Arova1. What a year at the villa looks like
These numbers are counted from the villa's records, not estimated.
2. The hours, task by task
The volumes above multiplied by the time each task takes by hand. The Arova column is the time still left for you: checking a draft, approving, or reading a summary.
| Task | By hand: how it's counted | By hand | Arova | What Arova does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WhatsApp replies | 732 replies × 3 min, plus reading 970 messages × 1 min | 53 h | 6 h | Writes every reply from the calendar, prices and house rules, in the guest's own language; sends it or waits for your OK |
| Price and availability quotes | 72 requests × 10 min to check the calendar and work out the price | 12 h | 1 h | Answers with the free nights and the exact price, or sends the booking link |
| Proformas | 25 stays × 2 × 15 min, including asking for the company details | 12.5 h | 1 h | Issues the proforma in SmartBill from the booking and sends it to the guest |
| Matching payments | ~50 payments × 5 min checking the bank | 4 h | 1 h | Card payments by Stripe; bank transfers read from the bank's emails and matched |
| Filing utility bills | 60 bills + 60 payment proofs × 3 min to download, rename and file | 6 h | 1 h | You forward the email; it reads the supplier, date and total and keeps the PDF |
| The monthly decont | 12 × 1 h: the list, the totals, the missing papers | 12 h | 1 h | Bills listed by month with their payments; one ZIP for the accountant |
| Door codes | 25 stays × 8 min to create the code, send it and delete it | 3.5 h | 0 h | A code per stay on the smart lock, valid only for the booked nights |
| Guest phone calls | 25 stays × 4 calls × 5 min: directions, the code, Wi-Fi, heating | 8.5 h | 2 h | The guest page has all of it, and the house controls, in the guest's language |
| Welcome, before-arrival and check-out messages | 25 stays × 3 messages × 4 min | 5 h | 0 h | Sent by themselves at the right time |
| IDs and the arrival form | 25 stays × 10 min to collect the photos and type the details | 4 h | 0.5 h | Reads the ID photo; the guest signs the form online |
| Cleaning team | 25 turnovers × 10 min, plus every change of dates | 4 h | 0.5 h | The cleaners' own app, with a notification for each booking |
| Surveys, review requests, review replies | 25 stays × 10 min | 4 h | 1.5 h | Sends the survey and asks happy guests for a review; drafts the replies |
| Competitors' prices | 2 h a month checking Booking.com and Google | 24 h | 3 h | Checks the villas nearby for each date and says what to change |
| Competitors' social media and post ideas | 1 h a month | 12 h | 1 h | Reads their posts and suggests your own |
| Seasonal price changes | 1 h a month on the website and Booking.com | 12 h | 2 h | Change prices in plain words; Booking.com and Airbnb follow |
| Smart home | 25 stays × 2 × 5 min to heat before arrival and switch off after, plus 1 h a month in the apps | 16 h | 2 h | Smart plugs switched on the booking dates, and an alert when a device goes quiet |
| Campaigns to past guests | 4 a year × ~100 messages sent one by one | 9 h | 1 h | Audiences and follow-ups, in each guest's language |
| Calendar and Booking.com | 25 bookings × 10 min to copy the dates and avoid double bookings | 4 h | 0.5 h | Two-way sync with Booking.com and Airbnb |
| Total | ≈ 206 h | ≈ 25 h | About 181 hours back: 3.5 hours a week, or 22 working days a year |
3. Why an hourly rate isn't the right comparison
181 hours at a low hourly rate would look cheap, but nobody can be hired for exactly those hours. Guests write at any time, 7 days a week: half of the messages come outside 09:00–18:00 on weekdays, and the owner's median reply time is 2 minutes. Someone has to be there when the phone rings, so you pay for their availability, not for the minutes they work. At the Romanian minimum wage (500 € net, about 700 € a month to the employer with taxes):
| Who answers the guests | Covers | Per year | Per useful hour |
|---|---|---|---|
| A full-time employee | 40 of 168 hours a week. Weekends stay with you. | 8,400 € | ≈ 46 € |
| Message and call coverage at today's levelReplies within minutes, 08:00–22:00, 7 days | 98 hours a week: about 2.5 people on a rota | ≈ 21,000 € | ≈ 116 € |
| Arova | Day and night, 7 days, replies in seconds | 25 hof your time | |
"Per useful hour" is the yearly cost divided by the 181 hours of work. Even this is a generous comparison: Arova answers every guest in their own language, whatever it is, and no minimum-wage hire can do that. We kept the comparison anyway, because it's the cheapest staffing option there is.
