Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / Is Your Direct Booking Website Useless?

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Is Your Direct Booking Website Useless? · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

0:00
You need your users, your visitors, to be able to
0:03
understand instantly why they should book with you rather than
0:08
booking anywhere else. Any technical aspects that don't
0:12
fully function on your website will result in you instantly
0:15
losing trust. There's only one brand and it's
0:18
Airbnb. Until anyone does it better than
0:20
them, we've kind of got to deal with it, but I really would like
0:23
us to kind of put up a bigger fight.
0:25
Why are most direct booking websites useless?
0:29
How can you turn lookers into bookers?
0:32
And what does it take to build a trusted and recognizable brand
0:35
that drives repeat bookings and customer loyalty?
0:39
Louis Andrews from Ovo Network is the special guest on today's
0:42
Host Planet podcast, and he has plenty of wisdom to share about
0:46
websites, Airbnb, and potatoes. Louis, thank you for joining us
0:56
on the House Planet podcast. Why are most direct booking
1:01
websites useless? Wow.
1:05
Hi, James. Thanks for having me going right
1:08
into it. Then.
1:09
First of all though, before we do start, I'd like to
1:11
congratulate you on your rebrand.
1:15
You are very kind. Thank you so much.
1:16
Yeah, it's, it's been great. It's been pretty well received.
1:20
A few people have said, oh, I liked the old one, but I think
1:23
90% of people have said, oh, it's great.
1:25
So yeah, thank you so much. I think I think they were wrong,
1:28
so you made the right decision. Well done.
1:33
Back to your question via most direct booking websites users, I
1:38
think that it comes down to a variety of things really.
1:41
Poor design, outdated technology, lack of clarity on
1:46
origins. You know who we were, who are we
1:48
talking to? I've, I was as in preparation of
1:51
this talk that we're going to have to get like started looking
1:54
over like probably about 50 different websites and obviously
1:59
the overall quality was incredibly poor.
2:02
Sadly. Then on top of that, it's really
2:04
confusing just landing on some of these pages which are just
2:08
very clearly not geared towards guests, but you have no idea
2:13
what the company is, what they do, and you you'll just bounce
2:16
immediately. So there's that.
2:19
I think a big part of it is also the lack of control that those
2:22
who've put the pages together have.
2:24
So for example, if most people are using website builders or if
2:28
they're building their website via their their PMS or a
2:32
functionality within their PMS, there's obviously kind of a
2:34
limited number of things that you can implement and you can
2:38
use and the number of tools that you can use.
2:40
I think a lack of control is a big one.
2:43
And then sadly also just a, a, a very kind of general lack of
2:48
basic web design I think is one of the one of the core problems.
2:53
But to, to kind of summarise what I think a good website is,
2:57
is that it's first and foremost a website that's is easy to use.
3:02
And I think that that's something that a lot of people
3:05
don't have front centre of mind. The second thing is that it
3:09
needs to look good. And again, I've got so many
3:13
examples, but so many just don't look the part.
3:18
And I think one really important thing with regards to bookings,
3:22
because obviously we're talking about conversion as part of the
3:25
direct booking process, is that you need your users, your, your,
3:30
your visitors to be able to understand why instantly why
3:35
they should book with you rather than booking anywhere else.
3:41
And then obviously just kind of slightly pushing that a bit
3:45
further, you then need to make sure there's there's this kind
3:48
of seamless flow from end to end arrival on the page all the way
3:53
to booking, which means that there's no hurdles.
3:56
Because the exercise that I was doing in preparation of this
3:59
talk with you was looking at websites, but primarily I was
4:03
looking at home pages. And then I made the mistake of
4:06
starting to actually do searches and boy oh boy are the search
4:12
pages even worse than the homepage.
4:14
So to to kind of summarise that the the homepage for me should
4:18
have the three main search criteria.
4:23
As part of your search bar, you can tell me what the three main
4:27
search criteria are. Well, your your properties, the
4:32
dates, number of guests. Yeah.
4:35
So it should be. It's usually destination states,
4:39
capacity. They're the three, three key
4:41
ones. You know, you look at you're
4:43
looking at Verbo, you're looking at Airbnb, you're looking at
4:45
booking they're the ones that everyone has.
4:49
We interestingly over network only have two out of the three
4:54
because we don't have destination, but we'll get into
4:56
that a bit later. But so many people literally
4:59
first of all have their main CTA, their main call to action.
5:04
You know, below what we call the folds, which means that you have
5:06
to Scroll down to find it. So that's not something that I
5:10
would kind of advise you to do, including Sykes, by the way,
5:14
which I found astonishing is that Sykes have got their
5:16
booking window, but the the return button is below the fold.
5:20
Mind blowing. So so you need that.
5:23
So you need the the three key search criteria.
5:25
And then again, you need this kind of like strap line of like
5:28
why you should actually book with the company that you're
5:31
wanting to book with. So that's kind of where we are
5:36
right now. And to be honest, I could
5:37
literally spend an hour with you looking through and sharing my
5:41
screen and looking at loads of different websites because it's
5:44
such a good exercise to do. And I don't think enough people
5:47
do it of like just looking at what competitors do and things
5:49
like that. But it's really, really like
5:51
really interesting. I think we might do that one
5:54
day. OK, real talk now for all you
5:55
hosts out there, you know that moment when you guest messages
5:59
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sorted with house fully. Let's break it down.
7:14
If a property manager comes to you and says I've got, I don't
7:18
know how many properties, let's say 1020, they're sick of paying
7:21
the OTA fees. They want to really double down
7:23
on direct bookings. They want to build a really good
7:26
direct booking website that converts.
7:29
Where should they start? What should the process be?
