Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / What Happens When Hotels & Airbnb Merge?

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What Happens When Hotels & Airbnb Merge? · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

0:00
50% of the joy from the vacation happens with the anticipation of
0:04
the vacation. You don't say I have vacation
0:07
rentals. You say I have Airbnb.
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Airbnb has taken everyone's branding and made it theirs.
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I think that hotels and vacation rentals are competing for the
0:18
same customer. Are hotels and short term
0:21
rentals blending into one business?
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And what can vacation rental managers learn from the hotel
0:28
industry, especially when it comes to guest experience,
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branding and upselling. Ollie Benjamin previously worked
0:35
for Netjet's Victoria's Secret and American Airlines, and her
0:39
new solution could be about to bridge the gap between hotels
0:43
and short term rentals, helping serious hosts and property
0:46
managers to super charge their businesses.
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TuneIn to learn more on today's House Planet podcast.
0:58
Ollie, why do you think hotels and short term rentals are
1:02
blending? It really comes down to customer
1:05
behaviour. Traditionally, when people want
1:08
to go on vacation, they used to look at hotels.
1:11
Obviously, Airbnb democratizing access to home rentals really
1:17
changed the game, even though as an industry it's actually been
1:20
around much longer than Airbnb. And I think looking at the
1:24
segments of customers and how they're traveling, you could
1:27
call them guests as well. A lot of millennial families
1:31
would rather have a little bit more space and more amenities,
1:36
especially if they're a family of two adults, two to three kids
1:40
verse being in a hotel with maybe adjacent rooms are all
1:44
being crammed in one room and then having all these amenities
1:48
downstairs that you can't really access because the kids are
1:51
sleeping. And so I think really thinking
1:54
about how families travel and what they value, which is a
1:58
combination of the ability to have a great experience, not
2:02
just with the kids, but the adults, price and convenience.
2:06
I think that vacation rentals have really disrupted the model
2:09
of travel because they enable families and, and not just
2:14
families, right, groups of friends to have a trade off
2:17
where maybe they don't get their room cleaned every day, but they
2:19
get a lot of other things. What do you think short term
2:22
rental operators can learn from hotels?
2:25
Because what you've said makes complete sense, but there are
2:29
people out there who still prefer to go to hotels,
2:32
basically. I think it comes down to guests
2:35
and their values when they travel.
2:37
I see a lot of reasons when maybe just a couple, just two of
2:40
them, all they need is a place to sleep, which is a hotel room,
2:44
and they spend a lot of the time outside of the room, maybe
2:47
traveling in a city or going to restaurants.
2:51
In that use case, the hotel makes a lot of sense because the
2:54
conveniences and the amenities are all there and it's a small
2:58
group and so they don't really need to spend a lot of time in
3:01
the room. But I think when you have larger
3:04
groups that are traveling together, the hospitality aspect
3:10
that a hotel brings is still lacking in many cases in the
3:14
vacation rental experience. I have worked for a lot of great
3:18
hospitality brands and as someone who loves to travel,
3:21
I've experienced them personally as a as a customer as well.
3:25
There's a lot to be said about feeling like when you get
3:28
somewhere that you are anticipated.
3:30
That's almost the definition of hospitality, right?
3:33
You feel welcome, you feel known, and you feel able to be
3:37
comfortable. And in many cases, in a vacation
3:40
rental model, it can be very hard for an operator, especially
3:45
if they're remote, which most vacation rental operators are.
3:48
And there's no one on site to create the feeling of
3:51
hospitality. Hospitality is in a lot of ways
3:56
an emotional state, right? That one gives and one takes.
4:00
And when hotels have people on site, they can create that
4:04
experience. It's a lot harder with a
4:06
vacation rental when you don't have people on site to create
4:09
human connection, to enable the feeling of hospitality.
4:12
And I think there's a lot of ways that vacation rental
4:16
managers can extend hospitality in a remote way.
4:20
That just hasn't become a best practice necessarily for all
4:23
operators. I think it's a white space and
4:25
an opportunity. So what can they do then?
4:28
What's what's the next step for those vacation rental hosts who,
4:33
like you, say they are remote but struggling to really have
4:36
that human contact? Everything is people, systems
4:41
and processes when it comes to business.
