Mike Bayer
You're listening to the SSTIR Crazy Month limited series as part of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. This first annual month-long event through the month of February focuses on the key short-term rental business pillars of Safety, Sustainability, Trust, Insurance, and Regulations. This event could not happen without the support of our sponsors, and we need to give a special thank you to Proper Insurance for putting their full support behind this online event.

Mike Bayer
Proper Insurance knows that short-term vacation rentals don't fit into one insurance category. So Proper developed a speciality insurance policy that covers both commercial and personal use for your vacation rental. The question is, are you covered? Contact Proper Insurance today to get your questions answered. Click the link in the description of this episode to connect with the team at Proper for a no obligation chat.

Mike Bayer
Let's get to the good stuff. Here is the ring master behind SSTIR Crazy Month and your host, Heather Bayer.

Heather Bayer
Today, we are talking about transformative experiences, ethical tourism in vacation rentals, and the planet. In this last week of SSTIR Crazy Month, the theme is sustainability, and my guest is Marc Ribail, the co founder and head of sustainability at Inspired Living Solutions and the founder of QALIA.

Heather Bayer
This is the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, keeping you up to date with news, views, information, and resources on this rapidly changing short-term rental business. I'm your host, Heather Bayer, and with 25 years of experience in this industry, I'm making you know what's hot, what's not, what's new, and what will help make your business a success.

Heather Bayer
Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. This is your host, Heather Bayer. And as ever, I am super delighted to be back with you once again for this final week of SSTIR Crazy Month. It's been a great month. So far, we've talked about trust, we've talked about safety, insurance, and regulations. And today, we are talking about sustainability.

Heather Bayer
How much do you think about sustainability these days? Is it more than you did five years ago? Are you now unconsciously recycling and not thinking twice about taking your own bags to a supermarket? I bought an E-bike recently and love the fact I'm not taking my diesel truck out every time I need to go to the grocery store. And when I'm home, I'm going to shop locally, go to our farmers' market every week, and grow my own veg. Because every little counts, and I believe when we add up all these little things, we can begin to effect change globally.

Heather Bayer
So hearing that there's more demand from travelers for sustainable stays and real business advantages in being eco-friendly, and that there is now an event exclusively dedicated to sustainability in the short-term rental industry, it makes today's podcast even more important.

Heather Bayer
My guest today to talk about all this is Marc Ribail from Unique Retreats. He's also the founder of QALIA. You're going to have to stay tuned to find out all about that. Without further ado, let's move on over to my interview with Marc.

Heather Bayer
I am so delighted to have with me today, Marc Ribail, and he is tuning in from Thailand. Is that where you are today, Marc?

Marc Ribail
I'm in France, in Avignon.

Heather Bayer
You're in France?

Marc Ribail
Yes, in France.

Heather Bayer
Okay. That is better. It's not too far. Maybe we'll have a better connection.

Marc Ribail
Yes.

Heather Bayer
Okay. It's been a long time. We've known each other for a long time. We have met in passing on so many different occasions, and I am just so delighted to have you here on the podcast today to talk about sustainability, which is Week 5 of SSTIR Crazy Month, where we've been talking about safety, trust, insurance, regulations, and of course, today we're talking about sustainability. I know this is something that you are passionate about. We talked briefly in Barcelona last May about this, and it was just such a delight to see you there in the company of Vanessa de Souza Lage, and Bob Garner and Deborah Labi, and all these pioneers of sustainability in short-term rentals. So welcome. Thank you for joining me.

Marc Ribail
Thank you very much, Heather. Very appreciated. Yes, I remember we met the first time in Barcelona, actually in 2016 at the VRMA Europe.

Heather Bayer
Oh right. Great. Okay. 2016. Yes. That seems a long, long time ago.

Marc Ribail
Yeah, it was a long time ago. Anyway, thank you very much. And I really, really appreciate and very grateful of being on this program.

Heather Bayer
Well, we're going to have a great discussion here, but I want to start by just asking you how you actually got started in this business. I mean, I'd mentioned Thailand just then, because that's where I thought you were, because you do a lot of your work over there.

