Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / How to Run Smarter STR Operations with Breezeway

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How to Run Smarter STR Operations with Breezeway · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

• 0:00
  Everybody needs to understand their job and really
• 0:03
  importantly, what done right means for you.
• 0:06
  As your portfolio grows, those operational needs, they become
• 0:10
  more complex. You have to use technology to
• 0:12
  control and and automate your work flows.
• 0:15
  Technology is a key to help you sort of deliver on that promise
• 0:20
  of hospitality to your tests. How can hosts improve operations
• 0:25
  without hiring a huge team? What are the common operational
• 0:30
  mistakes that property managers are making?
• 0:33
  And how can you balance automation and the human touch
• 0:37
  when running short term rentals? Jeremy Gaul from Breezeway is
• 0:41
  the special guest on today's Host Planet podcast, and he'll
• 0:45
  be tackling all these issues during an action-packed episode.
• 0:54
  Jeremy, thank you for joining us on the Host Planet podcast.
• 0:57
  How can hosts improve their mid stay and post stay operations
• 1:02
  without hiring a huge team? Yeah, it's a great question,
• 1:06
  James. Thanks for having me.
• 1:07
  You know, the industry is built on operations and the network of
• 1:10
  people who serve these properties and these guests
• 1:13
  operations. It's a loaded term.
• 1:16
  It consists of hundreds of invisible details that go into
• 1:21
  creating a five star stay before, during and after the
• 1:25
  guests arrive. Guests only see what's on the
• 1:27
  surface and there's hundreds of details behind that.
• 1:31
  But you know, as your portfolio grows, those operational needs,
• 1:35
  they become more complex. I think the good news is you
• 1:38
  really don't need to have a huge team, but you do need to have a
• 1:41
  smart system. So a few ways.
• 1:43
  Here's like sort of four ways I think you think about improving
• 1:46
  operations efficiently. The first is documenting all the
• 1:50
  property details from the house layout, the make and model of
• 1:54
  appliances. This will help everybody who's
• 1:56
  in your properties really understand what's going on next.
• 2:00
  If you focus on proactive communication, really giving
• 2:03
  your guests the information they need so that they can be ready
• 2:06
  to understand what what you know, what the home is about and
• 2:09
  you're in a good position to respond to issues when they
• 2:11
  arise. Next, I think even if your team
• 2:14
  is small, you think about setting clear expectations and
• 2:17
  accountability for everyone, whether this is a cleaner, a
• 2:21
  service partner, a repair person, everybody needs to
• 2:24
  understand their job and really importantly, what done right
• 2:28
  means for you. What's it mean for your brand
• 2:31
  because it's different for everybody else.
• 2:33
  And then lastly, you standardize processes around, you know,
• 2:37
  turnovers, preventative maintenance, home safety, and
• 2:40
  you really lean into consistency as king.
• 2:42
  So when you do that, you can, it's been amazing, you know, and
• 2:47
  how do you do this without burning out?
• 2:49
  I think is really the question is like, you have to use
• 2:52
  technology to control and, and automate your work flows.
• 2:55
  Technology is a is a key to help you sort of deliver on that
• 3:01
  promise of hospitality to your guests.
• 3:04
  Yeah, it's interesting you say there about having all the data
• 3:07
  and all the information about your property and all the
• 3:09
  appliances. I was just talking to Jay from
• 3:12
  host buddy and they're running an AI kind of communications
• 3:16
  tool and he was saying, you know, an AI will only be as good
• 3:19
  as the data that you give it. So if you if you have all that
• 3:22
  data, the AI can kind of pick from it.
• 3:24
  If not, then it's not going to have much, much data to play
• 3:27
  with. So you're having all that data
• 3:29
  there. It's just, it's just so
• 3:30
  important. 100% And I think that consistency, it's that data and
• 3:36
  not only having the data, but then making sure you have it in
• 3:38
  like a structured way is really the key to how you how you get.
• 3:43
  This done, So what are the most common operational mistakes that
• 3:50
  you're seeing STR hosts and managers making?
• 3:54
  Well, there's, I mean, there's a lot, you know, I think it's easy
• 3:57
  to make mistakes here. This is a, it's a business where
• 4:01
  what's special about short term rentals and vacation rentals
• 4:05
  very often is the uniqueness of the property, where it's
• 4:08
  located. These are special homes and
• 4:11
  special places. That uniqueness makes them a
• 4:16
  challenge to think about how you drive that brand consistency and
• 4:20
  a really predictable experience to the guest.