4:43
Actually what Lasso is doing, which is the business I founded
4:47
is bringing the systems component to that.
4:50
But before I just talk about my business, I'll take a couple
4:52
steps back. So first, that has to be a value
4:55
of the business, right? So whoever is running the
4:57
business has to say hospitality is part of the value proposition
5:01
that we have in our vacation rental management business comes
5:04
from the top down. Once that value has been
5:07
established and there it could not be a value, right.
5:11
Some vacation rental management organizations don't choose to
5:13
have hospitality as a sort of value that they invest time and
5:17
resources in. But if that is a strategic
5:19
decision that a business makes, that they want their guests to
5:23
feel seen and welcome and come back and tell friends and
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they'll put in the extra time to do that, then it's a matter of
5:30
organizing the business to align to that value.
5:33
There's an element of people whose role is it and how do they
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play into the journey of the guests to do that?
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Then there's an element of process.
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How do you build that into a process?
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Ideally, it's repeatable and very low lift so that the people
5:48
are not bogged down with unreasonable needs.
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And then the third element is systems.
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The systems can enable those processes.
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Some of those processes can be manual and reactive based off of
5:59
roles and responsibilities, and some of them can be very
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proactive and leverage technology to create the element
6:07
of hospitality without having a human necessarily intervene
6:10
every time. Examples of how they hotels do
6:13
this are like for an extent, you know, automated messaging,
6:17
right? Like a other one.
6:19
I worked at netchets. One of the things that was
6:22
really important is evaluating the journey of the customer and
6:25
then knowing where they are in their experience, whether it's
6:28
they've just booked and not just as a private jet company.
6:31
For anybody who may not know if they've just booked their trip
6:34
to showing up to the trip, that could be a matter of hours or
6:38
could be a matter of months. That journey has specific
6:41
milestones and then kind of bringing proactive messaging to
6:46
anticipate the needs of someone. Is it a way to use technology to
6:50
bring hospitality into the experience without having a
6:53
human intervene at every moment? Now of course, at the level of
6:57
nature, if there are humans at every moment in addition to
6:59
technology, because it's probably the most high level
7:05
hospitality experience and low grade experience you have in the
7:08
world. If not one of them, what Lasso
7:10
does is it enables vacation rental managers to automate and
7:15
proactively anticipate the experience of a guest and set up
7:20
guest journeys with automations that ensure that the guest has a
7:25
great experience from the moment of booking, not from the moment
7:29
of showing up to the property. Because the vacation actually
7:32
starts as soon as you book it. There are statistics that show
7:35
that 50% of the joy from a vacation happens with the
7:39
anticipation of the vacation. If anyone's ever taken a super
7:42
last minute trip and felt that it was maybe a little more
7:44
empty, that's why. There's something for us humans
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that just feels incredibly energizing when you have
7:53
something to look forward to. So Lasso does it in a variety of
7:56
ways. I won't get into all the
7:57
details, but I I think that's the framework for thinking
8:00
around how to bring hospitality into a vacation rental space.
8:04
A few of the things that hotels do really well is that they
8:08
understand how important it is to get the details of the guest,
8:11
even if they've booked through like booking.com or Expedia or
8:14
something like that. And they're incredibly good at
8:17
upsells as well. When you get to the hotel, OK,
8:19
do you want to use the spa? Do you want to go to this
8:21
restaurant? Do you want to do XY and Z?
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How can vacation rental owners utilize what hotels do in those
8:29
spaces? Again, it feels almost like a
8:33
plug for Lasso, which I'll answer that last.
8:35
But really I think it comes down to knowing who the guest is from
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the moment of booking, knowing what type of trip they're taking
8:43
and who and who they're traveling with and what the trip
8:46
is all about. And then in response to having
8:50
some understanding of who they are, providing them with the
8:52
right recommendations to make their trip right.
