A. Guest Support and Communication

• Respond to inquiries, booking questions and in-stay issues across Airbnb, VRBO, direct booking and text, within our response-time standards.
• Own pre-arrival, check-in, mid-stay and check-out messaging. Maintain and improve the templates and automations in OwnerRez.
• Handle complaints, refund and compensation requests, and service recovery with empathy and good judgment, inside approval limits set by the founder.
• Work with the AI guest-inquiry agent we are building in OwnerRez: review its answers, correct them, and flag gaps in its knowledge.
• Monitor reviews on every channel. Respond to public reviews professionally and log recurring themes.

B. OwnerRez Administration

• Manage the full reservation lifecycle: bookings, modifications, cancellations, payments, deposits and quotes.
• Keep channel connections, calendar sync, listings, fees, taxes and house rules accurate. Catch double-bookings and sync errors before guests do.
• Maintain property data, guest-facing guidebooks, and automated messages and tasks.
• Pull and prepare reports on occupancy, revenue, ADR, lead time and channel mix.

C. Pricing and Revenue Support (PriceLabs)

• Monitor PriceLabs daily across all listings: base prices, minimum stays, orphan-day rules, gap fills, last-minute and far-out discounts, and local events.
• Identify underperforming properties and dates, and bring recommendations to the founder. Base-price changes require founder approval.
• Support the pilot where an AI revenue manager reviews performance against the market and proposes PriceLabs updates. You are the human check on those recommendations.
• Keep pricing consistent across channels, and track pricing against market comps.

D. Field Operations and Vendor Coordination

• Coordinate cleaners, handymen, landscapers, pest control and other vendors. Schedule turnovers around the OwnerRez calendar.
• Run a consistent quality-control process for each turnover: photo checklists, supply levels, and inspections.
• Triage maintenance requests by urgency. Safety and access issues (locks, smoke and CO detectors, plumbing, pests) come first.
• Lead the Wi-Fi and connectivity fix at Canyon Lake Retreat in coordination with vendors.
• Manage the issue tracker: assign owners, set deadlines, follow up, and close items with proof.

E. Systems, Reporting and Continuous Improvement

• Document SOPs for check-in and check-out, turnover standards, emergency response, and owner or partner reporting.
• Send the founder a weekly summary covering performance, open issues, decisions needed, and risks.
• Prepare monthly summaries for partners and joint-venture stakeholders as needed.
• Recommend and implement tools that reduce manual work.

4. Qualifications

Required

• 5 or more years in short-term rental management, hospitality or guest services
• Hands-on experience with a property management system (OwnerRez strongly preferred; Hospitable, Guesty or Hostaway is a fair substitute)
• Working knowledge of dynamic pricing (PriceLabs or Wheelhouse): base prices, min stays, minimum-night rules, and customizations
• Strong written communication, with a warm and professional tone
• Fast decision-making and ownership: you fix problems, not just report them
• Comfort working across time zones with a remote founder

Preferred

• Experience with Airbnb and VRBO host tools
• Experience managing multi-unit or multi-property portfolios
• Familiarity with Texas or Gulf Coast markets, including seasonal and event-driven demand
• Experience with smart locks, noise monitors and remote-access tech
• Comfort using AI tools in workflows
• Basic spreadsheet and reporting skills

5. Tools You'll Use
OwnerRez, PriceLabs, Airbnb and VRBO host dashboards, Wheelhouse (if retained), smart-lock systems, messaging and email , spreadsheets and trackers, and AI assistants.

6. Schedule and Coverage

• Full-time, remote
• Core hours overlapping Central Time, with guest-response coverage from morning through evening
• Rotating or on-call coverage for urgent issues (lockouts, safety, no-heat or no-water) on weekends and holidays

8. 30/60/90-Day Plan

First 30 days

• Learn all properties, systems and vendors.
• Audit OwnerRez: listings, calendars, automations and templates.
• Audit PriceLabs settings against actual performance.
• Clear the critical items on the issue tracker.
• Establish daily and weekly routines.

Days 31 to 60

• Roll out SOPs and turnover checklists.
• Replace underperforming vendors where needed.
• Complete the Wi-Fi and safety fixes at Canyon Lake Retreat.
• Improve messaging automations and give the AI agent corrections.
• Deliver the first full performance report with pricing recommendations.

Days 61 to 90

• Run the portfolio day-to-day with minimal founder involvement.
• Show measurable gains in review scores, response times and occupancy or revenue.
• Propose a Q1 improvement roadmap.

10. How to Apply
Send a résumé and a short note on a time you turned around a struggling property or guest experience. Include your experience with OwnerRez and PriceLabs.