• 4:23
  So I think too often people spend a lot of time focusing on
• 4:27
  reservations, booking and pricing.
• 4:29
  It's important, but they they sort of overlook the crucial
• 4:32
  work that is like how how this is being done.
• 4:37
  And I think the biggest mistake is that operations can be
• 4:41
  undervalued. Building and scaling A
• 4:43
  profitable team and a management business, even if you're going
• 4:48
  from 2:00 to 6:00 properties, the importance of operations
• 4:51
  can't really be overstated. And so I think the real thing is
• 4:56
  you can choose how you do the work.
• 4:59
  You can choose to do it in a smarter way.
• 5:02
  You can throw out the spreadsheets and the cleaning
• 5:04
  schedule, delete WhatsApp chains, stop waiting for
• 5:08
  appliances to break. And like, sort of, you know,
• 5:10
  hope isn't a strategy. Can't just hope that
• 5:13
  everything's going to be done right.
• 5:15
  And this is where, you know, technology can really help.
• 5:18
  Hospitality is hard work but doesn't have to feel quite so
• 5:21
  hard. And I think most people don't
• 5:24
  lean in far enough to think about like, how can they
• 5:27
  leverage technology to sort of smooth over these operational
• 5:32
  pitfalls? Because there's 100 things that
• 5:35
  can go wrong on every stay every time.
• 5:39
  Yeah, too right. I mean, hope isn't a strategy
• 5:41
  like you mentioned there. And doing what I do, sometimes
• 5:44
  when you get a call from a number that you don't know, you
• 5:46
  think, oh gosh, is this a guest? I don't really know what has,
• 5:49
  what has gone wrong. I don't want to know what's gone
• 5:51
  wrong. That is, that's not the best way
• 5:53
  to do it. OK, real talk now for all you
• 5:55
  hosts out there, you know that moment when you guest messages
• 5:58
  you again with, hey, what's the Wi-Fi code?
• 6:01
  Or you're staring at 5 different calendars wondering if you've
• 6:05
  accidentally double booked the cottage.
• 6:07
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• 6:11
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• 6:14
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• 6:21
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• 6:25
  really slick digital guidebooks that stop all the repeat
• 6:28
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• 6:31
  life easier and keeps your guests happier, helping you
• 6:34
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• 6:38
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• 6:40
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• 6:45
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• 6:49
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• 6:51
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• 6:56
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• 7:00
  walkthrough, there's also a link to book a demo with Frank Bosey
• 7:03
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• 7:06
  works. Less stress, more bookings
• 7:09
  sorted with housefully. If people are starting out and
• 7:13
  maybe they've got a few properties, but they know they
• 7:16
  want to scale and they've got their got to get their
• 7:18
  operations running smoothly. What what's your top tips for
• 7:22
  kind of starting that process? Yeah.
• 7:25
  I think that my top tips really are first you have to understand
• 7:31
  what it is that you do that's really special and then lean
• 7:34
  into that. And I think like map out the
• 7:37
  customer journey. We talked to a lot of clients
• 7:39
  about this. Map out that guest journey and
• 7:42
  all of those touch points and then think about where it is
• 7:46
  that you want to put in additional human effort and what
• 7:51
  parts of this do you really want to optimize and do you want to
• 7:55
  automate? Where can you automate where the
• 7:57
  guest still feels like really supported and you're not really
• 8:03
  having to spend a lot of human time and human capital there?
• 8:06
  And where should you lean in that journey and really focus on
• 8:10
  like the human touch because hospitality is human.
• 8:13
  And I think once you've done that and you sort of mapped out
• 8:17
  the guest journey and all these different touch points and what
• 8:21
  your system is for that, and then which ones will be
• 8:23
  automated, which ones were even more human?
• 8:25
  I think then you look at the tools that you use and the teams
• 8:30
  that you use to support that journey.
• 8:32
  And like, how do you optimize each piece of that?
• 8:35
  And I think far too often people don't take a step back to sort
• 8:38
  of look at that big picture and think about what are they truly
• 8:41
  trying to accomplish and how does this, how does it all tie
• 8:44
  together? And then which pieces do they
• 8:46
  focus on 1st to optimize? Makes a lot of sense there.