Marc Ribail
Yes. Long history with Thailand. I lived there for 18 years, which is a life and a half. I was running what was at the time the largest portfolio of luxury villas in Phuket. And for those who know about the destination, we had 75 high-end properties with about 300 employees, because each property had its own staff. We had, I don't know, 35-40 chefs and things like this. Then I stopped the operations in 2010, came back to Europe 2014, and then went into the more transactional than experiential. Like quite a few people during COVID, there was a bit of a reassessment of what was how to make a bit more sense to everything. After some head scratching and reading and looking at a lot of stuff, the sustainability was a kind of logical step coming from a personal competence. Also because from experience, when we used to manage, obviously, when you have 300 employees, we were the largest employer on the island.

Marc Ribail
We had quite a strong social governance and supporting the employees and communities. Even with the operations, we were really aiming at the very high end. It was all about guest experience and trying to operate in the most in supporting local communities or businesses. It started to make sense. But I wanted to dedicate this new project to what a new base, which was Luxury Villas. This is when QALIA emerged as a certification agency.

Heather Bayer
Well, this is great. We're going to be talking about QALIA a little bit later on and the certification, because that's just fascinating. But I wanted to talk about something that I'd read in an article on the Rent Responsibly site in their resources section. I'll put a link to that article in the Show Notes. But you talked in there, you were talking to Paris [Achen], I believe, and you're talking about transformative hospitality. I'd love to hear more about that, what it meant to you, what transformative hospitality actually is, how it's impacting what you do now.

Marc Ribail
Okay. In my view, there are three levels of experience. There's the transactional experiences. There's actually the experience itself on-site, and there's a transformative where basically it touches people's individualities, and it has a psychological effect on who they are. What that means is that when somebody comes into a place as a tourist, there's two possibilities in terms of this transformative experience. First, they can leave the place in a better way than how they found it, or they can be touched in a way or another by the place itself and basically come back and say, I've learned something. Transformative is about learning and applying some basic principle. Within what we do at QALIA, we place a high importance on the impact on the community, obviously, because this is part of the sustainability framework on a global scale, not just for short-term rentals, but for all tourism industry. But also we put a great emphasis on the guest experience. What I like to call the inner betterment. How can we impact and how can we have an influence on the guests who are already aligned with the values of sustainability or responsible tourism? And if not, how can we make them think like, Oh, this was an unexpected experience. And it creates a storytelling, it creates hopefully a transformative effect for them.

Heather Bayer
Can you give an example of how transformative experiences work. An example of somebody coming to one of the luxury villas and having one of these experiences.

Marc Ribail
Okay. So I think luxury villas is the perfect ground. I mean, any short-term rentals in reality. The perfect ground to actually do this kind of thing. And so it's not just limited to luxury properties, but I say to all levels. The reason is because when you go to a hotel, you expect, you know what to expect. You know how the presence is going to be, how the bed is going to be made, and all of these things. So there is an expectation which is set. When it comes to short-term rentals, this is when you can surprise the guests and really have that... Create that experience that, Oh I didn't expect that from a short-term rental. So all of a sudden, they can become the ambassador.

Marc Ribail
When it comes to the sustainability, I was just speaking to somebody in Phuket, actually. We're just starting the process with him. He's already very enthusiastic, an American. He's already donating to a fund, something like $10 per night per guest - it's a five bedroom house - to agroforestry projects; you can choose different projects.

Marc Ribail
We had a conversation. It's like, How can we integrate this within the guest journey? I say, Why don't you pick three projects and let the guests choose and basically tell them, We'll let you choose where we are going to donate this money. All of a sudden, you create a psychological impact on the guests, thinking that they have contributed. It makes them think that, Okay, this is quite easy, so maybe I can also contribute in other ways when I go back home. Or something like this. This is one of the ways. It's a small thing, but I think it's quite important to involve the guests in that respect. That's one element.