8:56
And then starting the revenue maximization process from the
8:59
point of booking in a way that really provides value to the
9:03
guest. Revenue is a multiple of three
9:05
things. It's the amount of money that is
9:09
spent from each guest per trip. It's the number of trips that
9:14
each guest takes in a period of time, and it's the number of
9:18
guests that you have, right? Those three things multiplied by
9:21
each other equal revenue. And there's a lot of levers in
9:25
each of those areas that can be, you know, deployed in order to
9:30
maximize revenue, whether it's would you like to pay for early
9:33
check in, would you like to, I mean, think about airlines and
9:36
think about hotels. They have up fares, they have
9:38
last minute upgrades, they have in room dining.
9:42
So really, again, going back to the journey of the guest,
9:46
understanding the needs and wants of the guest and then
9:49
anticipating them in a way that maximizes revenue.
9:53
First, you have to know who they are.
9:54
Second, you have to be able to reach them.
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And 3rd, you have to be able to do it in an automated way that
9:58
maximizes revenues. There's a lot of point solutions
10:00
in the space right now that are doing some of these elements.
10:04
Nothing is comprehensive. And I think what's really
10:08
missing is knowing the guests because you can do a lot of
10:10
stuff and throw it at them, but if it completely misses the
10:14
mark, it feels incredibly irrelevant and actually takes
10:19
away from the experience versus adds to the experience.
10:22
What Lasso has built is an infrastructure to understand who
10:26
the guest is from the beginning, from the point of booking,
10:30
enable them to have a better experience through a digital
10:32
portal very similar to what something like a Marriott app
10:36
would have would be, or actually honestly what Net Jets has
10:38
internally from that portal. It's the source of truth for
10:42
communication and for recommending adjustments to the
10:48
trip as well as maximizing revenue because revenue can
10:50
happen from again, an example in the airline space, do you want
10:55
to, you want to upgrade your fare?
10:58
Do you want to add something to your stay?
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If it's a hotel, do you want to add an excursion?
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I mean, concierge is really kind of something that I think is
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under utilized as well in terms of revenue maximization.
11:11
There's the value of the lodging and there's the value of the
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trip. The cost of lodging is roughly
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1/3 of what someone spends on vacation, and if there's ways to
11:24
enable a natural insertion into the rest of the trip, whether
11:29
it's food or excursions or even some element of travel, that's
11:33
how you maximize revenue. You think about the whole stay
11:36
and then you essentially provide some value there for the guests
11:39
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12:29
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12:34
further details. I booked a flight with a budget
12:37
airline a couple of weeks ago and it was quite similar to that
12:41
process that you're describing there of.
12:44
There were so many things that they wanted to sell me, whether
12:46
it was insurance or car hire or a hotel room or an excursion,
12:50
all these kind of things. And I just find myself clicking
12:53
no, no, no, no. If you've got to be careful not
12:55
to make it a really annoying guest experience.
12:59
IA 100% agree. And I think that's part of when
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knowing who the guest is so that what is served to them as
13:05
relevant. And then I think also knowing
13:09
when to serve something at the right time.
13:12
It doesn't have to. I mean, you know, a lot of times
13:15
in the case of airlines, they do everything in the e-commerce
13:19
funnel, right? Like they've got you at that
13:21
moment and there's not a lot of follow up from the point of
13:24
booking to the point of departure.
13:27
That's not the only way to do it.
13:28
It's the way it's always been done.
13:29
And I would actually argue it's not the smartest way to go.
13:32
Because if the airline knows who someone is and they think that
13:36
they can communicate with them from a point of booking the
13:40
ticket to a point of departure based off of knowing something
13:45
about who they are or what the trip is.
13:47
Serving up the right recommendation, whether it's
13:49
through an app or through a follow up message, could
13:52
actually be a more effective way to get some of those things
13:56
converted come having come from e-commerce, right?
14:00
Like you have to be very careful about people falling out of the
14:03
shopping funnel. If you put too much in front of
14:06
the point of purchase, you can actually lose the purchase
14:09
altogether. And if you put too much after
14:12
the point of purchase, then obviously they just abandoned
14:15
the journey. It's very easy to track all of
14:18
those metrics. It's just a matter of someone
14:20
tracking those metrics and optimizing the process for how
14:25
something is sold through ABAB testing.