7:31
What would your best advice be to them?
7:33
Yeah, I mean, you know, the classics start with Y, but I, I
7:38
think fundamentally you've got to first and foremost go back to
7:44
the the original question, which is why should I vote with these
7:46
guys other than somebody else? Bearing in mind that a key
7:51
feature in all of this is the trust factor.
7:54
You need to be able to have visitors trust you very soon in
8:01
the process. Otherwise, they're just going to
8:02
give up, which is why, again, like any technical aspects that
8:05
don't fully function on your website will result in you
8:08
instantly losing trust. You know, like a, a payment, a
8:12
payment button that's that's broken or you know, something
8:15
that doesn't quite isn't quite optimized.
8:17
That's a big, big problem. But as part of getting people to
8:21
trust you, I think that it needs to be clear for you what you do
8:25
and who you are. So interestingly, the way, and
8:28
this is really fundamentally the, the answer to the question
8:31
is that, and it's, it's a lot deeper than I think a lot of
8:35
people want, because a lot of people just want a flick of the
8:38
magic wand and say this is the secret to direct bookings.
8:40
But it's, it's way deeper than that.
8:42
And it's, it's, it's your core values, basically it's who you
8:45
are. And it's, you know, your, your
8:47
unique selling proposition. And that's the key thing is that
8:50
you need to identify what your USP, your unique selling
8:54
proposition is in that what you need to avoid is having a losing
8:59
at USP where you know, you've got your competitor who's better
9:04
suited to cater and to, to satisfy your target customers.
9:09
You've got a risky USP, which is that you don't actually offer
9:13
anything different from your competitors.
9:15
So you're totally aligned. You're doing the same thing,
9:17
which is kind of where lots of people fall.
9:19
Everyone ends up doing the same as everyone else.
9:21
So how, why would anyone choose them over anyone else, bearing
9:24
in mind that and everyone else includes the OTA platforms and
9:27
most people know of and trust therefore the OTA platforms, so
9:32
are much more likely to book with the trusted OTA platforms.
9:36
You've then got the uninteresting USP, which is
9:40
basically you've developed an offering and you've developed a
9:42
niche, but it doesn't actually interest anyone.
9:45
So you know, a platform where you can book exclusively pink
9:53
homes with foot massages. It's great, it's unique, but how
9:59
many people are you actually going to be able to convert and
10:01
be interested in that? Although this probably is a, a
10:04
weird news that we might not get into just now.
10:08
So therefore what you need is you need a winning USB.
10:10
So a winning USB is literally that you're, you've, you've
10:12
defined a very unique, perfectly suited targeted audience and you
10:17
cater to that audience better than competitors.
10:22
So very briefly looking at over network, you know, over network,
10:26
we've got 200 properties and what we specialize in our niche
10:31
is what we call unique chalets in authentic destinations.
10:35
So there's a lot kind of to unpack within that.
10:37
Unique usually means special high end.
10:42
It's usually got, you know, our properties have usually got
10:44
extra features like a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi, the sauna,
10:49
things like that. They've got a wow factor that
10:51
makes them unique. Chalets very much describes the
10:55
type of property. I mean, you know all about that
10:57
with holiday cottages, which is again, a very kind of tight,
11:02
tighter niche. But for us, it's important to
11:05
have that tight niche because it really defines what we do.
11:07
So chalets and then authentic destinations means, you know,
11:13
we're obviously not an urban destination and authentic is
11:16
kind of like it's not your high altitude ski resorts, which
11:20
we're not necessarily specialized in.
11:22
It's more of the remote village type ski resorts that aren't
11:25
solely dependent on skiing. And so if you'll indulge me in
11:31
giving you a few stats, I've got some just just so that we really
11:37
understand where I'm coming from because I think that obviously
11:41
there's a lot of talking heads in our industry and obviously
11:45
that's why we we're all invited to podcasts all the time.
11:48
But the where I'm obviously coming from is, is a slightly
11:51
different perspective than quite a lot of people because we've
11:54
actually kind of been there and done this from a from a very
11:57
much a property management perspective rather than being
11:59
from a technology provider's perspective.
12:01
So over a network generated €15,000,000 in GBV last year.
12:07
I think that's where a good place to start.
12:10
Again, 200 properties, we welcomed 330 thousand, 30,000
12:15
guests into our properties last year.
12:18
So our direct booking value percentage was up 75%.
12:24
So we get a huge majority of our bookings through our direct
12:28
booking platform. Bearing in mind that the
12:30
averages are 3% in urban areas and 30% in leisure areas.
12:37
We've got an annual occupancy rates of 53%, which again is a
12:42
really strong concern that most people think of us as a winter
12:45
destination, you know, for a couple of weeks in winter.
12:47
Average booking value is €4000. And then where we get to the
12:52
nitty gritty of like how we then support all of that is that we
12:56
have over 40,000 visitors to our website every month, which is
13:01
huge in volume and we achieve that throughout.
13:04
Loads of different strategies that we may get into a bit
13:07
later, but we have over 1000 blog articles and over 1500
13:13
landing pages, which results in us being, you know, in the top
13:17
three ranking in organic searches for all our key terms.
13:22
Shadow of Jacuzzi, shadow of swimming pool, shadow of sauna.
13:25
And we do that a lot by working and investing massively on SEO,
13:30
search engine optimization, SEA advertising, UX and UI.
13:37
And UX and UI are also key. And we've obviously just talked
13:39
about this before. I guarantee that you'll be able
13:43
to ask a lot of property managers and they won't even
13:45
know what UX and UI is. So it's user experience and user
13:49
interface. And again, it's about the ease
13:50
of use. So the key to all of this is
13:53
innovation. To me.