Marc Ribail
The other element is a matter of education. For example, most of the luxury villas owners we're dealing with have an in-house chef. We try to work with them how to enhance their menu and not just have the basics. There's a lot of education about seasonal fruits and vegetables and maybe some specific dietary requirements or specific type of meals that the guests can discover. It's like opening the eyes of the guests. Also, it's not always possible, we're trying to take the guests to visit a local market and see what it is to actually buy food in a specific destination. That's one of the things. It can be minimal, it can be at a high level.

Heather Bayer
I love the idea of taking a guest to a local market, because I've been to places around the world, and I'm a little shy in coming forward, and going to a local market was a little bit of a scary experience. Everybody seems to know what they're doing. They know what they're asking for. There's weird stuff on the vegetable stands, on the fish stands. I'm thinking, in fact, about going to a Turkish market in the middle of Berlin, and fortunately I had my daughter-in-law with me who is German, and we were shopping for fish, and she was able to do that, to help me out. But the idea of having somebody there to take you and show you all these things, that to me would be a transformative experience, because I was thinking I would take that back to coming home and perhaps spending more time in my local farmer's market. So I can see the pay it forward idea.

Marc Ribail
Yeah, it shows a little bit about the local culture. It shows about a different aspect, and it's a different experience. And again, we have the opportunity within a short amount of time to create some surprises and to really push this sense of hospitality to a different level.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. So we're talking today about sustainability and how sustainability aligns with hospitality. I know when I was a property manager, I was a property manager for 20 years, that keeping property owners motivated to make changes to their properties and to become more hospitality-focused was always a bit of a challenge. When it comes to sustainability, that appears to be more of a challenge. How do you approach this when you are talking to property owners? Maybe not so much property managers because maybe they've got this motivation, but they have to then bring their property owners on board. What strategies are most effective in getting this message of sustainability across?

Marc Ribail
Okay, I haven't found the perfect strategy as yet, so I'm doing it as I go. I think the first step is very emotional, and I'm going to explain this. So the first thing is that we don't use or we rarely use the term sustainability. Okay? Simple reason is, because first, it's a very complex word. Not many people understand the actual meaning of sustainability.

Marc Ribail
Second reason is because the message we receive from the media and from local authorities is full of fear and anxiety and urgency. We find that it paralyzes the people because they have no idea where to start, what is important, what is not important, how to do it, and also they've got this perception, thanks to the greenwashing regulations being in place, that I've got to be very cautious or I've got to be very perfect in what I'm doing.

Marc Ribail
We use the term responsible tourism, because responsible tourism speaks to one's emotions and basically being able to... We know there is a problem, or there is an issue, let's find a way to make things better, which means that you remove somehow the anxiety and the fear of not doing well. Because you can say start tomorrow, start with one thing tomorrow and start with another thing the week after and so on and so forth. I think this is how we find it quite principle.

Marc Ribail
The other thing is that still with that image of being perfect, especially in the luxury, because obviously everybody is so full of being labeled 'greenwashing'. That's why we are quite rigorous and we have a high passing score. It's about starting smaller, starting gradually, and basically making a plan. It's not about doing everything in one go. It's about, Okay, What can we do as a property management company, or as an owner, that we can? Because if a management company invites the owners to become more responsible, then they have to be more responsible themselves. It's to make a plan within the first six months, we can do 'this', and the first 12 months, we can do 'this'. The other thing is a lot of the properties are already doing some of the stuff, because they are obliged by regulations, or because they are actually.... this is how they run the business.

Marc Ribail
I'm thinking about social responsibilities with the in-villa employees, for example. Usually, it tends to be paid above the average for the destination, for example. This is why when you make the assessment, and we have a complete assessment where they have no idea what kind of score they can achieve, or are achieving. We find that a lot of the owners who are applying, or want to work with us, have got a score between 35 and 42. Some of them are above the 50%, which is actually very encouraging, because it means that all of a sudden, you go back to them and say, You've already been responsible, and it won't take much actually for you to go one notch up and really be the exemplary and the leader in your destination. So this is quite encouraging.