14:28
And even airlines probably have just done things the way they've
14:31
overdone them. And relative to other pain
14:33
points they may have, this may not be like their number one
14:35
priority. Yeah, after you've paid for your
14:37
your bag, you don't really want to pay for anything else.
14:40
So that's, that's my experience with the with the airlines
14:42
anyway in in the space right now.
14:45
There are quite a lot of solutions out there when it
14:47
comes to upselling platforms. There seem to be a new one every
14:50
single week. There's also platforms, gated
14:54
Wi-Fi for example. So there are solutions there
14:57
which are gathering guest data and helping hosts to earn
15:01
upselling revenue. But where do you think they're
15:03
really falling short? And what's convinced you that
15:07
there's a gap here in this space?
15:10
I think they're point solutions to a very specific point in the
15:14
journey and I think that a really great hospitality
15:18
business thinks beyond a point in the journey and they think
15:21
about the journey. Relationship marketing as a
15:26
definition is the idea of someone is your customer.
15:29
You re engage them at any point to drive more revenue or to take
15:34
some other action. Something like holding the
15:38
Internet hostage through Wi-Fi marketing solutions seems an
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exact contradiction to the concept of relationship
15:47
marketing. If the first touch point, when
15:50
someone walks into a home and they want to connect to the
15:53
Internet as they're asked for their information and they feel
15:55
like they don't have access to the Internet, that doesn't make
15:59
a guest want to have that brand in their inbox.
16:02
In fact, it's a negative experience.
16:04
There's nothing relationship building about that at all.
16:07
And so I think it's a very old approach that a long time ago
16:11
hotels used to do. And there also were other
16:13
business reasons for doing that, such as conserving bandwidth
16:16
because Internet has a cost and you just don't want devices
16:20
eating up a whole bunch of bandwidth.
16:21
But the world has changed in the last 20 years and now Internet
16:25
is so much less expensive. There's not really a cost
16:27
savings component to it. So the relationship marketing
16:31
aspect of it, to me seems incredibly outdated and, and,
16:34
and honestly, not even in the spirit of relationship marketing
16:38
in terms of upsells. There's a ton of players here
16:42
and I think it makes a ton of sense.
16:43
It goes back to the point I made earlier, which is how much is
16:46
someone spending on lodging and how else can you capture as a
16:50
vacation rental manager some element of revenue during the
16:54
stay because the stay is the overall spend versus the
16:57
lodging. I think that upselling something
17:01
in sort of minimal context is much harder to get a great
17:06
conversion rate on from the perspective of how a guest is
17:09
going to behave. I also think it's very hard to
17:12
defend as a point solution because every PMS is going to
17:16
build it on its own. And so I really think, I mean,
17:19
actually quite a few of them already have, right?
17:21
So I think any software solution out there that's only focused on
17:25
upsells will probably have some success right now until the PMS
17:29
is go ahead and build and do it. And I think it's just really
17:32
sort of indefensible in that way because it's a point solution.
17:35
The larger aspect of the experience, the relationship
17:39
with the guest, the ability to create brand loyalty.
17:44
I mean, ultimately brands have a value.
17:47
If you look at even the business model of licensing, I actually
17:51
used to run licensing for a large company when I worked
17:55
there, Anyone who walks into any store could buy the white label
18:00
product. Let's say it's a grocery store
18:02
and it's, I don't know, we'll use milk as an example, right?
18:06
Or there could be a brand of milk.
18:09
The brand could be a local farm, it could be a nationally
18:12
recognized distributor of milk, and then there's whatever the
18:18
grocery store sort of private label is.
18:21
The premium you pay for that brand is anywhere from 10 to 20%
18:25
depending on the product. But what the brand is, is it's a
18:28
promise. It's a promise that standards
18:31
will be set and met. That is a huge aspect of
18:34
hospitality. And so point solutions are on
18:38
upsells can drive revenue, but I think it's sort of very short
18:42
term if it's not considered in the larger ecosystem.
18:45
I think the brand opportunity kind of you going to your first
18:47
question around what are hotels doing their brands?
18:51
They create promises and they they keep those promises in the
18:56
way that a Starbucks or a McDonald's or any sort of Nike
18:59
well recognized brand has a standard that you buy into.