13:55
You've got to kind of be able to be creative.
13:57
You've got to be innovative. We've got a huge amount of luck
14:02
in that. We've developed our own bespoke
14:05
PMS and we develop our own website internally.
14:09
So again, we've got that full control over what buttons to use
14:13
and what flow and what funnel we want to use within kind of the
14:18
whole process of attracting a guest to having the guest stay,
14:22
do a search, choose properties that they want to book and then
14:26
book them. So we've got that full kind of
14:27
visibility on that. We've got obviously the full
14:29
statistics on that of what's the drop off per page, what buttons
14:33
are we are people clicking on, what's the time that they're
14:36
spending on each page. You know, we've got so much data
14:39
because we own that data, which is the whole key of all of this.
14:44
And again, the innovation allows us as well to, you know, exploit
14:48
new features that most people don't have.
14:50
So a quick example is that we have 24 hour holds on our
14:54
website. So what that means is that a
14:56
guest, any guest can hold up to three properties for 24 hours
15:00
without exchanging any money, which means that they, they've,
15:03
they've got an intent to book, they've not exchanged any money,
15:08
but they're then in the, you know, the mail cycle, the e-mail
15:11
cycle, and we'll start retargeting them and things like
15:13
that. That's only possible due to
15:15
functionality that we've developed internally rather than
15:20
using somebody else's tool. And I think that that's, well,
15:24
I'll stop for this question, but fundamentally to kind of
15:28
summarise this point is that our network operates in a very, very
15:32
different way to most proper managers.
15:34
And what I mean by that and why it's importance relating to
15:37
direct bookings is that our staff, our employees, there's
15:42
not a single one of them that's a cleaner, a maintenance guy, a
15:46
chalet manager, a city manager, somebody that does the check in
15:49
checkouts. Our employees are software
15:51
developers, consultants, consult owners on how to optimize their
15:56
performance. There's a marketing team,
15:59
there's a distribution team, there's a revenue management
16:01
team, and there's a finance team.
16:03
And again, talking to so many operators, you know, when you
16:08
ask them what their biggest concerns or challenges are,
16:11
they'll say it's my PMS or it's my cleaners.
16:15
Well, we have our own PMS and we don't do any of the cleaning
16:17
ourselves, which allows us to focus on what makes the direct
16:22
booking strategy, other networks so strong.
16:26
In terms of developing your first direct booking website,
16:30
where should you go? Where should you start?
16:32
Can you start with APMS? Can you do something yourself or
16:38
do you need to go to a specialist?
16:42
It says that's a fantastic question because I think that
16:45
it's really easy for me to be able to say you need to do it
16:50
all yourself When I come again from a place of luxury in that
16:56
Ivo Network was founded in 2008, which is the same year as
17:00
Airbnb. So therefore we didn't really
17:03
have a choice. We had to build our own direct
17:06
booking website and the founders and the first people that were
17:10
employed at Overnetwork all had a tech background.
17:13
So again, that was front and centre to what we did.
17:16
Our business was we're going to build and our two services still
17:18
today are we're going to build an incredibly high performing
17:22
direct booking platform, a marketplace over Network.com for
17:26
a very specific type of niche properties.
17:29
And then we're going to build a fully bespoke PMS system, which
17:33
is going to help owners exploit it and earn, you know a higher
17:38
potential of revenue than they could with any other operator.
17:42
However, and I think this is kind of the core roots of a lot
17:45
of the problems and we'll speak about Airbnb a bit later, but
17:50
there's an ease of use not from the guest, but from the property
17:54
manager in terms of the accessibility of creating your
17:59
listings on Airbnb, using a channel manager to distribute,
18:03
creating your whole system within somebody else's PMS,
18:07
etcetera, etcetera. Which means that I think that
18:11
the question that you've asked is it can only be answered on a
18:14
case by case. But the reality is that it's
18:17
going to cost you a whole lot more money to create everything
18:20
yourself from the ground up instantly rather than using, you
18:24
know, fairly good third party software systems to support you.
18:29
But I think that therefore what the healthy action to do is to
18:34
kind of make sure that in your calendar, whether that be twice
18:39
a year or once a year, you're checking up on how you're doing
18:43
and then where to reinvest your profit.
18:45
And I'd argue that reinvesting and expanding and just growing
18:50
your cleaning team is at some point not going to be the best
18:53
option. Not that you shouldn't do that,
18:55
just that at some point you should probably try and look at
18:58
re seizing some of that control and starting to build some of
19:01
your stuff in house. And that means investing in a
19:04
developer team and things like that.
19:05
And the PMSS will tell you that that that's impossible because
19:09
they've got a team of 100 developers working 9:00 to 5:00,
19:13
seven days a week or whatever, and therefore you can't do it
19:15
yourself. I'm sorry, but they are wrong.
19:19
I have two full time developers and I've shown multiple people
19:23
our PMS. I'm not saying that it's better
19:24
than theirs, but it's up there and we've done it through hard
19:28
work and again, innovation. And yes, it's a budget for sure,
19:33
but I feel like the control that you get from doing that is worth
19:37
any, every penny you put into it.
19:39
So again, it's a case by case. I'll happily talk more about it,
19:44
but that's kind of the positioning.
19:46
So in summary, again, to answer your question, probably no,
19:51
don't start from the ground up, literally with nothing at all as
19:54
you start. But make sure that you're kind
19:56
of in a very healthy way, checking in with yourself to
19:59
make sure that as you grow, you're not becoming too overly
20:03
dependent on third parties. What have been the most
20:08
effective innovations or the most effective parts of your
20:13
website which have turned lookers into bookers?
20:19
Lookers into bookers, there's a there's a lot.
