Heather Bayer

Today I'm talking to David Jacoby and Fred Bassili from Hostfully about the 2022 Hospitality Trends in the Vacation Rental Industry Survey; some really useful information and stats you're going to really find useful.

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'm super delighted to be back with you once again. Well, so much has happened in this industry in the past year. I'm going to be talking to Andrew McConnell on our New Year episode about what he calls convergence, contraction and consolidation, things that have happened in the industry over the past year, and his predictions for 2023. I think as a foundation for that conversation, this episode where we're talking with the Hostfully team about the survey that they do annually to look at trends in the industry is going to be very helpful and useful to everybody that's listening in.

Heather Bayer

We are now well into the post-pandemic phase and things are going to continue to change. So I think being able to reflect back on what managers and hosts have experienced in the past year can inform us about the steps and strategies that we're going to take as we get into 2023. So, without further ado, let's move on over to my discussion with David and Fred. So welcome, Fred and David. Fred Bassili and David Jacoby from Hostfully.

Heather Bayer

Absolutely fantastic to have you back on the show, David, and you Fred for the first time.  This is just coming hot on the heels of the 10-weeks that you've been hearing David answering questions during their sponsorship of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, which we were so delighted to have. But this is all Hostfully today, not just a couple of minutes right in the middle of an episode. So we are going to be talking about the Hostfully Hospitality Trends Survey, which takes place every year, and I'm not going to say much about it. I'm going to pass that over to David and Fred.

Heather Bayer

First of all, a little bit of self introduction, if you don't mind David, just introduce yourself and then we'll move over to Fred and then we'll start on about the survey.

David Jacoby

Hey, Heather, thanks so much for having us. I'm David Jacoby, president and co-founder of Hostfully and really excited to be back. I love this annual tradition, so Happy Holidays, Happy New Year. A couple of other things I want to share, but Fred, do you want to say hi?

Fred Bassili

Hi, everyone. I'm Fred Bassili. I'm the marketing manager at Hostfully, and longtime listener of the podcast. But like Heather said, first time on the podcast, so we're really excited to be here today.

Heather Bayer

Well, it's a pleasure to have you. So give us a background to the Hospitality Trends Survey.

David Jacoby

Yes, but before I do that I just want to comment on the sponsorship, Heather, and say thank you so much for having us as a sponsor. It's been a real honor and it's been a great experience, so we appreciate that. I actually played a clip of me being on the podcast for my daughter and asked her what she thought, and I'm mentioning OTAs and direct booking sites and stuff, and her comment was – “You sound great, but I really liked the music before and after you spoke!”.

Heather Bayer

How old is she?

David Jacoby

She's nine.

Heather Bayer

Oh right, yeah, that's a good nine-year-old type of comment.

David Jacoby

Also, I know it's kind of old news now, but I just wanted to say for everyone, congratulations again to you on what an incredible year for you and on the selling of your business. And not just congratulations on that, but I personally really appreciated hearing you talk about it this year throughout and really kind of showing what's behind the curtain and making yourself vulnerable, talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly and all the whole experience going through that. So just thank you for sharing that with everyone.

Heather Bayer

You mean me talking about my meltdowns?

David Jacoby

Yes.

Heather Bayer

It's a good job I didn't record them, because I probably would have played one and it wasn't pretty. I'm not proud. I'm not proud of that at all.

David Jacoby

Hey, no, it's a high stress time. I've been through an acquisition on my last business, and even when your best of friends, when there's high stress going on, things are going to happen and it's all part of the process.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you for that.

David Jacoby

You bet. Back to your question, some history about our study. This is now our 6th year, I can't believe that, and we first started…Hostfully actually first started just as a software for digital guidebooks, and over the years moved into our services and being a full-scale property management software now.  Back when we first started doing digital guidebooks, we were looking for data around guidebooks and around hospitality and guest communications, and that side of vacation rentals, and there wasn't much out there. So we decided to make the data ourselves and we put out a survey that really focused on that part of the business to see what property managers are doing over the years. And we've expanded the survey as well, to focus on all areas of property management operations, where they're getting reservations from, what kinds of challenges they've had, what's worked well, what software are they using? And over those 6-years, a lot of the questions have remained the same – and throughout the pandemic as well – so we have some pretty good data from one year to the next to see how trends are going and what's shifted.