19:03
Lots of people are ultimately buying into when they pay a
19:05
premium. And so if something is unknown
19:09
in terms of the promise and the delivery, there's a little bit
19:12
less confidence for someone to take a take a risk on trying
19:17
that. Is this where you see the the
19:20
industry going in terms of branding, that property
19:23
management companies have to develop their own brands and,
19:27
and does this apply to people lower down the food chain if
19:29
they've only got one or two properties?
19:31
What would you say to those people who say, well, I've only
19:34
got 1 rental, do I really need to have a brand?
19:36
Is it really going to help me that much?
19:38
I do think everyone should have a brand because a brand is a
19:41
promise and a delivery of that promise, even if it is Grandpa
19:46
Joe's Cottages, Grandpa Joe is part of the brand.
19:50
It's the promise of Grandpa Joe and the effort that he puts into
19:56
curating experiences for his guests.
19:58
And part of that is what people would recognize if it was
20:01
exceptional and they would refer friends to and they would come
20:05
back and they would provide positive reviews.
20:09
I mean, the irony here is Airbnb has actually become the brand
20:13
for everyone else's business. Think about it, if somebody has
20:17
a handful of units. That they own, they operate, or
20:21
they manage. It doesn't matter what the
20:23
business model is. You don't say I have vacation
20:27
rentals, you say I have Airbnbs. Airbnb has taken everyone's
20:32
branding and made it theirs as a marketplace.
20:36
And I think it doesn't matter what your price point is.
20:40
I mean, Walmart is a perfect example of a brand whose entire
20:43
value proposition rests on great prices, right?
20:46
That's the promise with Walmart. It'll always be a little bit
20:49
less expensive there. Now it comes with their
20:52
operating model. There are fewer people staffing
20:55
the store. It's more self-service.
20:57
It's a little bit less of an elevated experience.
21:00
But if the value to that customer is all about cost
21:04
savings, that's the trade off they're willing to make.
21:07
And conversely, just to think about a great hospitality brand,
21:10
Ritz Carlton or even, you know, Marriott, which by the way, you
21:14
know, owns Ritz Carlton. They bought them.
21:16
The promise exists for each of the brands.
21:21
Wouldn't the portfolio of brands that Marriott has, and they have
21:24
so many brands because they're going after different customers
21:27
and different value propositions.
21:29
Someone who stays at maybe an addition is someone who really
21:32
appreciates design, modern amenities, minimalism, cutting
21:38
edge cocktails. Someone who stays at a Weston
21:42
might appreciate a more traditional aesthetic and a
21:45
traditional food style. At the end of the day, it's not
21:49
just lodging, it's an experience.
21:51
And so Marriott has created a series of brands to align to
21:56
people's value so that they can pick the one that aligns to how
22:00
they want to travel. I think every vacation rental
22:03
should have a brand. It's not just about making
22:07
guests happy. It's good business.
22:09
Kind of going back to the point I made around licensing.
22:12
There's a reason that brands exist and nothing is a world of
22:15
private labels because there's a premium you can charge when you
22:18
have established some level of recognition, some level of
22:22
promise and delivery. People rely on that brand.
22:26
If if someone is on a road trip and they want coffee and they
22:31
see the local coffee shop and they see Starbucks, most of the
22:36
time someone's going to walk into Starbucks not because the
22:38
coffee is the best because honestly it isn't, but the
22:41
bathroom is going to be clean. The delivery of what they're
22:44
going to order is going to be consistent and they know what
22:47
they're getting. And so a lot of times people
22:49
don't want to take a risk in the unknown.
22:51
Branding also helps mitigate risk from the perspective of the
22:54
guest and and the promise and delivery is there.
22:57
And that Starbucks might have Wi-Fi of course, as well, which,
23:01
which might not be gated or it might be depending on the
23:03
depending on the branch. And yeah, you're pointing about
23:05
Airbnb there. I mean, yeah, nobody says that
23:07
they're staying at a booking.com or a VRBO, that they're staying
23:10
at an Airbnb. And it's, it's remarkable how
23:13
it's become a, a noun and a verb, phenomenal branding
23:17
business In terms of the future then for for short term rentals,
23:21
where do you see things going over the next 5 to 10 years?