• 8:49
  I mean, you mentioned the automation angle, the human
• 8:53
  touch. How do you get that balance
• 8:55
  right between those two angles? Yeah, it's tricky, right?
• 9:01
  I think the industry is built on operations and the people who
• 9:06
  serve. Yeah, You can't get away from
• 9:09
  the human element. Humans are necessary to get the
• 9:12
  actual work done, right? And it's not just about
• 9:16
  technology, and it's not just about processes.
• 9:19
  Like, really, you're doing these things.
• 9:21
  You're looking at technology for the sake of the people who
• 9:25
  provide service and they're providing service in order to
• 9:29
  create that feeling of hospitality.
• 9:32
  I think that's the key. And when you take that larger
• 9:35
  perspective, technologies to enable the people to get the
• 9:38
  work done to then create hospitality, then you think, OK,
• 9:42
  great. Where does automation play in
• 9:45
  that? And am I using, am I using
• 9:47
  automation to help make the people that are actually
• 9:50
  delivering service, whether it's just even myself, right?
• 9:53
  If I'm really, if I'm a host and I've got one property, am I
• 9:57
  using that technology to like automate some things for myself
• 10:02
  so then I can be more human in other ways?
• 10:04
  Or am I really using that to just enable one of my service
• 10:08
  providers or my team or my staff if I'm a bigger organization, to
• 10:13
  be able to do that? And I think that's the trick.
• 10:17
  I think the industry is very enamoured, understandably so,
• 10:21
  with automation and the role of AI and how this continues to
• 10:25
  sort of change. But I think it can be too
• 10:28
  tempting to forget that hospitality is personal and it
• 10:33
  is human and you really can't. I guess it would be lovely to
• 10:38
  automate away all of that on some level, but I feel like it's
• 10:44
  it's unrealistic. It's very, very transparent to
• 10:47
  guests, right when things have been too automated and that
• 10:51
  doesn't feel great, that doesn't feel like a hospitality
• 10:54
  experience. Yeah, 100%.
• 10:56
  And I think the guests, they still really appreciate some
• 10:59
  kind of human involvement. I think it sometimes it depends
• 11:02
  on the age profile of your guests, but I find a lot of
• 11:05
  people if, if you, if you meet them, if you pick up the phone,
• 11:08
  whatever, if there's some kind of interaction it, it really
• 11:11
  does go down much better in terms of proactive guest
• 11:16
  communication. How important is this and how
• 11:20
  does a tool like Breezeway support it?
• 11:25
  Yeah, proactive communication is really, I think it's super
• 11:28
  important. I think it sort of sets the
• 11:30
  standard for the guest experience.
• 11:34
  And I would say like taking a step back, one of the things
• 11:36
  that I feel like still holds the industry back a little bit is
• 11:41
  this unpredictable nature of short term rentals, right?
• 11:47
  I've booked, I'm excited for my trip.
• 11:50
  And then it's a couple of days before my trip, or maybe it's a
• 11:55
  couple. Maybe I'm on the drive there.
• 11:57
  I just landed. And then there's this
• 12:01
  overwhelming, like trepidation, right?
• 12:04
  And a little bit of fear of, Oh my God, is it going to look like
• 12:08
  it did in the photos? What's going to happen when I
• 12:12
  get there? The bed's actually going to be
• 12:14
  comfortable or the sheets going to feel weird?
• 12:16
  Are they going to be? Maybe I'm projecting, but I
• 12:19
  think this is truly what kind of holds us back as an industry a
• 12:22
  little bit. There's this level of
• 12:23
  unpredictability and I think proactive communication can play
• 12:31
  such an important role in helping alleviate some of those
• 12:34
  concerns and helping guests feel more comfortable before they
• 12:39
  come. So that then what you're doing
• 12:41
  is you're setting the whole experience up kind of on the
• 12:45
  right foot, right? Like when I, when I start and
• 12:49
  I'm feeling anxious about what the place might be like, what
• 12:52
  this home might be like when I get there or this apartment,
• 12:56
  then my radar is like really up, right when I walk in.
• 13:01
  And I'm probably a little judgy as I look around, right?