David Jacoby

We had almost 400 property managers fill out the survey this year. So that was really exciting.

Heather Bayer

That is exciting. So when you first started out, how many did you have?

David Jacoby

It was around 50 the very first year.

Heather Bayer

And now 400. That's great because the data that that's giving you is so much broader.

David Jacoby

Yeah, so thank you, everyone. All the property managers out there appreciate that this episode really isn't about Hostfully, it's about what all the property managers said and what they're doing.

Heather Bayer

Did you interview independent owners as well?

David Jacoby

Yes. So there's a range, and we can talk about some of that. So, we kind of bucketed the results, as you'll see in the study. How did property managers that are individual Airbnb hosts and managing one property, how did they respond to stuff, then those that have 2-5 properties and then a few more buckets all the way up to over 100 properties.

Heather Bayer

Okay, that's brilliant. Once again, it's that broader approach.

David Jacoby

So one thing that I've realized, it was interesting with the difference between your individual property managers and larger ones, and also those that have 2-5 properties is, there's this difference between reservations coming from Airbnb and direct reservations. So those that have up to 5 properties, over half of their reservations are coming from Airbnb and only 18% are direct reservations. And it's exactly the opposite for those with over 100 properties. They have double the amount of direct reservations. 36% are direct, less than a quarter as opposed to half are coming from Airbnb. So the larger property managers are obviously having larger distribution, have more distribution on average too, about four and a half channels versus two and a half channels. But it's against Airbnb. So the funny thing about this, looking at the data, is it's pretty equal for Vrbo, the number of reservations, it's around 20%. Whether you're a small property manager or a large property manager, about 20% are coming from Vrbo. So everyone's doing Vrbo. Everyone's happy with Vrbo getting their 20%. But as you grow, maybe they are even taking their properties off Airbnb.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, that's interesting. That surprises me. That really does surprise me. I mean, I can understand somebody with one or two properties. Yes, they're going to be on the platforms. Why go to all the trouble of direct booking when that's all you've got? But as you grow, then of course it's a no-brainer to build your own brand and your own website. But that's great to hear that the direct bookings are growing to that extent for the larger property managers.

David Jacoby

Yeah. So with the big three channels, so Airbnb, it goes down as your properties go up. Vrbo is the same and Booking.com actually goes up as properties go up. So a lot of property managers, they're listing on Vrbo, but they're not listing on Booking.com, and as you get larger, then you're listing on Booking.com.

Heather Bayer

Okay. Thinking about the survey as an overview, what are the other major findings that you can highlight for us?

David Jacoby

Where to begin? There's lots to talk about. So one thing in terms of how things have changed as the pandemic has kind of moved on into these next stages is with regards to competition. So I had thought that a few years ago, competition had increased. So we asked them, are things more competitive in your market? And two years ago, 57% said it was more competitive, last year, 61%, and I thought that was high. This year, 80%! Everyone is seeing more competition; however, that doesn't necessarily affect your revenue, because we are seeing that property managers are still making more revenue than in past years. So it almost makes me think of Burger King opening up stores near where McDonald's had stores. That was their way of doing it. They knew there was demand there, so that's where they'd go. Two years ago, in the throes of the Pandemic, there were wild swings with revenue. Some people did really poorly and some people did really well. And this year, you're starting to see it even out a little bit where everyone's doing not super well, but they're doing better. There's one thing that I love about our industry study, in addition to the stats we get from property managers, is we get a whole bunch of interesting feedback from experts – you being one of them, Heather. So we can talk about that later in the section you comment on.

David Jacoby

But Melanie Brown shares some key data. She has some good information about this topic. She said Airbnb listings in the United States reached 1.2 million in October 2022, a 15% increase over October 2021. During 2021 and early 2022, demand outpaced supply and occupancy rates rose. Towards the middle of the year, supply began to outpace demand in many markets, leading to lower occupancy rates. So things are going well and now kind of leveling off, and you kind of see that with the results that we got.