23:24
And how do you think AI might completely change not not just
23:29
this industry, but but the world I guess?
23:33
I mean, OK, I heard three questions.
23:35
I'm going to start with where I see things going.
23:37
And then I'm going to start with how AI is going to change the
23:39
industry. I can tell you right now, I have
23:41
no idea how AI is going to change the world because we all
23:44
don't know. It's going to come down to user
23:46
adoption. But I do have a point of view on
23:47
the 1st 2 questions. So we already are seeing it,
23:51
right? Marriott just bought a vacation
23:55
rental business for $120 million called Getaway.
23:58
They also have the Marriott Homes and Villas distribution
24:03
channel. Marriott has recognized that
24:07
vacation rentals are a substitute to hotels and in
24:10
order to stay relevant from a market share perspective, they
24:13
need to play in the space of vacation rentals and they've
24:16
already inserted themselves in that game.
24:18
Marriott is just generally as a business an earlier adopter,
24:22
more cutting edge, fast moving, well infrastructured and they
24:26
have, I mean the stock price shows that they do well, right
24:29
compared to some of the other hotel businesses out there.
24:32
I think that hotels and vacation rentals are competing for the
24:37
same customer and the market share is becoming more and more
24:40
fractured depending on who that customer is and what, who
24:46
they're traveling with and what they're traveling for.
24:49
So the business traveler still very much skews towards hotels
24:54
because of loyalty and points and status and the value
24:57
proposition there. I think that loyalty programs
25:00
are, I mean, we already see it, it's coming.
25:03
I'm forgetting the name of it right now.
25:05
It's from the individual, the points guy.
25:08
He's gone into starting a, a, a loyalty based system for
25:12
vacation rentals and boutique hotels that's already coming
25:16
into that industry. Brands are definitely existent
25:21
in the industry and you can see that some of the highest
25:23
occupancy rate properties are actually brands because they're
25:27
recognized and there's hype around them.
25:29
The definition of experience is incredibly open-ended.
25:34
Actually. Vacation rentals have raised the
25:37
bar. Now hotels are having to raise
25:39
the bar. They're adding pickleball courts
25:41
and they're also in some ways lowering the bar depending on
25:45
the value proposition. I stay in a hotel in Miami
25:47
recently and they don't change, They don't clean the room every
25:51
day. That's part of their, their
25:53
standard because a vacation rental doesn't, they've removed
25:56
that as a cost and they've been because of that.
25:59
And by the way, it was a nice hotel.
26:01
They, it's, it's, they've changed the model to not be what
26:04
all hotels are. And they don't always have staff
26:08
on site. I mean this, this ghost hotel
26:10
concept, it's just totally blending.
26:12
If you were to take 30 attributes of a hotel, 30
26:16
attributes of a vacation rental, you see that it's not just this
26:19
super tight 2 sided scenario where nothing is crossing.
26:24
It's, it's really blending and a lot of combinations.
26:27
So I think as we see that the playbook is going to change for
26:32
hoteliers and for vacation rental managers and operators
26:36
because they're blending the strategies.
26:39
And then in terms of AIAI is incredibly disruptive because
26:43
traditionally personalization, marketing, guest experience,
26:49
anything that involves knowing the customer has required
26:53
structured data and the process of creating a place for
26:58
structured data to live. Creating a process where people
27:01
input structured data, update structured data and groom
27:07
structured data is really hard. Even that Jets, I can tell you
27:10
there were scenarios where someone put in a note about
27:13
needing a car seat and then ten years later that note is still
27:17
there. And guess what?
27:18
That kid is now, you know, 13 instead of three and doesn't
27:23
need the car seat anymore. Because even though the
27:25
structure data existed, the person created the process, but
27:30
there's no sort of grooming methodology.
27:33
That's where AI can completely disrupt the process because it
27:36
can read, digest and recommend. And you don't have to have this
27:41
whole infrastructure and this whole grooming process because
27:43
AI can do that. It it enables personalization to
27:48
be so much better. It also raises the bar.
