Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / Why UK Regulation Might Actually Be Good News

Transcript

Why UK Regulation Might Actually Be Good News · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

0:00
One it's going to help us from a regulation argument, housing
0:03
supply angle. The other is it's going to help
0:06
us and help the people in our sector who want to improve
0:09
quality to be able to do that. If you run a short term rental
0:12
business in the UK, the regulatory landscape is about to
0:15
change. Registration schemes, tourism
0:18
taxes, planning restrictions. But what does that actually mean
0:22
for hosts and property managers? In this episode you'll learn
0:25
what regulation is most likely coming to the UK and what hosts
0:30
should be preparing for right now.
0:32
My guest today is Andy Fenner, chief executive of the Short
0:35
Term Accommodation Association. He spent years representing the
0:39
industry in discussions with government and policy makers.
0:43
And after playing a major role in shaping the conversation
0:46
around short term rentals in the UK, he's stepping down.
0:50
This is the House Planet podcast powered by House Fully.
0:59
Andy, thank you for joining us on the House Planet podcast.
1:02
I want to start with the big news.
1:03
You've announced you're stepping down as chief executive of the
1:06
Short Term Accommodation Association.
1:09
Tell us more. Yeah, hi James.
1:12
Thanks for having me on again. Yes, I am moving on staying in
1:19
tourism. I'm going to go and join an
1:21
organization called Wise Travel Confederation based over in
1:25
Amsterdam. It's the World Youth Travel
1:29
Organization. Basically it's doing what the
1:31
STAA does, but looking after youth and student travel all
1:35
around the world. So now the the big thing is on
1:39
for what I would like to say is the second best job in travel,
1:42
which is my old job at the STAA. Graham and I are on the active
1:47
search for a replacement and I think it's a really good sign
1:52
for the strength of the sector and the value of the STAA.
1:56
The sheer number of people we've had applying for the role has
2:00
just been so impressive and I would say the quality of the
2:04
candidates, there's going to be a lot of upset people because
2:08
there's a lot of people who've applied who would love to give
2:10
the job to, but you can only have one replacement.
2:13
So we've been really, really impressed by the sheer number
2:17
and quality of the people who have applied for this job and I
2:20
think it just speaks volumes of the short term rental sector and
2:24
how valued and appreciated we now are.
2:29
What's the ideal profile for the chief executive of the STAA?
2:33
What are the skills and contacts that they need to have?
2:36
What's the ideal profile? Well, me, no, What's the ideal
2:42
profile? Somebody who it's anybody who
2:46
runs a trade association knows that yeah, running a trade
2:49
association is is actually incredibly hard.
2:51
It's one of the biggest challenges so far of of my
2:56
career because you are bouncing around from things that are
3:00
completely different. You are talking to a local
3:04
councillor one minute, a minister the next minute dealing
3:07
with a politician doing this that the other in parliament.
3:11
And then you can be dealing with sorting out folding envelopes to
3:17
send out letters. You are doing all sorts of tasks
3:21
and realizing or never forgetting that the most
3:25
important thing you are doing is talking to your members and
3:30
dealing with the idea that it doesn't matter if a member is
3:34
the STAA has people from Airbnb, Expedia to people who own one
3:40
property that they inherited in in the Cotswolds.
3:42
And it doesn't matter how big you are as a member in the STAA,
3:46
every member had, we are one member, one vote.
3:49
Everybody is as important as each other and the issues and
3:52
problems of of that host here as one property are just as
3:56
important. Now, I know that because I've
3:58
been a host. I've worked in tourism for 25
4:01
years. I've done those jobs.
4:02
I've made the beds, cleaned the toilets, put it on Airbnb,
4:06
advertised it and know it. And that's what we need in
4:09
someone who's going to come into the role, someone who
4:12
understands tourism and understands that.
4:17
For instance, with, you know, the new regulations coming in,
4:21
in the UK, in England that we don't, you know, don't do it in
4:25
August because that's when we make all our money.
4:28