• 13:04
  Because I'm anxious and I'm trying to understand what's
• 13:06
  going on. The more I'm at ease through
• 13:08
  proactive communication that just changes the dynamic.
• 13:13
  I feel comfortable. I know what to expect.
• 13:15
  And I think that's you don't need to always do that in a
• 13:20
  personal manner. You can automate.
• 13:22
  We've seen a lot of clients and we help a lot of clients have
• 13:26
  have a lot of success automating those types of messages, which
• 13:31
  is like it's a day before you're arriving.
• 13:33
  James, let me tell you about the property.
• 13:36
  Let me give you more details about it so you understand
• 13:39
  what's happening. What kind of coffee maker is
• 13:40
  there? What can you expect on check in?
• 13:43
  Here's how you get in, etcetera. It's the day of.
• 13:47
  I'm helping make sure you feel pretty good.
• 13:50
  It's right after check in. I want to understand whether or
• 13:53
  not everything is presented the way that you thought it was
• 13:57
  like. James, is this how how's your
• 13:59
  stay? Is it off to a good start?
• 14:01
  Give me a one through 5 so that I know and then I can be
• 14:04
  reactive, right? And so I think the proactive
• 14:07
  nature puts you in a better position to then be really
• 14:13
  attentive to a guest throughout the stay.
• 14:16
  And that's the key piece. And it goes back to to what you
• 14:20
  said also goes back to the data, but the better data profile you
• 14:24
  have. And our position is really that
• 14:27
  like operations is what drives the guest experience.
• 14:32
  The home has to be clean, it has to be well presented.
• 14:36
  It should be safe. You should have done all the
• 14:38
  right preventative maintenance. Those should be like the
• 14:41
  baseline that you know you're operating to.
• 14:43
  But by doing that and collecting that information, then finding
• 14:46
  ways where you can proactively share it with the guest to an
• 14:49
  appropriate level, right through a guest, through a guest guide
• 14:53
  book, or through messaging, you can really do a lot to change
• 14:56
  the dynamic of how guests arrive and and begin their sort of
• 14:59
  journey with you. What do you think is the optimum
• 15:04
  guest communication kind of proactive strategy?
• 15:07
  What does that look like in terms of like how many messages
• 15:11
  you send and, and when you send them in order to, to build that
• 15:14
  trust and make sure that people are expecting and they, they
• 15:17
  know it's going to be a good experience and they're not
• 15:19
  worried about it like like you were saying.
• 15:22
  Yeah, I think it's about 3 messages, probably separate from
• 15:27
  the booking confirmation. So right, let's take the booking
• 15:30
  confirmation aside. Clearly, once you've booked, you
• 15:33
  need to go through some communications that people
• 15:35
  understand, like this is a real booking, you've got it, this is
• 15:38
  a place to set. Now you're approaching the trip
• 15:41
  and I think it's really like day before, you know, or a couple of
• 15:47
  days before. We're excited to have you.
• 15:50
  Here's what you can expect. It's day of and then it's day
• 15:56
  after arrival. I think those 3 messages are
• 15:59
  really critical to understand first to alleviate concerns
• 16:04
  upfront. And then #2 you really need to
• 16:07
  understand how your team is performing and how you how
• 16:11
  you're performing. And like, so did you get it all
• 16:13
  right? Is this guest off to a good
• 16:15
  start? Maybe they're a little more,
• 16:17
  maybe they're needing, guests are pretty needy, owners are
• 16:20
  needy, humans are needy. The, but you know, maybe they
• 16:25
  need a little more attention, right?
• 16:27
  Maybe they are confused about how how the oven works or
• 16:31
  fireplace or whatever, something like that.
• 16:34
  Very common, right? So I think that check in three
• 16:38
  of those messages we find really helps depending on the length of
• 16:41
  stay, you're sending another proactive message maybe halfway
• 16:45
  through checking in. If somebody's only with you for
• 16:49
  three days, that feels like overkill.
• 16:52
  But the key is that text messaging is, you know, SMS is
• 16:56
  such a beautiful non intrusive medium for this.
• 17:01
  If I called you 3 times on your vacation, James, I think you
• 17:06
  would. You probably wouldn't pick up
• 17:08
  the third time unless there was, unless there was real trouble,
• 17:11
  right? You'd be like, hey, leave me
• 17:13
  alone. I really don't want to talk to
• 17:15
  you, right? But I send you 3 text messages
• 17:18
  on your vacation. It's so unobtrusive.