Heather Bayer

Yeah. And it'll be interesting to come back next year and see what impact all that has in 2023, because of course, now you've got the economic impacts as well. And by the time you get to survey next year, you'll have a whole year of the economic impact. From my experience, looking back 2000 and 2021, when I was still running the management company, the increase in owners wanting to place their properties with us was just phenomenal, and I think new owners will probably corroborate this.  That started in September 2021, we started getting at least one owner inquiry every single day. Some days it was up to two or three, sometimes four, and that has continued. I'm still sighting the information coming into the company and the inquiries, and those inquiries haven't let up. So for many people who bought properties during the latter stages of the pandemic, when the prices of property prices had risen, they have to rent them out. So it will be interesting to see what happens, and you hear about travel, and travel is back now and more people are traveling internationally, maybe less so domestically than they were doing during the pandemic, So that will be interesting – I'm now sort of scooting ahead to the Hospitality Trends Report 2023, but I'm making some predictions on that. But it's interesting to see these statistics.

David Jacoby

For this past year that's definitely held up what you said with all the other property managers where we ask, it's a two parts kind of the same question – how did you grow this past year and what are you planning to do to grow next year? And for the past few years, the number one answer has been increasing the portfolio, getting more properties. So that lines up with what you said. So last year people said that's what they did and that's what they're going to do. And this year, indeed they said that's what they did. So they were right. But what's interesting is for next year, they said they still plan to grow their portfolio. But that wasn't the number one answer anymore. The number one answer was increasing occupancy and improving priceing strategy. So it seems like there's been a big growth the past few years and now it's like, okay, now I need to focus on the properties I have. The bigger property managers, they still plan to grow, so the big get bigger. But across the board, focusing on optimization now seems to be a trend for next year. We'll see.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, and I can understand that, because that influx of new properties took up everybody's time, I think. Just bring them all in, and now it's time to sit back…well, not time to sit back, but it's time to spend more effort on, as you say, optimizing those properties, ensuring that we're reaching the right target markets.

David Jacoby

Yes, definitely.

Heather Bayer

Let's go on to challenges.  What are hosts and managers saying are their biggest challenges, or were the biggest challenges in 2022?

David Jacoby

Yes, always one of my favorite questions we ask.  If you could wave a magic wand and make your job instantly easier, what would you do? And my favorite answer was, have the TV remote work every time and always have batteries. But other than that, in addition to that, there's kind of two big buckets of answers. So technology is a big popular answer and we break that down, but that's the number one broader answer, where over a third, like 38% say technology issues, but that still means the majority are saying not technology. So there's a long tail of other answers, from cleaning and turnover management to general operations or expanding the portfolio, maintenance and repairs, even regulation showed up on there, and Steve Milo gave a nice quote about how important that is focusing on regulation and advocacy.  Cleaning and turnover management, that was one of the largest non-technology answer. However, it did go down from previous years, so it was at 20% last year and this year it's at 14%. And that kind of makes sense because we're turning the corner on the crazy stress of the pandemic and cleaning protocols and what you should be doing, what you shouldn't be doing. So it's good to see that number go down as a challenge.

David Jacoby

On the flip side, hiring and staffing – that keeps going up every year. It was 5% last year and 10% this year. One person said increase the labor pool for entry level jobs. Finding quality cleaning and maintenance applicants is very hard in our local market.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, I think that's been an issue for the past couple of years. But, I think, as it is across the nation, hiring is a challenge and particularly at those entry level jobs.  When we talk to owners and ask them what their challenges were – “I need to get a cleaner, I can't get anybody to come in and clean the home”.

David Jacoby

Yes. So we'll see how that changes for next year. Hopefully the economy will get a little better and you're starting some other software there to help just manage cleaning and turnover management, but actually find providers as well. So maybe that will help and that'll be a growing trend for next year.

David Jacoby

Switching gears, if we can, to the technology bucket challenges. There's a lot to talk about there. So guest communications, that's always been big in previous years, maybe especially during the pandemic where you're seeing people less and people are switching the way they're communicating, that went down. So it seems like people have kind of figured that out a little bit more. So 21% said that was their biggest challenge (for those who said technology, we're talking about the technology bucket) and it went down to 9% this year. So I think you're seeing some more property management software adding a lot to their email templates and SMS templates, and your standalone software out there that's focusing just on automation and texting and emails and then other software, like other guidebook software and even smart lock providers and cleaning software are all getting into messaging the guests, whether it's the PIN code or that the place is ready to check-in.  So you're starting to see this as a trend in software in general where the core isn't about communications, but they're adding a communications part to it.