Marc Ribail
I believe that we live in a world of abundance. So for the way we try to present things, this is always in terms of possibilities and opportunities, as opposed to fear and anxiety.

Heather Bayer
You've packed a lot into what you've just said, and I want to unpack a little bit of that. And the first one is, thank you for steering me in the right direction of a different word to sustainability and to talk about responsible tourism because, yeah, it is scary. Do we talk about offsetting? I have no idea what offsetting means, or carbon footprints, and I really don't understand what carbon footprints mean. But the idea of responsible tourism makes a lot more sense because it appeals to more people, I think. It makes you think, Okay, I'm going to travel and I'm going to be responsible about it. I like that. That was the first thing.

Heather Bayer
The second thing that really resonated with me from what you just said was ... It was something that Humphrey Bowles said from Superhog in the first panel we did in this SSTIR Crazy Month when we were talking about safety, and we were saying, Safety is just this massive thing. He said, All you've got to do is start with doing one thing, just get one thing done. There is a book called The One Thing, and it's about productivity, and I try and follow this, so you don't have a ton of things going round in your head. You just do one thing at a time.

Heather Bayer
But I can see how doing just one thing lends itself to responsible tourism as well and the operators within it, because they can say, Okay, what I'm going to do is... First thing I'm going to do is start promoting my local community and encouraging my guests to go visit the local community, not ask me where the nearest McDonald's is and where the nearest Costco is, and encourage them to shop locally. That is one thing. I've talked a lot about this with Vanessa because I've done part of the Sustonica certification, and hadn't really realized that there were just little things you could do, little steps to go forward with this and start making a difference. So did I do that right? Did I get that right? What you just said?

Marc Ribail
Yeah, perfect. I think it's perfect. We did a lot of research and psychologically, I think, if you use a word responsibility it's connected to values. So psychologically, all of a sudden it changes completely the perception and the approach from the people, because they think, Yeah, I am a responsible adult. I'm a responsible business owner. Then there are also challenges to implement practices, definitely because it's either another misperception. It's like it cost a lot of money, which is completely false, actually, unless you invest heavily in solar panels and water recycling and everything. But you can do 25-30 practices that somehow can have a huge impact at one's level, because we're small companies compared to the large companies, and they cost zero money; it's just a change of habit. And regarding QALIA's framework, you can see if you look at the hotel framework, some of them have got 200 criteria, 200 possibilities of actually having an impact on every level, on the environment, on the people, on the communities, on your own team, and on the guests experience. But, as I said earlier, it's a world of opportunities and abundance. You can just make the right choices.

Heather Bayer
You work with property managers in different parts of the world, and every destination has its own needs and requirements. How do you do this in different places and address specific responsible tourism goals? If you're talking about a property manager in Thailand, but what about somebody in France? Are you addressing different things with them?

Marc Ribail
Yes, you have to because they have a different way of operating. For example, in Thailand, every single villa would have in-villa team, whereas in France, you would have warming stuff unless you're extremely super luxury. For example, another way is that Thailand doesn't have any energy supplier using renewable sources of energy. They don't exist. They don't have the same level of regulations. For example, in Europe, when you operate in  hospitality, you can't use single-use plastic, which is not the case in Thailand.

Marc Ribail
When a criteria is legally mandatory by law, then we remove it from the framework. Or when it's not possible, like the renewable energy, we remove it from the framework and from the selection, because it's not either 'it's legal', so they have no choice, or we can't penalize the managers, or the owner, for not being able to comply with the criteria. But we have a different approach with the property managers, and it really depends on the size and level. We tend to....., because usually, when you're a company, you already have your own mission, and you have a specific portfolio or specific destination. So what we tend to do is we tend to set up and to create a bespoke framework for that management company.

Marc Ribail
Instead of having the 100 criteria from the QALIA framework, we have for the individual owners, we probably establish 15-25 criteria. We work with them to set up a plan of over one year, two years, or three years, depending on the circumstances, where it gives them time to actually invite the owners and have implement the policies within the properties. Using a few owners who want to do this, because it's already a part of their own ethos and values. The initial owners will say, Yeah, just go ahead, do whatever is needed. Then they use that as an example.

