The Scottish visitor levy is now live and Edinburgh’s first quarterly returns are due. Colin and Robin return to explain why the percentage model is so hard to get right, and how Bookster helps hosts track and submit what they owe.
A year after our first episode on the visitor levy (https://www.booksterhq.com/podcast/158982-the-visitor-levy), Simon Beattie is joined again by Bookster co-founders Colin Guthrie and Robin Morris. The levy has moved from theory to practice, and accommodation providers in Edinburgh are now submitting their first returns and making their first payments to the council.
In this episode:
- Where things stand: Edinburgh is fully live, Glasgow, Aberdeen and West Dunbartonshire have started, Stirling follows from January, and several more councils are consulting.
- Who is liable: guests usually see the levy in the price, but the legal liability sits with the accommodation provider.
- Why the percentage model is so hard: OTA discounts such as Genius rates, rent-to-rent arrangements and the "initial transaction" rule mean booking.com and Airbnb cannot work out the levy themselves.
- Errors in the guidance: the council's worked examples assume fixed OTA fees, when real commissions are percentages and the maths gets far harder.
- The submission spreadsheet: there is no API, only a spreadsheet uploaded to visitorlevy.scot, with columns built around Edinburgh's five-night cap.
- Is the levy a good thing? Extra council revenue against the wider cost to hospitality businesses and local spending.
- A simpler alternative: a flat per-night charge paid by the guest, or simply a rise in business rates. How Bookster helps
Bookster tracks the levy on every booking, shows clients how much to set aside each quarter, and helps them prepare their returns for submission to the council.
Questions about the visitor levy? Get in touch with the Bookster team (https://www.booksterhq.com/contact).
Visitor Levy Software for Scottish Self-Catering (https://www.booksterhq.com/news/161826-visitor-levy-software-scotland)
visitorlevy.scot (https://visitorlevy.scot/)
2 Jun 2026
Vibecoding Clients
What it means when holiday rental clients start building their own tools on top of Bookster's API, and how that's quietly shifting the team's product priorities
Simon Beattie is joined by Robin Morris, co-founder of Bookster, and Adam Aaron, support lead, to talk about something that's started showing up in their client conversations: vibe coding. That's the practice of building software using AI tools — Gemini, Claude, and others — by typing instructions in plain English rather than writing code directly. No programming background required.
The three discuss how Bookster clients are already doing this in practice — most commonly to build their own custom dashboards using data pulled from Bookster's API. Where Bookster's built-in views present data in a fixed, opinionated way, some technically-minded clients are now querying the API directly and building exactly what they need: custom arrivals reports, bespoke owner summaries, automated messaging tools. Robin recalls one client who built a fully custom booking-triggered messaging system over a weekend. Adam explains the support quirks this creates — including the occasional script that hammers the API every 30 seconds when it only needed to run once a day.
Robin and Adam are clear that this doesn't worry them — clients are still using Bookster, just in a different way. But it is nudging product priorities. Improving the API is now higher up the list than it would have been a year ago, and what clients build independently is becoming a source of genuine product inspiration. Simon also notes this is likely just the beginning: as vibe coding tools improve, it won't just be the technically-minded reaching for the API.
If you run a holiday rental business and have ever wanted to see your Bookster data presented your way, or if you're curious how a small SaaS team is thinking about AI-driven client behaviour right now, this is a straightforward and honest conversation worth your time.
Bookster API Access (https://www.booksterhq.com/api)
Bookster Features Overview (https://www.booksterhq.com/features)
20 May 2026
Common Holiday Rental Property Manager Mistakes
From missing photo descriptions to abandoning channels after one bad review, Robin and Adam reveal the habits that hold property managers back - and what to do instead.
In this episode, Bookster co-founder Robin Morris is joined by Adam Arran, Bookster's support lead, to discuss something a little different: the common mistakes they see holiday letting clients make - and why those mistakes tend to get in the way of more bookings.
From incomplete property listings and unlabelled photos to knee-jerk reactions after a bad guest review, Robin and Adam draw on their day-to-day experience of onboarding and supporting agencies to identify the patterns that come up again and again.
They cover:
* Why property content (descriptions, photo titles, alt text) matters more than most clients realise
* The importance of trusting the onboarding process before diving into the details
* How reacting too quickly to a bad review or a slow month can make things significantly worse
* The difference between Bookster as a software tool and a full-service agency
* Why "PMS hopping" between platforms rarely solves the underlying problem
* How to use AI and dynamic pricing tools as guides - not gospel
The episode ends with a look ahead at how AI might allow property managers to extend and customise their software stack in ways that weren't possible before.
A candid, practical conversation with plenty of takeaways for anyone running a holiday letting business.
Podcast Authority Score: 10 / 100
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