Heather Bayer

Automation comes out at the top, so I need to just define what you mean by  tech challenges. Because if people are saying 18% of their challenges are automation, what are they actually meaning by that? Are they having challenges with the hardware or the software or finding it or getting their guests to work with it? It wasn't really clear.

David Jacoby

Yeah, it is kind of broad, isn't it. It's a kind of overarching theme of making your operations run smoother. So it kind of includes communications, it includes calendar management, it includes being able to manage your distribution on multiple channels and making sure the calendar is being updated, so it was kind of a catch all. This question was asked in two parts. We had like multiple choice and then we also had open-ended questions. So we took a lot of interpretation of what people were saying and that was kind of a broad area. One thing related to that too, it's very much related to your property management software. And if you have one or not, there's a lot of challenges. We asked if people have a property management software. There's a lot of challenges that are alleviated if they have a property management software and they have a central place to manage everything. But that's not the case for everything. So accounting, for example, is quite the opposite. Those who don't have a PMS only 3% listed accounting as their top challenge. Those who do have a property management software, 12% listed accounting as their biggest challenge.

David Jacoby

So that does bring up the question of causation versus correlation, right? So, property management software, do they just have bad accounting modules and that's causing problems? Or is it the fact that bigger property managers are more likely to use a property management software and coincidentally, they also have more accounting issues in general because there's a lot more moving parts. Jeff Callison from Simplifi, which does accounting services for property managers, had an interesting quote in our expert insight section. He said, even though many property management systems offer built-in accounting functionality, these solutions are ultimately limited by a fundamental lack of professional accounting expertise and operators end up doing the bulk of their financials themselves. So I think you see a little bit of both of the causation versus correlation….there could be room for interpretation on both sides there.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. I see the smaller property manager or the independent operator is using Quicken or some very simplified accounting. And of course they haven't got that second layer where they have to pay out to their owners as well, so it is a simpler process.

David Jacoby

Another expert insight from that section was from the one and only Heather Bayer, and “The cost of adopting automated processes is far outweighed by the amount of time that it's freed up to concentrate on physical aspects of hospitality”. So it sounds like it's the one step back, two steps forward approach, where sometimes you need to reset and in the short run it might be some extra work, but in the long run it's going to save you a lot of time.

Heather Bayer

Well,  I've talked to people about this.  Years ago, when we didn't have all this technology, a short-term rental operator just did everything. You're multitasking all the time. You were the accountant, you were the cleaner, you were the property manager. And some people had some reluctance in buying into software that was going to free up some of those functions. And I know from experience that if you buy into those software, you free up your time, that you can concentrate on the things that you can really do well.

David Jacoby

Definitely. I feel like I saw a lot of that also at the beginning of the pandemic, when after the big cancellation wave, everyone was putting out fires dealing with guest canceling. But then like in April and May 2020, a lot of the kind of forward-looking property managers, they were like, okay, I have some time on my hands, what am I going to do now? And finally they had time to tackle some bigger software projects and set themselves up for success, and then once '21 came around, they were in a much stronger position. They took advantage of that downtime and really scaled-up and put some operations in place.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. So I want to move on to the guest experience, because I spend a lot of time thinking about the guest experience. And I suppose it comes back to the whole conversation on competition, that in order to get ahead of the competition, operators have to improve the guest experience. Make the guest experience one of the most important things to focus on. So what were people saying about that in relation to what went on in previous years?

David Jacoby

Sure. So a general trend, again that we like to ask is what did you do and what do you plan to do? So we talked about that with growth and then the same thing with guest experience and up-selling. So that was one area where people, year after year, talk about wanting to provide more services and this is guest experience. So it's up-selling, it's more revenue, but it's also providing a better guest experience to the guests.  Whether it's groceries pre-arrival, or tours and activities, as well as early check-in and late check-out, stuff like that. And everyone always has the best of intentions. Every year they say that next year they're going to do a lot more of it and then when we ask them if they did it, they say no, they didn't get around to it. So it's hard to implement the up-selling side as one part of the guest experience, but we are starting to see a little more of it. So the trends are changing and I think you're seeing a lot more software providers out there trying to help property owners do it, because it's common stuff. So hopefully we just had a partnership with Viator, where it makes it real easy to share local activities and you get an 8% commission right off the bat for that.