• 17:20
  It's asynchronous. You don't feel like you have to
• 17:22
  reply right away. When you do, you don't expect
• 17:26
  I'm going to answer right away either.
• 17:28
  That's like just a beautiful medium for that kind of
• 17:30
  interaction. And yet you feel like I'm
• 17:32
  thinking about you, which I am. Yeah, I think it's a it's a
• 17:35
  great way to communicate. And we saw in your guest
• 17:39
  communication tips recently for 2025, one of the tips was guests
• 17:44
  and owners like to communicate over WhatsApp and I certainly
• 17:49
  do. And you know, whenever I
• 17:50
  communicate with my guests and say look, here's my WhatsApp
• 17:51
  number if you need anything, here I am.
• 17:54
  And another thing as well that got me thinking, if you send
• 17:56
  that message shortly after check in, it can sometimes get rid of
• 18:00
  those issues later down the line.
• 18:01
  Because sometimes a guest will come and there'll be an issue,
• 18:04
  but they won't raise it. They won't say anything about
• 18:07
  it, and you don't hear about it as a host until you see it in
• 18:10
  the review. And if you were proactive with
• 18:12
  your guest communication, it can sometimes make sure that you're
• 18:15
  getting that five star review right because you can put it
• 18:18
  right straight away. Yeah, 100%.
• 18:20
  And then I think the key, you know, we believe that during
• 18:26
  that stay, the byproduct of your communication with that guest
• 18:31
  turns into, you know, operational work.
• 18:35
  And that that's, that's part of the strategy, right?
• 18:37
  That's part of why we built operations.
• 18:40
  And then we built messaging in a guide book and we tie them
• 18:43
  together so that when you are messaging and communicating with
• 18:48
  a client, you can get the full context of your operations
• 18:52
  behind it. So you may have an issue like if
• 18:54
  I'm going to ask you if everything's OK, occasionally
• 18:58
  you're going to tell me that it isn't and that there's something
• 19:02
  I need to do about it, right? And the, the byproduct of that
• 19:06
  communication is an operational is operational work that we need
• 19:10
  to take on. I can't ask you if everything's
• 19:12
  OK and then you tell me no and then I don't do anything about
• 19:15
  it, right? I mean, then I'm really, I'm
• 19:18
  really failing the guest at that point.
• 19:20
  And so making sure that you can have that communication tied to
• 19:23
  your operations, use AI to make it more efficient.
• 19:27
  We found that this is really like, this is a game changer for
• 19:30
  the way that people operate a. 100% the the 2 messages I had
• 19:34
  recently in one property they'd run out of forks.
• 19:37
  They only had two forks left, not sure how that happened.
• 19:39
  And in the other one it was wine glasses.
• 19:41
  There was only one wine glass left so had to buy some more
• 19:44
  wine glasses. These I I don't know where
• 19:45
  cutlery goes. I think people must be taking it
• 19:48
  with them. But but.
• 19:49
  Anyway, wrapped up in wrapped up in sheets and towels in the
• 19:52
  linens that also disappear. Something like that.
• 19:56
  All right then, Jeremy, just tell us more about Breezeway.
• 19:58
  Then how do you help hosts and property managers?
• 20:02
  Yeah, it's simple. It's a simple way to describe
• 20:06
  it, but the the work of it is challenging.
• 20:09
  We want to make it easier for people who deliver hospitality
• 20:14
  to get that work done, and that's hard work.
• 20:18
  It takes a combination of the host or the manager at the very
• 20:23
  top and service providers and staff across multiple
• 20:28
  disciplines really doing work in a timely manner and making sure
• 20:34
  that it's done with a a level of attention to detail that is
• 20:39
  really high because that's what it takes to deliver a
• 20:43
  hospitality experience. And so it's about helping you
• 20:46
  organize your tasks, your maintenance schedules, and then
• 20:50
  automate all the what is often unexciting but essential tasks
• 20:56
  that boil up to really executing on hospitality.