20:23
And interestingly, like I'm having this little conversation
20:27
with you and kind of feeling quite passionate, passionate
20:31
about it all. But you know, the reality is
20:33
like, for example, we're reviewing our whole UXUI design
20:39
of the websites across every single page almost as we speak.
20:45
And I feel like our website's already pretty good.
20:48
It's, it's, it's one of the best.
20:50
I'm not going to say it is the best because I don't think it
20:52
is, but it's, it's, it's already really good.
20:54
But already we're trying to kind of reinvent ourselves.
20:57
So there's, there's always room for improvement.
21:00
Again, we've kind of talked about functionality and making
21:02
sure that the tech aspects work. I mean, there's the basic stuff
21:06
like above the fold and below the fold, like is so, so basic.
21:10
But yet again, going through my analysis, so many companies
21:15
failed there. And there's, there's elements of
21:18
it as well, which go back to two main principles, I think, which
21:22
are the difference in between brand and branding.
21:26
It's really important to have a strong brand, but also strong
21:29
branding. And I think that when often when
21:31
we speak about having those strong brands, people think that
21:35
we're meaning branding. So just to differentiate in my
21:38
own words what the 2 are, strong branding means that you're the
21:42
logo's good, that your colours are goods, that your
21:45
communicate, the way that you communicate about things is
21:48
consistent and is good. It looks pretty and things like
21:52
that. And interestingly, a lot of like
21:54
companies that I know and respect within the industry, I
21:58
was again on their direct booking websites and I was like,
22:01
their branding isn't that good. Their brand is good.
22:04
So like their values, who they are, fundamentally what they
22:07
represent, their type of property, all these things are
22:09
fantastic, yet their logo looks like it was made in 1997.
22:15
That's a real issue, especially in our day and age where people
22:19
are so used to, you know, interacting with brands that are
22:23
strongly built and consistent and that have great branding.
22:26
And the great brands, you know, look at, I don't know if you saw
22:29
the like the, the most recent, like Google update where like
22:32
even Google that don't need to update their branding have just
22:36
updated their logo. So there's like people are
22:38
changing all this stuff all the time.
22:41
And therefore I think that's that's that's really, really
22:43
key. I mean, for for us, for example,
22:45
we have a brand book which is 92 pages long.
22:50
And that's because we've we've made sure that it's super duper
22:53
key. So fundamentally you've got to
22:55
identify that and that's how you're going to make sure that
22:58
people the book will all become booked.
23:01
But then again, it goes back to, and I'm sorry to make this kind
23:04
of maybe more philosophical than an A-Z guide on how to get
23:08
direct bookings, which I can produce.
23:10
It's just I won't be able to kind of scope it out in as
23:13
enough detail in the time that's kind of allocated to this chat.
23:16
But you know, there's basic marketing principles around, you
23:20
know that they call it the four PS of, of marketing.
23:23
So product price, place, promotion product.
23:27
What's your type of property price?
23:30
At what price range is that property place?
23:34
So this would usually be geography.
23:36
Where, where are they? Where are the properties and
23:38
then promotion, how do you market around those things?
23:41
Now those four things are really easy questions that I'd
23:45
encourage all your listeners to do because where you're going to
23:48
start to lose out on direct bookings is if there's no
23:51
correlation or alignment within these these four things.
23:54
So if you've got tiny urban apartments and lakeside villas
24:01
and then a mountain property, that's obviously totally
24:05
diluting your offering if the price goes from €70 a night to
24:10
€500 a night, again, diluting if geographically.
24:15
I was with one of our peers on Saturday and he gets almost no
24:22
direct booking, direct booking at all.
24:25
And I looked at his website, it was broken.
24:27
And then his, his, his properties are in the South of
24:32
France and in Mexico. It's like, well, yeah, of
24:36
course, you don't get any direct booking.
24:38
So there's that. And then it's all about how you
24:40
promote it as well. Makes a lot of sense.
24:44
You've talked about trust quite a lot, so how have you gone
24:49
about building a trusted and recognizable brand?
24:53
What would be a top tips to other people who want to emulate
24:57
what you've done at Ovo Network? Yeah.
25:00
And I think so that makes me think of another point that's
25:04
quite interesting actually. And I think that a lot of the
25:09
times when we're at conferences or when we're listening to
25:12
podcasts and things like this, there seems to be this narrative
25:16
which confuses direct bookings with repeat bookings.
25:21
I'm just rebounding off of that because I think that a lot of
25:23
people when they talk about building trust, I think that
25:26
people think that it's about building trust with existing
25:30
customers, which is fantastic. And to be honest, a lot of
25:34
companies do way better at building trust than we do.
25:38
Because I know that some people have huge amounts of direct
25:41
bookings and they achieve this by first getting those bookings
25:45
via the OTA and then providing such a good level of service.
25:49
You know, I can't remember who it was at conferences was saying
25:51
how one of their tips I was, it was slightly laughable, but one
25:55
of their tips to get direct bookings was to have comfortable
25:59
mattresses because that meant that people would book again
26:02
with you because your mattress is comfortable.
26:04
So some people are really good at building trust through
26:08
quality of service. And then that means that it
26:10
generates repeat bookings. OK.
26:13
But what I would like to push back on is that at least at the
26:18
level that I'm Speaking of, I very much differentiate, repeat
26:22
and direct. One thing that is another slight
26:27
trap or is worth pointing out as a nuance here with regards to
26:33
direct bookings versus OTA bookings is that I, I repeatedly
26:37
hear as an argument, as a de facto argument, the point that
26:42
most operators or or most guests even by booking directly with
26:47
the operator can save themselves between 15 and 17% because it's
26:52
without the OTA Commission. Craig, that's.
