The Bothy NZ

20/09/2026

I’m heading to Scotland today for two weeks to celebrate my mum’s 85th birthday with her and my brothers. ❤️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

As a small business owner, disappearing to the other side of the world for two weeks brings a few challenges!

But it’s also forced me to tackle something I realised I was badly missing after a recent AI/business course.

SOPs. Standard Operating Procedures.

Basically, my entire business was in my brain.

Or Brian, as I apparently call her. 😂

Every property. Every quirk. Every contact. Who to call. What to do when something weird breaks. The tips, tricks and workarounds I’ve gathered over the years.

Even things like the “sweet spot” when a potential owner asks me to assess a property — there’s an actual equation I use!

It was ALL in Brian.

So I’ve spent time getting it out of there and onto paper.

And do you know what? It was actually fun.

Because somewhere between documenting all the properties, contacts, systems, oddities and “this is what you do when THAT happens” moments, I found myself thinking…

Bloody hell. I know A LOT.

I’d hire me. 😂

I started writing SOPs so I could share the load, use AI more effectively and build a business that doesn’t need me involved in absolutely everything.

I didn’t expect the process to remind me how much knowledge you quietly accumulate when you build something yourself.

So Brian is considerably lighter.

And I’m off to Scotland.

Let’s see if the place survives without me. 😂

09/09/2026

Worth checking out!

09/09/2026

Definitely my favourite review of the day ! 😂😜

+ location of the place was good with very scenic views. short walking distance to the town. fully equipped with everything that we need, will be back if revisit Queenstown again
- just a suggestion, the tv program could have been better with karaoke system

04/09/2026

Welcome to our new property on our rental portfolio . Any enquiries give us a call !

02/09/2026

Morning ponder as I looking at overnight activity with booking.com

# # # Five bookings for one night… but only one guest stayed. 🤔

Something I've been noticing in our Booking.com booking history has got me thinking.

On some dates, we can see multiple bookings made and then cancelled for exactly the same night before the eventual guest who actually stays.

And it isn't just one odd date.

Across our portfolio, Booking.com cancellations can be around 40–50% in some periods.

Yet we're still targeting and regularly achieving 80–85% occupancy.

So this isn't about a lack of demand.

It's about what happens between the booking and the stay.

And I don't want to make our properties non-refundable. I personally value having flexibility when I book accommodation.

But when I make a booking, I genuinely intend to go.

So I'm curious…

Are guests routinely booking several properties for the same dates and deciding later?

Are they price-checking after they've booked?

Are agents or intermediaries making multiple provisional bookings?

Or is there something else happening?

There are plenty of theories out there — including some rather elaborate ones about deliberate bookings and cancellations influencing the market — but I haven't seen evidence to support those, so I'm not going to pretend I know the answer.

I'm much more interested in what other people are actually seeing.

For those managing accommodation:

👉 What is your Booking.com cancellation rate?

👉 Do you see multiple cancelled bookings sitting behind the same eventual stay?

👉 Is this significantly different from Airbnb or direct bookings?

Because perhaps the more interesting question isn't:

“How many bookings do we get?”

It's:

“How many of those bookings were ever really intended to become stays?”

I'd love to hear what others are experiencing.

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28/08/2026

Sometimes property management is less about managing properties and more about managing chaos. 😂

This week in Queenstown has been a pretty good reminder of that.

We had a massive storm roll through, and one of our newly renovated properties suddenly developed a serious leak from an old skylight.

Cue the phone calls.

Within four hours, we had managed to get the situation under control and the property protected.

A huge shout-out to Josh from Radical Roofing, who headed out in absolutely awful weather and secured the roof with a roofing mat to save the day — and potentially save a whole lot of damage to the property.

An absolute lifesaver.

Then, in another property, we had an unrelated hot water issue. Cue another round of phone calls, electricians, plumbers and our team all jumping in to get it sorted — during one of the busiest times of the year.

And this is the part of property management I don't think people always see.