• 21:01
  And when clients lean into that and then understand how to sort
• 21:06
  of pull that together and understand the value of
• 21:09
  optimizing their operations and like their guest experience,
• 21:14
  hospitality teams are happier. They're more efficient, they're
• 21:17
  able to use data to make better decisions and less things fall
• 21:21
  through the cracks. So with more accountability and
• 21:24
  a better system, you end up really executing more on the on
• 21:29
  the hospitality mission that we're all trying to deliver
• 21:32
  right now. That's the idea.
• 21:33
  It's just make sure that we have happy guests.
• 21:36
  If we we have portfolios with multiple owners, we want to, we
• 21:40
  want to have very happy owners and and make sure the owners
• 21:43
  understand all the work that we do.
• 21:46
  What convinced you to start Breezeway and and how has the
• 21:49
  business evolved over the years? I started a business called
• 21:54
  Flipkey. It was a vacation rental
• 21:56
  marketplace, so I I had exposure and and make friends with
• 22:01
  thousands of property managers around the world.
• 22:03
  Through that business, I got really familiar with how they
• 22:06
  operated and I felt like improved property service would
• 22:12
  require a different sort of system, little different than
• 22:15
  maybe the property management system or something else, which
• 22:18
  was like very forward about property data and like what
• 22:23
  characteristics were in the property.
• 22:26
  Is there a hot tub? What's the size of the lawn?
• 22:28
  Tell me about your air filters. The more we could learn about
• 22:31
  the property and the more we can learn about how you were trying
• 22:35
  to execute to what standard of service, both for your owners
• 22:38
  and guests, you could build a system that really helped you
• 22:43
  execute on that. We initially called it property
• 22:45
  care software because we thought that relationship with the
• 22:49
  property was like really, really important.
• 22:52
  And since then we've connected operations deeper to the guest
• 22:55
  experience and to guest tools like messaging and welcome books
• 22:59
  and after hours call support. And we keep adding more of these
• 23:02
  products. So it's evolved over time, but,
• 23:05
  but basically I felt that what we do as hosting managers who
• 23:11
  are, you know, serving a guest and trying to deliver up this
• 23:16
  hospitality experience, it really is service and service in
• 23:21
  the field is becoming more challenging.
• 23:25
  It's harder to do, guest expectations are much harder,
• 23:29
  and it can be a challenge to differentiate yourself unless
• 23:32
  you're really good at that boots on the ground type of type of
• 23:36
  workflow. So I felt we could really help
• 23:38
  people there. And so now it's grown into the
• 23:40
  leading operations and guest experience platform.
• 23:44
  We've helped people do unbelievably like 70 million
• 23:47
  tasks across more than 350,000 properties globally, and it's a
• 23:54
  lot of fun. That's a lot of tasks as well.
• 23:58
  What trends in STR tech are exciting your most right now?
• 24:04
  Yeah. I think this combination, we
• 24:06
  talked a little bit about it, but I think this combination of
• 24:09
  1 trend is like automation and the human elements where you
• 24:14
  draw that line. I think, I think in property
• 24:18
  tech in an STR like everything is turning into hospitality,
• 24:22
  right? Short term, long term, student
• 24:24
  housing, property tech is turning into hospitality.
• 24:27
  And how do you deliver hospitality and that balance of
• 24:30
  automation and human effort, that balance of AI and
• 24:35
  personalization, I think it's really fascinating.
• 24:39
  And the future of hospitality will be defined by the balance
• 24:47
  between those two and leveraging more that you know about the
• 24:51
  guest and how you work to truly deliver like a personalized
• 24:55
  experience. I think it's going to be really
• 24:57
  interesting. So that's what that's what I
• 25:00
  spend most of my time thinking about.
• 25:03
  How do you see AI evolving within day-to-day operations?
• 25:08
  I mean, obviously you've got AI guess communication and and all
• 25:11
  sorts now, but how do you see it having an impact on on what
• 25:15
  you're doing? I think there's just a huge
• 25:18
  opportunity to, for AI to permeate, you know, AI should be
• 25:26
  permeating all of the software tools that we use and, and it
• 25:30
  is. And I expect we would just see
• 25:32
  that more and more from e-mail to anything else that you do and
• 25:37
  your operations and guest platform is no different.