David Jacoby

But it's not just us. You're seeing other software providers, whether they are doing things like check-in, pre-arrival forms, guest communications or other digital guidebook software, communications, or they're finding ways to be able to make it easy to communicate additional services that the property manager can provide. So that's one area. Another area too, of course, is digital guidebooks in general for guest experience, and we did see a bit of a leveling-off.  During the pandemic in 2020/2021, there was a huge spike in more property managers using digital guides, and it's easing out now.  You are seeing with hard copy paper guidebooks, there is a big difference between smaller property managers and larger property managers. So if you have one to 24 properties, over half of those property managers still have physical three-ring binder guidebooks, and if you have 25 properties or more, less than a quarter use the physical hard-copy guidebooks, and they are moving to all digital guidebooks to having QR codes in the property, that make it easy. And it makes sense that larger property managers are doing this because it's a lot harder to maintain 100 physical guidebooks. If a new coffee shop just opens up down the street, you want to add that.  All of a sudden you need to print out 100 new pieces of paper to add to the three-ring binder. If you have one or two or three properties, I think people put a lot of love into how that three-ring binder looks, and it's real special.  But as you scale, it just makes a lot more sense to make it digital.

Heather Bayer

Oh, absolutely. I'm such a proponent of digital guidebooks. I think everybody who's in this industry and who has a property that they're renting out has to have a digital guidebook these days. And the other thing is that it can be shared amongst all the guests. I used to have the three-ring binder and spent a lot of time on it, and people never read it. Maybe somebody sat down with it and looked at it to look for a WiFi code. But apart from that, it wasn't used. And of course, the other thing is you can't take it out and about with you.

David Jacoby

Yeah. So not only that, but before the guest arrives too, being able to share a guidebook, that helps with the hospitality feelings in so many ways, it makes you look more professional. You're enhancing your brand. People think I booked an Airbnb, not like Joe's Vacation Rentals. And also they get excited about what they want to do. They can look at all your recommendations, and sometimes you need to make reservations in advance. So just having that three-ring binder, that's not getting to the guests in advance. And now you're providing a much better experience for their trip in general by giving them a heads-up of all your favorite recommendations.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. Did I jump ahead a bit wanting to talk about guest experience? Because I think I might have missed…….

David Jacoby

Well, we jumped around a little. There's one thing we can talk about too. We talked about challenges, we can talk about what's gotten better, where have there been improvements; that was it?

Heather Bayer

Yes, I'm looking at this one right now and that was quite interesting.

David Jacoby

Sure. So I'd be happy to talk improvement. Well, so that's the other side of the coin. We asked guests what their biggest challenge is. We also asked guests where I'm sorry, we asked property managers what their biggest challenge is, and we asked property managers what's improved. So, guest communications, it kind of lines up with the challenge. Less people said guest communication was a challenge.  And cleaning and turnover management, less people said that was a challenge. And on the flip side, a lot of them said it's improved and gotten a whole lot easier. So guest communications went from 6% (people said it was easier), in 2020 to 11% to 17%. And cleaning and turnover management, of course in 2020, no one said that easy. That was 3% and then 8% last year and now 10% this year. So it's good to see people getting a handle on that and times changing with the pandemic. My favorite answer…….

Heather Bayer

I know which one you're going to point out now because I'm looking at it!

David Jacoby

Yes – nothing.  In 2020, 27% said nothing has gotten easier, in 2021, just as many, 24%, said nothing has gotten easier. And finally this year, only 9% said nothing has gotten easier. So people are finding solutions, people are finding silver linings and things are getting a little better.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, that caught my eye, 9% said nothing's getting easier and 1% said everything.

David Jacoby

Yes, exactly.

Heather Bayer

I'd like to know who that Pollyanna actually is.

David Jacoby

Yeah. So one other thing – marketing – that went down.  So it was 16% in 2020, 16% in 2021, and 5% in 2022. I think that in 2020, when the pandemic was just getting going, and then the following year, people were really focusing on that and finding new ways of getting guests,  Finding that local person as opposed to someone who's flying in. And they put a lot of emphasis into that and they finally got a grip on it, so it's gotten easier. This year only 5% said so.  I don't think that necessarily means it's gotten harder, just something that they ticked in the previous years and now they've got a grip on it. Which brings me to the bigger comment.  I feel like I mentioned this last year, every year, this conversation.  I love how entrepreneurial property managers are, because you regularly see items in both the what's gotten harder and what's got an easier category. So guest communication, cleaning and turnover management, communication in general, marketing, every year, some people are saying this is my biggest challenge, and also people are saying this is what's gotten easier. And what that goes to show is that property managers, they have some issue, they realize it's an issue, they tell us it's an issue, and then they find a solution to it. And there are so many solutions out there and a year later they come back saying it was a problem last year, and now I figured it out and it's gotten easier.