26:56
What we're here. OK.
26:58
So how many operators do you think don't charge a
27:01
distribution fee on their own on their own booking platform?
27:07
Probably quite a few. So I, I don't know the answer.
27:11
I was hoping you may, but maybe it's a question that you'll need
27:14
to ask. But I, I think a huge majority
27:18
don't like again, looking at some of these websites today,
27:22
some of them even have as a strap line on their website like
27:25
15 to 17% cheaper prices than anywhere else, which is an OK
27:32
strategy. No, go on.
27:33
You're going to give. AI was going to say that's
27:35
pointless, right? If well, what's the point of
27:38
having direct if you're just going to get the same amount
27:41
that you'd get from an OTA? Yeah.
27:43
So, so over network charges a distribution fee of 12.5%,
27:47
right. So that's means that there's a
27:49
slight discount of booking directly, which is 2.5, but that
27:54
means that I'm making and that's effectively kind of 50% of of my
28:00
over network revenue is through that distribution fee.
28:04
Imagine how much less money I'd be making if I wasn't charging
28:08
that, and how much more money I could be making if I could even
28:12
aspire to charge for the use of my direct booking platform
28:16
though. Because The thing is, is that
28:18
most platforms are so poor in quality that they can't even
28:24
pretend to be worth anything. Whereas again going back to our
28:27
40,000 visitors that we get on a monthly basis and kind of like
28:31
this huge majority of bookings that we get direct.
28:34
That's now one of our core selling points to owners because
28:37
we say to them, look, we get more bookings than any other
28:40
platform in the area. And the only way that you can
28:43
tap into the volume of guests that are high quality, high
28:46
intense guests that we provide is by working with us.
28:50
So there's a real commercial aspect to that.
28:53
And then the bookings generate double the income for us when
28:56
guests book directly on our platform, which again then
28:59
allows us to reinvest in our marketing, in our dev, etcetera,
29:02
etcetera. So it's, there's a whole
29:04
ecosystem that is built around running a direct booking
29:09
platform, you know, a recognized website going back to your
29:13
trusted point, a trusted website that totally makes sense and is
29:19
again, worthwhile because you can actually charge for it.
29:22
And I think that a lot of people look at direct booking websites
29:25
and go, it's just a bit of a faff.
29:28
What's actually in it? Why don't I just get all my
29:30
bookings from Airbnb anyway? And So what I just wanted to
29:33
highlight there was the fact that it's actually, you know,
29:36
for us, it's half of our income stream.
29:38
So there's a huge revenue opportunity for people to start
29:41
doing that. And then for the trust, and this
29:45
goes back to some of the more, the more basic stuff.
29:46
But maybe you're right and we should kind of touch on it kind
29:50
of rapidly. But obviously there's the whole
29:51
brand consistency in making sure that the way you present
29:54
yourself is aligned, you know, throughout your all your
29:57
content. But then there's all the very,
29:59
very simple stuff that, I mean, we repeat all the blinking time
30:03
and I'm sure you do as well. But you know, it's, it's all
30:04
down to quality of photography, quality of the list of
30:09
amenities, quality of the copy and things like that.
30:12
And at the very least, to be honest, those are the most basic
30:17
things that you can do. And what's interesting is that
30:20
again, looking at so many of our peers, so many people have still
30:24
not quite grasped the importance of those simple elements.
30:28
And if, and bearing in mind that one, one thing that I'll just
30:33
quickly say with regards to quality when I'm talking about
30:35
quality of content is that it's quality relevance to how aligned
30:41
the content is with the truth. What do I mean by that?
30:46
I mean the good quality photography, for example, it's
30:51
as important to have good quality photography that
30:57
accurately sells what the property is in that if you
31:04
undersell. So if you take bad photography,
31:08
photography's terrible, you're not going to get any bookings.
31:10
Fine, that's a fact. But what I'm trying to get
31:13
across is that it's as dangerous or maybe even more dangerous to
31:18
do. And I've seen loads of these
31:20
like over saturated, overly photoshopped pictures of living
31:25
rooms where you know, or I know at least you know from from
31:28
working in the industry that you're going to arrive and
31:30
you're going to be disappointed. And there's nothing worse than
31:32
that as well. So quality relevant to reality,
31:36
because otherwise you're going to end up selling false dreams
31:39
and false expectations and getting terrible reviews.
31:43
So there's that as well. It feels to me that there are
31:47
quite a lot of property managers out there who do have a direct
31:51
booking website, but it's not particularly good.
31:54
They don't really do any marketing, they don't really
31:58
invest in SEO, they don't have any blog posts.
32:01
For those property managers, is having a direct booking website
32:05
a waste of time? I, I think saying it's a waste
32:14
of time is quite difficult. I think that, you know, not
32:18
everyone's got an insane about of, of budget to, to spend on
32:24
these types of things. And a lot of people going back
32:28
to like how the other network team is, is constituted.
32:33
A lot of people don't have anyone that's a marketing
32:37
person, a dev person, a distribution person, etcetera.
32:41
And that would be actually something that I'd be really
32:44
interested in is understanding how different property
32:47
management businesses are constituted.
32:50
Because most of them they'll have on on sites cleaning and
32:55
maintenance staff, which is absolutely fine and is a real
32:58
necessity with regards to our activity.
33:01
But it's not that that, that to me it's, it's, it goes back to
33:05
what I was saying about Airbnb is that it's easily accessible.