Marc Ribail
Then we obviously validate. We have external auditors who help us to validate it, and basically, they have full authority to accept or reject the evidence that is provided. Then the properties can be rewarded with the badge. That's more how we work with specificities. We're still in the - I'm going to be very honest - it's like we're still really at the beginning of our journey as an agency. We're learning as we go, because obviously, we always discover things. The framework is evolving, our processes are evolving and the idea is to accommodate as many management companies or owners as possible.

Heather Bayer
So there are various sustainability... there, sustainability, I'm using it, and now I'm very conscious of using it. But I think a lot of people still see that word, and we are in what we've called Sustainability Week. Maybe next year, we're going to change that now. But in the space with so many validation programs, Booking.com have one. You talked about hotels having their frameworks, there's Sustonica. You're focusing yours on the higher-end properties. What makes this, I think we've covered a little bit of this, but what makes QALIA different? I think that's what I'm trying to say.

Marc Ribail
In terms of the type of certification labels or agencies there are in the tourism, the vast majority are in the hotel industry. You probably have over 200 agencies in the hotel industry. If you look at the framework, they are extremely comprehensive and they require substantial human and financial resources. If you talk human, you talk financial resources. You would have a sustainability champion, and you would have maybe an assistant who can help you, because it touches all departments within the hotel operations. When it comes to short-term rentals, there's only two. There's Sustonica and there is QALIA.

Marc Ribail
I love what Vanessa is doing. I think what she's pioneering as well is fantastic, together with Bob as ambassador of sustainability altogether, not just for short-term rentals. I think the approach is slightly different. Our main difference is that we provide extensive support to each of our, we call them members, to each of the properties, or the the management companies or even the villa specialist agencies who want to go through the framework and the certification.

Marc Ribail
Depending on the programs the members choose, we have between 3 and 20 hours of support from our team during the whole process to actually fast track and to help them with... We have downloadable templates of policies or even guest a questionnaire if somebody doesn't have one, or even conscious communication, or messages that we can place on their website. We can customize that for them. We also have a - very, very, very excited about this - certification platform, which basically allows to interact and for the members to see the progress in real-time. It's a very good feedback loop. That includes also a huge knowledge base of, I don't know, about 500 pages that covers each and every criteria, with real life examples in hotels, which we are replacing with examples in villas, any possible related regulations. I think we're all extremely valid. We all have the same objectives in spreading the practices of responsible tourism, just that we provide extensive support and personalized support for each member. I think this is one of the key differentiations.

Heather Bayer
I'm going to take a short break just now to hear about our sponsor. We're going to be right back with more from this great interview in just a few moments.

Heather Bayer
I read recently about a homeowner who paid over $8,000 to get rid of bed bugs and replace furniture, and they lost a lot of rental income while the home was being treated. Why should owners of short-term vacation rentals think about adding specific coverage for bed bugs and fleas? What specific problems does this cover?

Nick Massey
So one thing to understand about insurance is that it can't cover everything. And infestations is excluded across the board in the insurance world. But we had a story come to us through another group that we worked with years ago about a single mother who had to shut down her property due to a bed bug infestation. And this is what led us to be the pioneers of bed bug and flea coverage in the insurance world; this was back in 2017. It's important to have, because people travel all over the world. You have people coming from all different walks of life, and they bring bed bugs; it happens. We've built this coverage in on our product. What it does and does not cover needs to be understood. It covers liability for bed bug bites, medical payments, that type of stuff. It covers the mitigation expense, the cost of the exterminator, and it covers lost business income to a set limit. It does not cover or pay to replace damaged linens or damaged furniture. There is a trade-off of exposure because a lot of times, and we're not the only carrier with this type of coverage, but you pay very little premium for the protection.

Nick Massey
Our coverage is $15,000 limit. It's very inexpensive on the policy. It has a zero dollar deductible. Should you have a verified bed bug infestation, our claims team will be quick to respond to get you reimbursed. But if you got to buy new linens, you got to buy new linens. It's just not something that insurance is going to protect.