Heather Bayer

It's interesting you say that. I've just recorded an interview with Andrew McConnell for the New Year episode, that we always do together, and one of his main messages was, there is no right answer, there's no right way, there's no cookie-cutter method of running this business. It's entirely different for everybody. And I think these figures show exactly that.

David Jacoby

Absolutely. Another question that's very much related to that, that we ask is what is your favorite software? And I'm happy to report, as a property management software founder, that property management software is the number one answer. So that's great. And of course, that makes a lot of sense. Although I am a little sad to report, I will admit it, it actually went down a little bit. Last year, 44% said it was their number one software, and this year it was only 36%. And Andrew will be half-right. What had a big spike was pricing. So last year, 8% said pricing was their favorite software, and this year that doubled to 16%. So that kind of goes in line with what we talked about earlier on how property managers are now starting to focus on optimizing their properties. They just had big growth. They got a lot of properties on their portfolio, and now they're focusing on optimizing those and putting a big focus on their pricing software. And also, in terms of what you said about one-size doesn't fit all, we ask what the most desired feature that's missing in their property management software? And it never ends.

David Jacoby

It is just such a long tail of different answers. One person says mobile app, another, accounting, another open API, or better guest-vetting in the software itself, or owner portal or distribution, team task coordination. Really, you can't please all the people all the time, one-size does not fit all. But again, that just shows the nature of our industry where there are so many niche software providers and maybe having this old notion of an all-in-one solution of a property management software doing everything doesn't really exist. And there's all these other companies that do a 110% deep dive into niche solutions and being able to use the best in class across the board seems to be the way to go. And finally, my favorite answer of all of this, what is the most valuable software you use today? Why?  My gut – I can always trust it.

Heather Bayer

I'd go along with that. When we were doing staff training, the gut reaction was way up there as one of the most important things that you will use in your day-to-day management of situations. How does it feel in your gut?

David Jacoby

Yes, if only we can get an API integration into your property management software.

Heather Bayer

But I'm sure as a software provider, David, these questions about what we need, I don't know, how do you react to all of those because you can't do everything. You can't be all things to everybody.

David Jacoby

Yes. Our roadmap conversations at Hostfully are always the most interesting and challenging ones. There are different feature requests, and for better or worse, Hostfully has a wide range of property management-size portfolios. We have lots of property managers with one to five properties and lots that have over 100. And they have different needs out of a property management software, right? A large property manager, they have a lot more needs on bulk updating if they want to change the check-in time for a whole bunch of properties to not have to do 100 clicks. Whereas smaller property managers, man, they know the ins and outs of Airbnb itself, of the platform. And there could be some small little field that is a description of some amenity or something, and they're like, I need that, I want to be able to configure that, and really, the larger property manager with 100 properties, they're less concerned about really fine details and kind of niche cases that you see on a weird field on Vrbo or a weird field on Airbnb.

Heather Bayer

In your survey, do you have any indication of, over time, how many of these small operators, maybe with their one property, how many of these have grown?

David Jacoby

Yes, to some extent. So that's that question. We've talked about portfolio growth and every year for the past bunch of years, managers have been saying that they're growing more. And one thing that we did look at was the larger property managers, and again, this makes sense, they are adding properties at a higher rate than the smaller ones. But you still do see the smaller property managers saying that that's been a focus and they are growing. So there are a handful of individual Airbnb hosts with just one property, that they only have that one property and that's all they want and all they care about. But even when you start to have two to five, you're thinking of this as a business and you're thinking of ways to grow and get it bigger.

Heather Bayer

Exactly. I'm always heartened to hear from people who say, I started out with my own property and now I'm managing 30 or more. And that's very heartening.