The 21,000 € line is the cost of extended coverage for guest messages and calls, 08:00–22:00 every day. It doesn't replace every receptionist duty: someone still has to meet guests when needed, hand over keys where there's no code lock, and deal with problems in the house. At Vila Peștera, that's the owner and the cleaning team.
4. What isn't counted above
The table counts time only. Arova can also bring in money, but these amounts are estimates, so they're not in the totals:
- Requests answered at once, at any hour. Of the 72 people who asked to book, most didn't. A typical stay at the villa is worth about 740 €, so every request that turns into a booking counts.
- Prices set against the market. Charging a few percent more on the dates that fill up anyway adds up over a season.
- Power only when someone is coming. The villa is empty about 290 nights a year. Smart plugs for heaters, the boiler and the rest switch off at check-out and back on before the next arrival.
- Direct bookings. Every guest who books on your own page instead of Booking.com saves about 15% commission.
- Your evenings and weekends. The hours don't show what it costs to be on call every day of the year.
5. Scaled up: a 15-room guesthouse
This one is modelled, not measured. We start from Vila Peștera's numbers per booking and adjust them for a guesthouse that rents 15 rooms one by one, where bookings are many more but smaller:
Each task takes less time than at the villa, because there are more templates and the questions repeat, but there are about 40 times as many bookings:
| Task | By hand: how it's counted | By hand | Arova |
|---|---|---|---|
| WhatsApp and email replies | 11,000 replies × 2 min, plus reading 15,000 messages × 30 s | 490 h | 53 h |
| Price and availability quotes | 1,500 requests × 7 min | 175 h | 15 h |
| Proformas | Half the bookings direct × 1.5 proformas × 12 min | 150 h | 12 h |
| Matching payments | 750 payments × 4 min | 50 h | 8 h |
| Utility bills and the decont | ~240 bills and proofs × 3 min, plus 12 × 2 h | 36 h | 3 h |
| Door codesRooms with code locks | 1,000 × 5 min | 83 h | 0 h |
| Guest phone calls | 1,000 × 2 calls × 5 min | 167 h | 40 h |
| Welcome, before-arrival and check-out messages | 1,000 × 3 × 2 min | 100 h | 0 h |
| IDs and the arrival form | 1,000 × 8 min | 133 h | 15 h |
| Cleaning team | 1,000 turnovers × 3 min | 50 h | 8 h |
| Surveys, review requests, review replies | 1,000 × 4 min | 67 h | 12 h |
| Competitors, social media, price changes | 8 h a month | 96 h | 13 h |
| Smart home | Heating and plugs per room, plus time in the apps | 50 h | 6 h |
| Campaigns to past guests | 4 a year to ~2,500 past guests | 40 h | 3 h |
| Calendar and Booking.com | 1,000 × 5 min | 83 h | 8 h |
| Total | About 1,575 hours back, roughly one full-time job (~1,700 h a year) | ≈ 1,770 h | ≈ 195 h |
| 15-room guesthouse | Per year |
|---|---|
| One extra full-time employee for the work Arova takes over | 8,400 € |
| Guest messages and calls covered 08:00–22:00, 7 days a week (about 2.5 people on a rota) | ≈ 21,000 € |
| ArovaWhat's left for you: checking drafts, approving, reading summaries | ≈ 195 hof your time |
A guesthouse this size will usually still have someone on site for arrivals, keys and problems in the rooms, so the 21,000 € isn't a saving on every reception job: it's what extended coverage of messages and calls would cost. What Arova removes is the second and third shift, and the evenings on the phone. Requests come in faster than one person can answer: if the instant replies win just 2% more of the 1,500 requests, that's about 30 bookings, or roughly 4,500 € at 75 € a night.
6. Honest notes
- The volumes are counted. The minutes per task are estimates: time yourself on a proforma or a decont and put in your own.
- Most of these hours grow with the number of stays. A second property roughly doubles the hours saved.
- The 15-room guesthouse is a model built on the villa's numbers per booking, not a measured property.