33:08
OK, finding somebody that's like cleaning is a really tough job
33:12
to do. But it's something that's quite
33:14
easily accessible in that, you know, you can, you can apply to
33:19
be a cleaner and you can either be a really good cleaner or you
33:23
can be a really bad cleaner. However you'll end up, you know,
33:27
likely managing to find a way of and running a business and
33:30
running your cleaning business and, and kind of growing your
33:33
skills within that realm. Whereas, well, I'm talking about
33:36
something that's slightly different here in this the, the,
33:39
the, the expertise and the, the marketing expertise and the
33:42
software engineering expertise of some of my stuff.
33:46
Like I would never be able to, to, to reach that level
33:49
whatsoever. You know, they're, they're way
33:51
better than me at that. And I think that therefore the
33:54
problem going back to your point is that a lot of people are are
33:57
too busy doing like running the property management.
34:01
So like the physical day in, day out stuff.
34:05
But again, I think that they're probably too busy kind of
34:08
focusing on the wrong things. Really.
34:11
An example of this that I give is the fact that over network is
34:16
the longest running professional super host in France And we've
34:21
achieved that without doing the cleaning or welcoming ourselves.
34:26
And it's and, and yet whenever I talk about reviews with people,
34:31
they they, they're all complaining about the fact that
34:34
the reason why they're no longer a super host or the reason why
34:37
they get really bad reviews is because their cleaning team
34:40
isn't good enough. Well, it's like, yeah, but I
34:43
don't do the cleaning and yet we get the most amazing reviews
34:48
anyway. So it's all about focus.
34:51
And I think it's all about again, defining your niche and,
34:54
and, and where you want to work. And then also kind of looking at
34:56
the, the, the tiers of conversion funnel.
34:59
Because I think there are a lot of people talk about marketing
35:02
and marketing their direct booking platform and they look
35:06
at the cost that's associated to that.
35:08
And they kind of go, I need to start posting pictures on
35:12
Instagram or something like that.
35:14
Whereas actually there's and there's so much information out
35:17
there, but there's also so many really well qualified people
35:20
that can help like really identify, you know, like the,
35:23
the different stages of the funnel.
35:25
You know, you've got awareness, you've got consideration, you've
35:27
got conversion and like defining your strategy with regards to
35:31
all that and really thinking about it.
35:34
I mean, we, the number of workshops that we've had and
35:36
done around like who we are, why we do what we do, how to present
35:41
it. This whole thing is like, we're
35:44
talking like over the span of multiple years, obviously, but
35:47
we're talking of like probably several months of literally just
35:50
reflection around who we are, why we why we are who we are,
35:55
and then how we communicate around it.
35:57
And then using the right people, the right teams to help us
36:02
communicate around that. In terms of marketing, this is
36:06
one thing we've spoken to Dale Smith from Host and stay a few
36:09
times about on our podcasts and he said he's always amazed by
36:13
the amount of property management companies who rely on
36:16
word of mouth to grow their business and don't really invest
36:19
anything in in marketing. What would your message be to
36:24
property management companies who who really just don't spend
36:27
any money on marketing their business?
36:30
Yeah, I mean, to be fair to the people that aren't there or not
36:33
everyone's got the budget to sponsor Derby Football Club.
36:36
So there's, there's a bit of nuance there, I I think, but I
36:42
mean, word of mouth is an interesting one.
36:45
But I feel personally, and my guess is that I don't know how
36:50
much of this, this comment from Dell was, do you know how much
36:56
of it was around guests or owners?
36:58
Because to me that's very much an owner comment.
37:00
So like word of mouth is fantastic with owners.
37:03
That's how that's the best way that you can generate owner
37:07
leads. It's through word of mouth
37:09
referrals. All our owners, or a huge
37:11
majority of our owners are owners that are friends with
37:16
existing owners, owners that are friends with existing chalet
37:19
managers, owners that are friends with people that work at
37:22
over network, or owners that have become owners after being
37:26
over network guests. I think his point was the fact
37:30
that he'd see property management businesses who had
37:33
say, 100 rentals who did no marketing and he reckoned if
37:37
they'd done more marketing to appeal to more owners to
37:40
increase their brand awareness that have had 200 properties on
37:44
their books by now. I I think, yeah, but that's the,
37:51
that's the main differentiation between and and which is never
37:56
made by the way. So the what?
37:57
So what I'm about to describe is something that we never do at
38:01
least enough or at all in my opinion, is differentiating
38:06
between amateurs and professionals.
38:09
That's not to discriminate against either group there.
38:12
It's just to say that on one end you have people that are trying
38:19
to build up a business and build up a brand.
38:22
And for me, part of that is receiving direct bookings,
38:27
mainly because I identify much more with the school of thoughts
38:32
that aims for quality over quantity.
38:36
Whereas I know a lot of people quality is less important for
38:40
them. And that's fine because they're
38:41
generating a ton of revenue. So good, good for them.
38:44
But they're obviously more taking the, the, the
38:47
quantitative approach. So they'll be talking about
38:49
units and the number of units that they've got and and
38:52
etcetera, etcetera, which is fine, but it means that then
38:55
they've not got quite the same as your as, as, as others have
39:02
written. So moving on slightly then in
39:06
the news recently, we've had Airbnb.
39:08
It's evolved yet again. They're doubling down on
39:13
experiences and services. What do you make of it?
39:20
Well, my first thought is, is it legal?
39:24
That's like the main like that. I, I, I genuinely question that,
39:29
especially just because you know, Airbnb have got a knack
39:34
for just bulk blanket applying their new ideas on every single
39:41
geography, you know, continents, country that they're in without
39:46
I feel sometimes proper consideration.
39:48
A classic example of this is when in COVID they refunded all
39:54
the guests for the monies that they deposited for their stays.
39:57
When, for example, in France, the French government had
40:00
literally put out an ordinance which said.