27:51
And I think the businesses that embrace AI and personalization
27:56
as part of their value proposition will see returns on
27:59
investment. And I think those that don't
28:01
will find themselves left behind with a commodity product that
28:05
doesn't deliver on an experience that expectations have been
28:10
created for by early adopter, early mover businesses.
28:15
We've got lots to look forward to before we get on to our
28:18
questions to finish. Then tell us what you're working
28:21
on. Tell us about LASSO.
28:23
So Lasso is really a combination of everything I've done in my
28:27
career put into software. I have worked in pricing
28:32
strategy at American Airlines, I've worked at Victoria's Secret
28:36
and marketing strategy and I've worked at Net Jets and
28:38
experience strategy. And as I mentioned before, I've
28:41
also spent some time in licensing and brand management
28:45
for ACBG company called Scott's Miracle Grow as well as
28:48
corporate venture capital. So when I entered into the
28:53
vacation rental space initially just as a personal side
28:57
business, right, built a cabin in the woods, bought a lot of
29:01
land with the option to continue to build.
29:04
I realized there was a major white space in terms of
29:06
marketing and guest experience technology.
29:09
Because when I started looking around for what I expected to be
29:12
in the industry, I couldn't find it.
29:14
And So what I did is create that.
29:15
And what Lasso is, it's essentially a digital experience
29:20
portal for guests to have a seamless guest experience, but
29:25
it's also in a lot of ways an e-commerce platform because that
29:29
digital portal is their source of truth for all things for the
29:33
trip. And it's also the place in which
29:37
all of the upselling, the personalization, the
29:42
remarketing, the understanding of the guests all happen.
29:47
It's sort of the digital ecosystem that brings in an
29:52
understanding of the guests through some element of host
29:57
engagement, but in other ways not, right.
29:59
Some of it is done by the actual software and the combination of
30:03
all of those things enables guests to own the relation.
30:07
I'm sorry. It enables hosts to own the
30:09
relationship with their guests by having the data for the whole
30:13
group, not just the person that booked the property in the
30:16
system. Knowing who they are with an
30:19
element of AI, being able to maximize revenue through a
30:22
variety of point solutions, including upsells.
30:25
And then from there, being able to create a remarketing engine
30:29
that turns guests into your sales force because they create
30:36
referrals, they write reviews, they create social proof and
30:42
they tell their friends and they come back.
30:45
And so it's really all fundamentally thinking about the
30:48
perspective of the guest journey from the point of looking to the
30:52
point of spending to the point of coming back and telling
30:55
others. And it's a full suite 1 stack
30:58
marketing engine that enables all of those things.
31:01
Superb and where can people find out more information?
31:05
My website is lasso dot IO. It is spelled LASOH dot IO
31:12
because nothing can be spelled correctly anymore if you're
31:15
trying to buy a domain name at this time.
31:19
I'm also available on LinkedIn if anybody wants to reach out to
31:22
me. I'm the founder and CEO.
31:24
My name is Orley, and I'm sure they'll be some sort of linking
31:28
after this call. So I'd love for anyone to reach
31:31
out, question me, push my thinking.
31:34
I love a good intellectual debate.
31:37
Ask to learn more. I'd love to.
31:39
I'd love to talk to anyone who's listening to this that's
31:42
curious. Sure, we'll put your LinkedIn
31:44
profile and also the website address for Lasso in the show
31:47
notes so people can easily find it.
31:50
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for further details. Go zeal.co.uk.
32:29
OK then Roly, we've got a few questions to finish.
32:32
So your favorite brand in the STR industry and why?
32:37
I'm going to actually have to say it's Marriott.
32:40
I know that some might not call it the STR industry, but they
32:43
just bought getaways. So I think they count.
32:46
I think that as a business from a strategy perspective, they
32:50
really understand the the value of being customer 1st and
32:54
working backward from the customer to create great
32:57
experiences. They also understand the value
33:02
of a customer that comes back and they've created the best
33:06
loyalty program in the industry. And they're really going to
33:09
disrupt vacation rental management because as they start
33:12
to play more and become a distribution channel for
33:15
vacation rental managers, vacation rental managers that
33:18
don't enable themselves to have direct bookings and don't enable
33:22
themselves to own their own book of business are just going to be
33:24
trading out Airbnb from Marriott.