Heather Bayer
I talked to Chris [Maughan] from I-PRAC earlier in this month, and Neely Khan. We were talking about trust signals. How successful do you think having that certificate, a badge, on a website is? How important is it?

Marc Ribail
I think it's important. It depends what kind of badge. I think the biggest issue, I want to come back to what you said earlier, your previous question is like, our biggest challenge, I think, in terms for certification agencies is to make our name recognized by the market. It's quite complex, because in the hotel industry, you have Green Key, which is finally starting to get some recognition. Or you have some very regional labels that are, if you're not from that region, you don't know the label. It is useful once the badges are being recognized, once the labels are being recognized. But I think the most important thing is how is the badge granted? Is it a self-declaration or how has it been validated? I think using third-party auditors, which I know Sustonica is also using, it's quite important to actually ensure that there is impartiality and objectivity in how the badge has been granted.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, I completely understand that, because anybody can create a badge and slap it on a website and say, This is what we do.

Marc Ribail
Correct!

Heather Bayer
And I think this is why I-PRAC, for trust, encourage their members, their registrants, to have a trust page. Do you think it's important to have a responsible tourism page on a website that actually lists all the things that you would do to support that?

Marc Ribail
I think this is essential. There is a phenomenon called greenhushing. So greenhushing, as many companies were doing stuff, were not necessarily voicing what they were doing. And I really think that this is negatively impacting their reputation, because the market is expecting certain a certain level of involvement and commitment to communities or environment.

Marc Ribail
So, I think it's paramount to actually explain what we do, but we have to be quite cautious and applying, I mentioned earlier, conscious communication in how we do it. Be very honest at the end of the day, because if it's written properly, it's like it's a journey. We're doing our best, basically. It's the hummingbird thing. We're doing our part at our level. Maybe we can't change the world with what we do, but this is what we're doing because we took responsibility again. It's very important to say, with this kind of topic, we did not fail, but we didn't reach our objective, so we're finding ways to reach the objective. With this topic, we excelled our expectations.... and things like that. The way to do it as well is to have data and information, tangible information;  as you know, you can't manage what you don't measure.

Marc Ribail
So it's quite important, how do you measure the impact and whether it be in number of plastic bottles saved. Maybe it won't speak to some people, but actually you can relate to something. So yes, it is important, but you have to be a little bit cautious on how you do it. It's not about being the first one or the best one. It's about doing what we can at our level. And even if it's just a very small impact, we create a positive impact.

Heather Bayer
Yeah, it sounds... There's an authenticity in there, it's being authentic about what you're doing. I want to move on to the....

Marc Ribail
....That's the word. Thank you.

Heather Bayer
I want to move on to the Scale Green Conference that you're part of in the UK, 23rd of April. Can you tell us a bit about that and how people can find out more about

Marc Ribail
Yeah, I think this is fantastic. I think this.... it's time. It's quite interesting, because for the past two years, every single short-term rental conference, the topic of sustainability was there in the beginning, like whenever Bob or Nikki [Mattei] were coming on stage, it's like everybody was leaving the room, because, okay, this is not on the table. It was quite sad to see, but all of a sudden, within the past 12-18 months, it's like more and more people are coming on board and staying in the room and wanted to listen, and with Vanessa holding fantastic panels and presentations, I'm lucky enough to be invited as well. I'm doing the next one in Scale, Marbella. I believe it was Bob who initiated the idea is like, why don't we organize... Sorry if it's not Bob, but I think, I believe it's Bob. Why don't we organize a dedicated short-term rental conference about sustainability? But with the idea, it's like, let's just stop the blah, blah, let's just find ways to bring actionable tips through property managers. This is really the objective of the conference.