40:03
Credit notes need to be issued, not refunds, in order to save
40:07
the businesses and the owners. Airbnb totally went against that
40:11
and did something that was legal, but wasn't aligned with
40:16
the legalities and the law of those established in, in the
40:19
individual country. So that's my initial reaction is
40:22
literally is, is what they're trying to do legal here?
40:25
Because we're, we're in a situation as a property manager
40:29
where you know, all of a sudden you're, you're in a position
40:32
where third parties are now coming into your properties
40:38
Willy nilly as they want. They're providing services
40:43
without you necessarily having full visibility on them.
40:46
So, you know, in terms of liability, you know, if, if
40:49
they, if the, if the masseuse gets massage oil all over the
40:57
white sofa, you know who pays for that?
41:02
We don't know yet. Obviously we, we will know soon
41:04
because it's definitely already happened.
41:08
So there's, there's a big problem with that.
41:09
And then I think that again, and I know that there's, there's
41:12
conversations around sharecropping on LinkedIn a lot
41:17
here. And it's, yeah, it's all about
41:22
control, going back to control and losing control because now
41:26
you've got people, you know, for example, when I, I say I don't
41:30
do the, the, the maintenance and I don't do the check in check
41:33
out and things like that. I also don't currently do any of
41:36
the upsells. I'm aware that it's a, a big
41:38
thing that I could be tapping into and making loads of money
41:41
off of. But at the same time, the chalet
41:43
managers that I work with, so kind of like the the on the
41:47
ground OPS that are third parties that are contracted
41:50
directly by our owners, Their money is made on, yeah, the
41:54
maintenance, the check in check out.
41:56
But a lot of it is also the extra service they provide on
41:59
top of that. And that includes experiences
42:02
and services. So now all of a sudden and
42:05
they've got the monopoly of that in the chalet that they run.
42:08
But now with this update from Airbnb, that's being taken away
42:13
from them. And on top of that, there's no,
42:17
there's no profit share. So you're having somebody
42:20
exploit your own home or the home that you're running and you
42:27
have no control and no revenue from it.
42:29
So it seems insane. And surely there'll be lawsuits.
42:33
I just don't, I, I feel like there's got to be somebody
42:35
that's going to kick off massively here.
42:38
And I think, to be honest, rightfully so.
42:40
I mean, it's, it's a, it's a fantastic idea fundamentally.
42:43
Like I, I, I agree with it and I like it and it's great.
42:49
You know, I've in the past stayed in places and found
42:52
things to do thanks to the Airbnb app and it's been really
42:55
again, seamless and and enjoyable.
42:58
So I commend it. It's just that, especially for
43:01
us professionals, it's yet again something that Airbnb are now
43:07
going to be doing better than we do ourselves.
43:11
All right then, Louis, we've got a few questions to finish.
43:14
We have asked you these before, but we're going to update them
43:16
for 2025. Favorite brand in the STR space?
43:21
Apart from the wonderful Ovo network of course.
43:25
Well, you're not going to, I'm going to say, but there's only
43:28
one brand and it's Airbnb. And I know that that's extremely
43:35
kind of controversial, but it's, it's true.
43:40
You know, nobody starts their Business Today by saying I'm
43:45
going to create a great short term rental company, you know,
43:48
with an amazing brand. Everyone basically looks at
43:52
their neighbors empty house and knocks on the door and says,
43:56
you're right, mate. Do you want me to start letting
43:59
it on Airbnb for you? That's how most origins start
44:04
and, and, and Airbnb are gargantuan.
44:07
They're they're, they're so fundamentally good and, and
44:11
great at what they do. You know, I, I think back to, to
44:15
interesting a Victoria Beckham quote and, and she said with
44:21
regards to her fame, she said she wanted to be more famous
44:27
than Persil automatic, which is, you know, the laundry detergent
44:32
in the UK And what she meant by that, obviously she's taken a
44:36
kind of a very niche British brand in my mind.
44:38
But what she meant by that is that the benchmark is not as
44:42
famous as a person, but as commonly known as like
44:46
everyone's got it in their cupboards.
44:48
So, you know, Airbnb are getting into the stratosphere of your
44:52
Velcros, your V luxes, your Jacuzzis, your Hoovers, your
44:56
Kleenexes, your elevators, your ski jets, your roller blades and
45:01
all your Frisbees. They've become synonymous.
45:05
They are the brands, the thing that's synonymous with what we
45:10
do. And so I'm kind of purposefully
45:12
being slightly controversial here because I legitimately do
45:16
not think that a single brand comes close, especially if we're
45:22
talking about property managers, because obviously I'm really,
45:27
really, it's really important for me that, you know, property
45:30
managers, I feel like they're massively underrepresented
45:34
within the industry. Like, so how many you, you
45:37
probably don't know off the top of your head, like, and, and you
45:40
probably go out of your way maybe to accommodate these
45:42
people. But most podcasts that I listen
45:45
to and most people that I see talking on LinkedIn, they're SAS
45:50
businesses. They're not property managers.
45:53
They're, they're software. So therefore, it's like, where
45:57
are the property managers? And even I, who am a property
46:00
manager, have developed my own software.
46:02
So, so it's kind of like I've got both hats, but like where,
46:05
where are the where are the property managers?
46:08
There you go. Where are the property managers
46:10
and where are the property, the property managers with strong
46:13
brands. And I challenge you to actually
46:15
list me some really good ones that A-Z are spotless because I
46:20
don't know enough and I'd love to know more.
46:22
I really would. Yeah, it's, it's a really good
46:25
question. And yeah, the way Airbnb has, is
46:28
dominating this industry is, is quite remarkable.