It's not just bookings, cleaning and answering messages.

It's having a network of incredible people who will answer the phone when things go wrong.

It's knowing who to call.

It's finding solutions when the obvious solution isn't available.

It's coordinating multiple moving parts while guests are understandably asking, “When will it be fixed?”

And then there is the other side of the job...

Sometimes an issue can be resolved within hours, everyone can pull together, the property can be protected and the problem fixed — and yet the conversation afterwards can still become about compensation rather than the fact that a potentially serious problem was dealt with incredibly quickly.

And I do understand it.

Guests are paying for a holiday. They expect things to work. And when they don't, it is frustrating.

But perhaps we need to change the conversation slightly from:

“Something went wrong.”

to

“How quickly did someone make it right?”

Because sometimes the answer isn't perfect — but the response can be.

And then there was the guest who reminded us that they were “on holiday” and therefore didn't want anyone entering the property to deal with an issue. 😂

Which, from their perspective, I completely understand.

From ours... slightly more challenging when you're trying to prevent a small problem becoming a much bigger one!

So this week's biggest shout-out is really to the people behind the scenes.

To the cleaners who drop everything.

To the electricians and plumbers who squeeze in one more job.

To the roofers who head out in terrible weather.

To the team who keep calm, make the calls and find solutions.

And to the incredible network of local people who help us look after our owners' properties when things don't go according to plan.

Property management isn't always glamorous.

But when you have the right people around you, you can solve an awful lot.

A huge thank you to our team and to the amazing tradespeople who pulled out all the stops for us this week. ❤️

You know who you are.

20/08/2026

From stacking the wood supplies to keep guests warm, to replenishing the little things that make a surprisingly big difference (peelers and teaspoons are VERY important, team 😂)…

From investigating and costing improvements across our portfolio, to working with owners on changes that make their homes better…

From meeting guests and knowing the homes we manage well enough to answer those little questions that can make their stay easier…

To calmly dealing with the late-night “I’m locked out of my bedroom” situation — and coming up with an outside-the-box emergency solution! 😂

It’s not always the big things that matter. Often, it’s the small details, the local knowledge, the problem-solving and simply being there that make the difference.

It’s been a good week. ❤️

And yes… we have definitely learnt that you can never have too many teaspoons.

Www.bothyproperty.com

15/08/2026

I want to talk about something that doesn’t get discussed enough in the Queenstown property management industry.

The difference between the fee you are quoted.

And the fee you actually pay.

They are not always the same thing.

And most owners only find out when it is too late.

I wrote about it here - including the six questions every property owner should ask before signing with any management company.

Because you deserve to know exactly where your money is going.

👇 Link below

Handing the keys of your investment property to a management company is an act of trust.You trust them with your asset. You trust them with your guests. You trust them with your money.Most operators in this industry honour that trust completely.But not all of them.And the ones that don’t?They are ...

15/08/2026

Standard questions by our international guests are " what is a Bothy?" and "Why did you name your business after it ?" So, in answer, I have created a wee blog looking at the Scottish connection to New Zealand and especially the South Island, and why the Bothy " feel" works so right for us.

How Scottish pioneers shaped the land we now call homeThey came looking for gold.What they found was something that felt strangely, achingly like home.When the first Scottish settlers arrived in Central Otago during the gold rush of the 1860s, they stepped off boats and into a landscape that stopped...

14/08/2026

I want to talk about something that is becoming a real problem in short term accommodation.

Guests who stay for three nights.
Say nothing.
Check out.
And then request a refund.

This isn’t about discouraging complaints.
Quite the opposite.

It is about something much simpler that we seem to have forgotten.

I wrote about it here 👇

Would love to know if other property managers are seeing the same thing.

One of the things I’ve noticed increasingly in short-term accommodation is a change in the way some guests handle problems.And I want to be clear from the outset: complaints aren't a problem.In fact, good operators want to know when something isn't right. If the heating isn't working, the shower i...