Marc Ribail
Everybody knows there's no need to talk anymore about the why. Absolutely not. If the people who will be in the room will know about the why, so we have to give them the how or the what and the how. And this is why on stage, there will be industry leaders and people from really interesting panels and speakers to actually provide, Okay, this is how you do it. This is how you could do it. This is how you should do it. It's a shame it is only half a day, but it was the first trial. We can foresee that next year or maybe later this year, there will be a full day, definitely, because there's so many topics and we got so many ideas that we It's really had to concentrate everything, but it's very good.

Marc Ribail
Property managers only for this one, a maximum of 100 seats, it lasts half a day. There's a charity project connected to it in the morning for those who want to participate. It's a not-for-profit event which has been super-kindly supported by the Scale Group and some sponsoring companies. You won't have any usual sponsors in speakers, it will only be property managers. So I think that's a big difference. That's a really big impact.

Heather Bayer
Yeah. I'm sorry, I would love to be there. Always an excuse to get across to UK, but mentioned earlier, it's on the same day as the CanStays Rental Alliance Conference in Banff in Alberta, where we will probably be talking about some sustainability issues there as well, because it's a conference that's devoted to the pillars of this industry, the foundations of regulations and legislation and trust and responsibility and safety. So, yeah, I shall miss out this year, but I will make sure that I promote this because I think it's such a valuable thing to be doing.

Heather Bayer
You're absolutely right. Years ago, I've always sat in on Vanessa's sessions, because they're always interesting and she always makes the best comments. And I've seen that there has been a growth in attendance. I went to her session in Orlando last October. It was a panel, and there was just one thing. Well, Lots of things that people said that I thought really resonated with me. But one thing she said is, she looked around the room and she said, If you don't start paying attention to this now, you won't have a business in 10 years time. I thought that was powerful.

Marc Ribail
Yeah, it is solid as a truth, and it's quite difficult and true to comprehend that because 10 years, how can we protect ourselves? But it's not just about short-term rentals, it's about a lot of businesses. They were talking about regulations. There's a lot of regulations coming in the EU. At the moment, it's for the large companies, but very, very soon, it's going to be trickled down to the smaller microbusinesses, because there is no choice; it's inevitable.

Marc Ribail
There's a human condition where we wait, we see the wall in front of us, it's okay, I've got time. Then we're getting closer and closer to the wall. Usually, it's only when we hit the wall that we actually react, but it's too late. Not many of us have the ability, I don't mean that I have the ability to actually see the wall and stop before. But it's our mission, I think, from Bob, Deborah, Vanessa, myself, whoever is involved, Nikki, is involved in sustainability for short-term rentals and in tourism at large, because they are amazing people that are actually advocating responsible tourism, to actually be the voice, and all of a sudden, it will come up. It's basically saying, Okay, we need to do it now. How do we do it? Help us.

Heather Bayer
That's so interesting you mentioned that because I talked to Rolf Blizzard from Atlantic Realty in the US last week, and we were talking about regulations, and he said it's not if, it's when it happens. It will. If you're not impacted by regulations now, you will be. So there is no... This is black and white. That's it. And I think just looking at different practices that you could take within a business, even if it's outside the idea of regulations, it will all go to making a better business for the time when the regulations come and hit you. Because you can talk then with more authority as a property manager about what you do and about... If you're approaching legislators and decision-makers, and you can say, This is what we do.... In terms of responsible tourism in a whole wide range of ways that could sway decision making in the long run.

Marc Ribail
Yeah, you're touching an important subject. In the past two years, there's been an increasing pressure on short-term rentals, and thanks to some pressure from other types of businesses. As we discussed earlier, there's no more short-term rentals in British Columbia, for example, or there are more regulations in different parts of the world where they're trying to stop short-term rentals. But if we actually demonstrate that short-term rentals as an industry is taking responsibility and is implementing some responsible tourism practices at different levels, we're not asking everybody to be perfect, but actually incrementally to actually increase the number of practices, then all of a sudden we have a bigger weight than we think we have. We can basically say, Well, this is what we're doing. We're tackling the current topic. With some good connections, relations with the press, maybe it can help the whole industry in making a difference and being seen as making a difference.