David Jacoby

Absolutely. In the industry out there in terms of resources and tools available to property managers and, like conferences and influencers, you're kind of seeing a change. You've been in the industry a lot longer than I have. Now, I've been in it for seven years, so I'm not necessarily the new kid on the block anymore. And there are these conferences now where no one's heard of VRMA. These social media influencers will put on this ‘rentalpreneur' kind of conference and everyone goes seeing these TikTok and instagram leaders, thought leaders, talking about different software. And you ask them if they're going to VRMA conferences. Not only do they not say no, they say “What's VRMA?” So you're seeing these younger entrepreneurs getting into the space and they're finding new ways of learning about the industry.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, I find that fascinating. Somebody else said that to me. I think that was at that Nashville conference there was earlier this year and those who went said it was just so…., did you go to that one?

David Jacoby

Hostfully did. I personally didn't.

Heather Bayer

Right. Yeah, I understood an entirely different type of conference than we're used to with the staid old traditional VRMA. So that's interesting, because it just shows how the industry is growing and changing.

David Jacoby

Yeah, definitely.

Heather Bayer

So, anything else that we haven't covered so far that you want to add?

David Jacoby

No, I think we've covered most…. Maybe with the tech stack, in general, we see property managers that are larger. Obviously they're using a lot more technology. We ask what kind of pieces of technology and what's really popular, and we talked about property management software and then cleaning and turnover management and pricing. You see that as kind of the core to the smaller tech stacks. And then as you grow, you're starting to see more marketing solutions and website solutions and payment processors. So that's kind of emphasizing what we talked about earlier. As you grow, you're getting more direct bookings, so you need to have tools to help handle that. And then you're seeing a longer tail too of guest screening and distribution, channel management and accounting and a lot of other software. So it's fun to see property managers, as we talked about, not necessarily having this all in one approach. They pick a core software and then as they grow, they add on different softwares on top of that to meet their needs at whatever stage they're at in their growth.

Heather Bayer

Yes, that's a really interesting concept. I talked to somebody recently just about that, and just saying that it's going to have a slight danger there of overlapping softwares. I know that I was an early adopter, not so much these days. I'm a little bit more cautious now. Maybe I should have had that caution while I was running the company and not now that I'm out of it, but I know there was a tendency to buy into the shiniest and the brightest software that came out and then never actually use it. And then at some point following that, then buying into something else that had a bit of what you already had. So you ended up with this overlapping tech stack. And I think it's important that people pay more attention to what they're spending their money on and ensuring that that tech stack lines up and doesn't overlap and meets all the needs of a really well functioning company.

David Jacoby

Yes, you need to do demos and pick and choose. I think, again, what we talked about earlier, Guest Communications is a great example of that because you're starting to see door-lock companies, cleaning companies, digital guidebook software, in addition to core property management software, all having ways to reach out. So that is good. You have many solutions and there's many ways to touch the customer. And also you just need to make sure you pick one that works for you and not overlap with them.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, exactly. So for those of you listening, you need to download this survey. So David's going to tell us in a second where you can download it. Because I think going forward, you need to have this information. You need to not just run your company or run your property, but understand what's behind it, understand what other people are doing and the challenges and the obstacles that they're experiencing and how they're overcoming it. More knowledge is your power.

David Jacoby

Yes, absolutely. I talked about at the beginning how it was important for us to have that data to understand the property management landscape. And the feedback we've gotten over the years has just been so wonderful. And that's why we keep doing this labor of love on the survey where people say, this is such great benchmark data for them. It's so important for them to be able to see how their peers from a quantitative and qualitative point operate.  We have open-ended questions and we get feedback around that, as well as multiple-choice questions. So for people to see, whether they're one property or five properties or 100 properties, kind of where they stack up against their peers, is really helpful for them to see where others are having challenges and where things have gotten easier. It helps them think about what their planning is for the next year. So you can download it at hostfully.com. That's the easy one to remember. We have a link to all of our reports, so you can see all our previous hospitality reports. We also have some other great white papers on just the industry size in general and some other cool white papers we put out.  And then if you can specifically remember, https://www.hostfully.com/2022-hospitality-industry-study/ That's where you can go to find it.

Heather Bayer

I will make sure there is a link in the show notes, so if you're stuck, you can just go to vacationrentalformula.com and check out this podcast, and there will be the show notes and the full transcript of this interview with David. Sorry we had to lose Fred. Unfortunately, the Internet connection wasn't the best on this occasion. However, perhaps we'll have Fred back at some other time. Maybe he'll join us for next year's review.