46:31
As somebody with a, a comms and marketing background, you can
46:34
only kind of sit back and applaud at everything that
46:37
they've developed. I, I, I often say to people,
46:39
would we be having this conversation?
46:41
Would my business exist without Airbnb?
46:43
Probably. But the answer is no, James.
46:45
And I think that that's, that's the fundamentally, I know that
46:49
there's this constant love, hate relationship to Airbnb.
46:52
And sometimes it's hard to defend them when they launch the
46:56
experiences side of things without proper communication
46:59
with us as as professionals and things like that.
47:01
But Airbnb are fundamentally so much better at what they do than
47:08
every other person out every other business out there.
47:11
And you know, kudos. So Chesky and the whole, the
47:15
whole team and everyone that works there.
47:16
And I'm not just saying that because I also went to art
47:19
school before joining the short term rental industry.
47:22
It's like the the innovation and the powerhouse that they provide
47:26
in terms of creativity is off the charts.
47:29
And everyone else is basically a property, an Airbnb manager
47:34
rather than being a property manager.
47:36
So, you know, until anyone does it better than them, we've kind
47:41
of got to deal with it, but I really would like us to kind of
47:43
put up a bigger fight. Yeah, in a way.
47:45
I mean, we're all Airbnb businesses in a way.
47:48
Exactly. We are, aren't we?
47:50
OK, then, an individual in the STR space you'd like to give a
47:53
shout out to and why? Yeah, Humphrey Bowles is the
47:59
person that came to mind this time around.
48:03
I think it's really obviously you and I were at the, the, the
48:06
Knowsley Hall CEO retreats this year.
48:10
We're at Middleton Castle or I was at Middleton Castle last
48:14
year. Both experiences have been
48:17
incredible for me. And you know, Humphreys had been
48:22
through a kind of a kind of a difficult and tough year.
48:25
They've evolved a lot. He's changed his LinkedIn
48:29
profile picture and has stopped wearing his pink Super Hog
48:32
shorts. So there's a lot of changes
48:34
going on in his world, but I think his, his vision of what
48:40
this industry needs and also his capacity at eloquently putting
48:47
those ideas forwards is something that I really respect
48:50
and really admire. And then the, the other thing
48:55
that I was going to say just as, as kind of I was reflecting on
48:57
this is that I, I do feel, I, I feel like it's actually quite AI
49:02
always. It's kind of embarrassing about
49:03
like, I do feel sometimes like slightly lonely almost within
49:08
the sector just because I do feel slightly frustrated around
49:12
the lack of entrepreneurship and passion and creativity and
49:18
energy and care, You know, fundamentally care about what
49:21
you do, which is why, like even, you know, city that we were
49:24
without the, the, the, the retreat as well was fantastic
49:28
because that's just a bowl of energy and, and just somebody
49:32
that's incredibly intelligent and smart and driven and
49:35
passionate and cares and is an entrepreneur.
49:37
So I'd love for for there to be more people like those two
49:41
people because they're inspiring.
49:45
Your number one lesson learned from your time running over
49:49
network. Mainly a sense of gratitude.
49:54
I know that I'm insanely lucky to be surrounded by the, the
49:59
team that we, that we've got, they're, they're all amazing.
50:04
And you know, we can do any of the amazing stuff that we do
50:07
without them. But then also lucky, you know,
50:10
to have kind of fallen into this business, which at its
50:14
foundation and at its core, the more and more I work within the
50:17
business, I realise has just totally a different business
50:21
model to most other actors out there.
50:24
And yet seemingly I've happened to be in the business that just
50:29
in my mind at least ticks, and obviously I'm biased, but ticks
50:32
so many of the boxes of like, what are the K the main KPIs for
50:38
success? You know, what is a successful
50:40
short term rental business? And I, I feel really proud and
50:44
really happy and really lucky to to be part of one that I feel
50:49
ticks a lot of those boxes. Finally, then, you've been
50:52
spotted on social media using a potato emoji fairly often.
50:59
What's the story behind this? It's quite hard for me to do a
51:04
short version of this story, but I'll try.
51:12
We were at an industry event last year called Scale Barcelona
51:17
with the team. We were told that we needed to
51:19
go in the sit at the wheelhouse booth to meet Oliver from
51:25
wheelhouse. We went to sit at the wheelhouse
51:27
booth, but Oliver from wheelhouse was not there and his
51:31
booth became the drinking booth where we all were having
51:35
probably a bit too much fun. So we ended up writing all over
51:38
his booth. Poor thing.
51:39
But only messages of adoration, of course.
51:42
And what was really interesting is that kind of anyone that was
51:46
anyone ended up gathered around this booth.
51:48
And then as time went on, everyone, people started to come
51:52
up to the booth without knowing who we were or what wheelhouse
51:56
was. So then me and the over network
52:00
team started to play along and pretend that we were Wheelhouse
52:05
and we were sat next to a lovely young man called David who has a
52:10
thick Irish accents and therefore spontaneously
52:14
Wheelhouse became a potato company that basically was AAI
52:22
Potato Revolution company Potato something.
52:26
All of this continuously for about 3 days and it's stuck with
52:30
us. So now there are potatoes at
52:31
events and we're all having fun and it's a little inside joke, I
52:35
guess, that we do enjoy. What a lovely way to finish
52:40
Louis. It's been an absolute pleasure.
52:42
As ever, thank you for joining us on the Host Planet podcast.
52:46
Thanks. Great to chat to Louis Andrews
52:48
there from Ovo Network. If you want to build a great
52:51
direct booking website, take a look at his for
52:53
inspirationovonetwork.com. If you're looking for more free
52:58
education, head to house Planet dot Club, the fastest growing
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53:05
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Until next time, happy hosting.