Heather Bayer
I think this is so important. This is the theme that runs through the CanStays Rental Alliance Conference. It's a theme I haven't really seen at the other big conferences, but I hope it's coming. More attention being paid to responsibility, to how we can be responsible operators, and that should have this knock on it. Well, maybe I'm living in some Polyanna land to think that this will have an impact. But I think the more responsible that we can become as owners and operators and managers, then collectively, this could eventually have a more powerful message.

Heather Bayer
Marc, we're coming to an end here. It's been a great discussion. Really enjoyed hearing your views. Just wrap it up by telling us a little bit more about QALIA and how people who are listening to this, perhaps, could get involved or find out more.

Marc Ribail
Okay, so go on to the QALIA.org website. You will read a lot about our mission, how we do it, our methodologies, our platform, the framework, the 100 criteria, and the four pillars that we've been using to actually implement these different responsible tourism programs. We work on luxury villa owners, managers, as well as specialist agencies, who really understand the benefits and the importance of doing things differently and who want to challenge the status quo.

Marc Ribail
Just a quick reminder that the luxury companies in every industry have always been the leaders of changes through innovation, know-how, excellence, and traditions. So these four pillars are essential to keep in mind, and we can do the same with luxury rentals. So thank you very much, Heather, for having me. It was a pleasure. I hope I help on voice and advocate what we do in sustainable tourism or responsible tourism, as we call it.

Heather Bayer
That is Wonderful. Thank you, Marc, and I hope we get to meet up again at some point in the very near future.

Marc Ribail
That would be fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time and for having me. I'm very grateful.

Heather Bayer
Well, it's been my pleasure.

Heather Bayer
Thank you so much, Marc Ribail, for joining me and talking about sustainability and for educating me on the difference between sustainability and responsible tourism. I really quite like that expression, and we'll be using that quite a lot more.

Heather Bayer
In this sustainability week, or in this responsible tourism week we are talking to all the people who are making their names and making such impact in this industry. These are names that you need to know: Vanessa de Souza Lage, she is the founder of Sustonica - we talked about Sustonica with Marc - it is a certification. Then there's Bob Garner, who is the founder of EnviroRental. This is such a great site to go to, to find out all sorts of different information and resources about responsible tourism and the things that you can do, and also to read about the things that other people have been doing. Go to the Show Notes to get the information on the Scale Rental half-day conference, which is in London on the 23rd of April. And you can also see information on QALIA, which is Marc's own certification program for luxury properties and luxury villa companies.

Heather Bayer
That's it for this recording and this interview for Sustainability Week. I think this has been such a great conversation, and I hope you got a lot out of it. Please go to the Vacation Rental Formula website where you can find more information on Sustainability Week. There's plenty of blog posts to take a look at, and if you have registered for the panels this month, you will get an email from us that lists all the resources that we've talked about in the whole of the week.

Heather Bayer
So I hope you've enjoyed this. This was the last interview in SSTIR Crazy Month. The response we've got has been amazing, absolutely amazing. And it's going to spur us forward to do this again. Next year, we'll have another SSTIR Crazy Month in February 2025. There will be a lot more coming for that because this year was a little ad hoc. It was an idea I had towards the end of December, beginning of January. We put it together and it snowballed. And from the feedback we've got, we know that this is going to be 10 times better in 2025. So you'll be hearing more about it.

Heather Bayer
Thank you once again for listening to this broadcast and to all the others that we've done in SSTIR Crazy Month. Thank you, of course, to Proper Insurance. You're going to hear about them one more time in a moment, and I look forward to seeing you again next week.

Mike Bayer
That was some amazing information, and we hope you'll take the chance to implement some of these ideas in your short-term rental business in 2024. Don't forget to connect and give our thanks to our platinum sponsor for SSTIR Crazy Month, Proper Insurance. Click the link in the description of this episode to connect with the team at Proper for a no obligation chat.

Heather Bayer
It's been a pleasure as ever being with you. If there's anything you'd like to comment on, then join the conversation on the Show Notes for the episode at vacationrentalformula.com. We'd love to hear from you, and I look forward to being with you again next week.

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