David Jacoby

Next year.

Heather Bayer

Just take a couple of minutes, for those who've been listening to the last ten weeks of the podcast, they know a fair bit about Hostfully now, but you can condense all that down now. Tell us a little bit about how your product and service bridges the gap between what managers want to provide, as they've said in this survey, and what currently prevents them from doing so.

David Jacoby

You bet. And once again, it was so much fun being a sponsor and I really loved all the questions that you asked me a while ago, so hopefully that was helpful for folks. But we are a tip-to-tail property management software, helping you run all areas of your business as well as having amazing integrations with the best in class vendors out there. At our core, we focus on having strong channel management. We are the only property management software in the United States that's a preferred partner for Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com. We also have Marriott integration and Google integration. So very excited about those strong kind of core channel integrations where they're saying we're great, not us saying we're great, and I know I said that on one of the sponsorships earlier.  And also having great email templates and triggers and that gets the communication side of things. Having a digital guidebook platform, so that's a separate software that we offer – digital guidebooks. So we have customers using every property management software out there and our digital guidebooks on top of that. One guidebook is free, so I encourage everyone to sign up and make a guidebook and see what it looks like and if you like it, then you can upgrade for all your properties.

David Jacoby

And then, as I mentioned, we really pride ourselves on our API and playing in the same sandbox of everyone else in the space. We love all our dynamic pricing partners, our cleaning and turnover management partners, background checks, website insurance, all of that. So it's a fun place for us to do the core really well and then you get to pick and choose who you want to work with.

Heather Bayer

That was great David. Thank you. And you can also go to vacationrentalformula.com and you will see the Hostfully page there and there is quite a lot of stuff on there about Hostfully and there's links to all the episodes that I have done with David over the years, and I believe those ten questions, if we don't have them there right now, they are going to be on the Virtual Vendor Showcase before very long. So it's just one stream of all those questions that I asked David about two or three months ago.

David Jacoby

Time flies. The year has gone already.

Heather Bayer

Oh I know, scary stuff. David, it's been an absolute pleasure having you with me once again. I know we'll probably talk well before we do the review for 2023, at least I hope so. And hopefully perhaps we will get together in person and have a coffee or a glass of wine or a beer or something and just review everything that's gone on.

David Jacoby

That sounds great, Heather. Hopefully, now you'll have some extra time on your hands and you can travel around. So can't wait to see you in person and thanks again, it's always a pleasure discussing the report and the vacation rental industry in general at the end of the year, to cap the year, and reflect and see what's coming next year.

Heather Bayer

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. David Jacoby from Hostfully, one of the nicest people in this industry. I always love to spend time with him on a recording or at their booth at any conference, or any of the Hostfully team. Those guys are always so friendly, so open and welcoming. Don't go past the Hostfully booth at any conference you're at; stop, say hello and you'll get a great welcome. So, as I said, don't hesitate. Do download that report, have a good look at it, see where you stand in terms of your challenges, your obstacles, things that are working for you, things that aren't working for you, and then check it out against what other people are saying. Also, there's some really great comments from industry experts within that survey as well. Some very great, good insights. Make sure you read those too.

Heather Bayer

Okay, that's it for another week. Just moving down towards the end of 2022. I'm, for one, really looking forward to what's going to happen in 2023. We will be finally announcing our educational program in 2023 as we get into it. I know it's been a long time coming, all sorts of things have got in the way, but life happens, we go through it, we come out the other side having learned an awful lot and I've learned an awful lot, and my team has as well.  But we are just about ready to go. We have a number of people in the Beta Program and they're being very patient as we very slowly upload new material and we get their feedback from it. And we'll be bringing that to you at the time we do some launching in January. So we still are accepting people for the Beta Program. It's being more refined as we speak. So if you're interested in joining us, go to vacationrentalformula.com or you can just email me or Mike, heather@vacationrentalformula.com or mike@vacationrentalformula.com, and we'll get back to you with some details.

Heather Bayer

On that note, I am heading out. I'm going to go and wet my toes in the Gulf of Mexico, take a walk along the beach and enjoy the beautiful sunshine that we have down here right now. I hope you're enjoying your day, I hope you enjoyed this episode and look forward to being with you again next week. 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 vacationrentalformulacom. We'd love to hear from you and I look forward to being with you again next week.