33:26
And so I think they're really smart as a business.
33:29
I think as a vacation rental manager, if someone's not
33:32
interested in owning their book of business and direct bookings,
33:36
it creates another competitor to Airbnb.
33:38
And competition is good for vacation rental managers because
33:41
the more places where guests go to find properties, the less
33:48
leverage 1 Marketplace has, which is good for vocational
33:53
managers because you don't want to have a really consolidated
33:57
distribution model. You want to have diversity so
33:59
that people compete and businesses compete.
34:04
So yeah, I'd say Marriott. Great shout out for Marriott
34:08
homes and villas there next one then an individual in the STR
34:12
industry you'd like to give a shout out to and why.
34:16
I have recently been talking to Rachel all day, and I think that
34:20
her vision for Concierge is well beyond where technology can
34:26
provide an experience. And I always love anyone who's
34:32
got a unreasonable passion for hospitality and creating great
34:37
guest experiences, but also understands how to create a
34:39
business around it. And so I think she's got unique
34:42
pain points that she's experiencing.
34:44
She, she operates business out of sort of the Rockies space.
34:51
She she's, she's out of Utah with abode.
34:55
It's her business. And they've got 60 units under
34:57
management, particularly in the ski market space.
35:00
So high propensity for customers to come back, very specific use
35:05
cases around the whole trip, not just the lodging.
35:09
So great opportunity to maximize revenue.
35:11
None of the systems that she uses help her accomplish what
35:15
she needs. And I actually love when I talk
35:18
to people and I hear about their pain points because that's
35:21
always an opportunity for solution.
35:23
So anyone who's frustrated because they want to do more
35:27
than what they can do is always a great person to connect with,
35:30
to imagine creating a new future with.
35:32
Great shout out for Rachel there.
35:33
I like that term you use. Was it unreasonable commitment
35:36
or something like that? Was very good.
35:39
Finally, then, your number one lesson learned from starting a
35:43
business in the STR space. I have.
35:46
I feel like I want to answer this a couple ways.
35:48
I think specifically to the hospitality space, people are
35:54
really friendly. I actually, I've worked in a
35:57
variety of industries. I've worked in fashion.
35:58
People are not as friendly in fashion.
36:02
It actually makes starting a business in this industry really
36:05
pleasant because I think by nature, anyone's who's in the
36:10
business of managing vacation rentals has some element of
36:14
hospitality in their heart. They want to help others.
36:17
And so when I meet people and it's for the first time, I
36:21
always feel welcome. I always feel attended to in the
36:27
conversation. I also personally am someone who
36:30
has a strong sense of hospitality in my personal life
36:32
and in my professional life. I think there's an element of
36:36
sort of like kindred spiritedness that comes in this
36:39
hospitality space. It's really unique compared to
36:42
other industries. Some other industries really
36:45
people can't be bothered. They are focused on what they're
36:49
focused on. They don't have an interest in
36:52
engaging with strangers. They don't have an open
36:55
mindedness, A curiosity, a lot of the attributes that people
36:57
that love to travel have. And so I actually think it makes
37:00
it a great industry to be in because that sort of curiosity
37:06
and the kindness and the hospitality that comes from
37:09
other people, It's just very pleasant and such a high vibe to
37:14
be around versus other industries where things can be
37:17
just much less pleasant. So I was it makes sense, but
37:20
it's still it's it's a huge learning and just humanity, I
37:25
guess like shows up differently in different places.
37:27
I completely agree with you. Yes, after 10 years in a very
37:30
corporate environment, it's been a a breath of fresh air at
37:33
joining the STR space Orly. It's been a real pleasure
37:37
getting your take on the industry and learning more about
37:40
Lasso, of course. Thanks for joining us on the
37:42
House Planet podcast. Thank you so much, James.
37:44
I appreciate you having me and I appreciate your time.
37:46
I hope you enjoyed that interview with Ollie Benjamin
37:49
from Lasso. Building a brand and owning the
37:51
relationship with your guests has never been more important.
37:56
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37:59
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