• 25:40
  And so I think the ability for AI to help make smarter staffing
• 25:46
  decisions help make sure that you stay on top of recurring
• 25:50
  maintenance. We use things like very smart
• 25:53
  systems to do, like if I know you need to do something every
• 25:59
  60 days, but then there's a reservation that comes in, just
• 26:02
  helping you automatically move that to the next available day
• 26:05
  when that person is available. Like, that sounds very mundane,
• 26:08
  but you start to add up a few of those little stories over and
• 26:11
  over again. And the collective, you know,
• 26:15
  the collective body of work really changes the amount of
• 26:18
  time that an operator needs to think about what is going on in
• 26:21
  the field. And so I think it's about
• 26:24
  smarter decisions. And we're spending, you know, a
• 26:27
  lot of resources thinking about it, not just in guest
• 26:30
  communications, but across the operations platform.
• 26:33
  Going to be interesting to see how things develop.
• 26:36
  OK then Jeremy, we've got a few questions to finish.
• 26:39
  What's your favorite brand in the STR space?
• 26:42
  Apart from Breezeway, of course. I think Casa Go is doing
• 26:46
  something. Costco here in the US is doing
• 26:50
  something and in Mexico is doing something like really
• 26:52
  interesting the franchise model, and we're seeing this in some
• 26:57
  other parts of the world as well and with some other companies.
• 27:00
  That franchise model is really fascinating because of local
• 27:04
  operators who really care. I think.
• 27:07
  I think the industry has learned that local operators and local
• 27:10
  brands win the day, and so I'm really excited to see how some
• 27:17
  of these companies lean into that over the next couple of
• 27:19
  years and what that does for the industry.
• 27:22
  Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. We'll see how that develops an
• 27:26
  individual in the STR space you'd like to give a shout out
• 27:29
  to. Oh wow, other than you, James,
• 27:33
  the many years ago, I've done this individual for a long time.
• 27:39
  Tim Cafferty from Outer Banks Blue in North Carolina here in
• 27:45
  the States is just one of the kindest, you know, most
• 27:50
  unassuming professional operators who who just does it
• 27:56
  right and cares about his, cares about his craft and his team and
• 28:01
  I think just runs a remarkable business and has done so for
• 28:08
  quite a long time. So I'd give a shout out to my my
• 28:11
  friend Tim and his business at Outer Banks Blue.
• 28:15
  Great shout out for Tim there. Final question there.
• 28:18
  Number one thing you would change about the STR space if
• 28:22
  you could. This is a hard question.
• 28:27
  I think it's about more predictability and sort of the
• 28:32
  level of quality between operators, higher standards and
• 28:36
  safer properties for guests. I think this is what will drive
• 28:43
  the industry forward. This will bring more guests.
• 28:45
  This will drive up ADR, it'll reduce pressure on regulation
• 28:50
  because we'll have better actors in the space, you know, really
• 28:53
  usher in the next wave of maturity and growth to the
• 28:56
  market. This is what guests want.
• 28:58
  It's what owners want. The community where you operate
• 29:01
  and you have these and have your, you know, short term
• 29:04
  rental home and the managers. This is what everyone wants.
• 29:08
  I think we just have to. I'm excited for if I could snap
• 29:12
  my fingers and make it happen now, I would.
• 29:15
  But I think it's happening slowly.
• 29:18
  It's an evolution of professionalism, which leads to
• 29:22
  predictability and sort of higher quality baseline
• 29:24
  standards. But I'm very interested to see
• 29:28
  that develop over the next few years and how that propels our
• 29:32
  industry forward. And then you won't have to worry
• 29:35
  what your vacation went and looks like, will you?
• 29:37
  You won't be quite so concerned, yes.
• 29:41
  Jeremy, it's been a real pleasure.
• 29:42
  Thank you for joining us on the Host Planet podcast.
• 29:46
  James, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.
• 29:48
  Great to chat to Jeremy Gaul there from Breezeway about how
• 29:51
  to supercharge your STR operations.
• 29:54
  All right, that's it for today's episode.
• 29:56
  Remember, this podcast is brought to you in collaboration
• 29:59
  with House Philly, which is trusted by short term rental
• 30:02
  professionals across the globe. As a House Planet listener, you
• 30:05
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• 30:10
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• 30:21
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• 30:24
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• 30:28
  trends from the STR industry, visit House Planet dot Club,
• 30:32
  where you can sign up for our newsletter, listen to our
• 30:34
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• 30:38
  managers. That's it for today's episode.
• 30:41
  Until next time, happy hosting.