Knows when tourism is is successful and knows what you
4:32
need for tourism to be successful because at the end of
4:35
the day, short term rental tourism is about people and
4:40
families going on holiday. That's what we do.
4:43
We sell holidays, we sell fun, we sell breaks, we sell
4:47
relaxation, but we sell holidays to people and we need someone in
4:52
charge of the association who understands that, who can go and
4:55
talk to ministers and say actually we're not about
4:58
housing, we're not about taking houses off people.
5:00
We don't do this. What we do is create jobs in
5:03
rural areas and sell holidays. There's a big lobbying aspect to
5:09
the job. You mentioned there talking to
5:10
local councillors, to ministers. Obviously it's important I think
5:15
to have some short term mental knowledge as well.
5:17
But where does the balance lie? Is it more important to have
5:20
lobbying expertise and and those relationships in the political
5:23
sector or is it more important to have STR knowledge?
5:27
I'm not going to deny that it has very much helped me that I
5:31
do have, you know, I have worked in politics for a long time and
5:36
that has helped. However, the most important
5:40
thing is an understanding and a passion for our industry.
5:44
You, if you believe in our sector and you've, you know, you
5:48
are one of those people who's paid his mortgage through short
5:50
term rental tourism and you understand the benefits of it.
5:54
You can explain that to a politician.
5:57
If you are just somebody who is going and reading it off the
6:02
back of a, you know, an envelope saying that this is these are my
6:05
crib notes and what short term rental tourism are that passion
6:08
and that belief in the sector isn't going to come across.
6:12
You've got to believe in our sector now.
6:14
I believe passionately that our sector is the driver of jobs in
6:20
rural and coastal communities across the country.
6:22
That's how as the SDAA, we've got to work with MPs like Chris
6:27
Ware. But the APPG for tourism, you
6:29
know, the event that host planet was at up in Blackpool, the one
6:32
the road shows that we're doing with you guys around the
6:35
country, we'll be getting out there and we're talking about
6:38
the value of our sector as soon. One of the things I've I've very
6:42
much learnt in the three years that I've been at the STAA is
6:46
when you talk to a politician and you explain what we do as an
6:51
industry, they understand it, they believe in it.
6:54
And nine times out of 10 they change their mind if they were
6:57
anti short term rentals and then understand that actually, yeah,
7:00
we are bringing jobs, we are bringing investment, we are
7:03
bringing customers into the pubs etcetera.
7:06
So that is, in my opinion, the crucial bit of this job.
7:10
At the STAA. We're really fortunate that we
7:13
have something called our policy working group that we instigated
7:15
a few years ago. We've got professional policy
7:19
people and lobbyists from companies like Expedia, like
7:22
Airbnb, We've got that. So if I ever need to know where,
7:27
you know, how do I get hold of this politician or how do I do
7:29
that, we've got that expertise I can call upon.
7:33
So having that passion for our industry and that belief in the
7:37
small businesses and the owners across our sector, that's what
7:40
we need. And when can we expect a
7:43
successor to be announced? That is something that you will
7:46
have to ask Graham as our our chair And I think one of the
7:52
crucial things for for Graham, for me, because I still really
7:58
believe in this sector a lot, is that we need to get the right
8:02
person in rather than someone in quickly.
8:05
So I know that whoever is going to to step into to this role,
8:09
because it is such a crucial role at the moment, Graham will
8:13
ensure that it is the right person for the job to take the
8:16
SDAA on to the next chapter. So you've obviously been one of
8:19
the most visible voices representing the STR industry in
8:23
the UK. When you look back at your time
8:26
leading the SDAA, what are you most proud of?
8:29
I'm most proud of how we have changed.
8:31
When I first came here, we were viewed with we as the industry
8:37
were viewed with a certain amount of suspicion by what I
8:40
would call traditional tourism. We were viewed with a lot of
8:44
suspicion from a lot of politicians.
8:48
Some politicians still believe that, but a lot of people have
8:53
come round to understanding that actually we are a vital and key
8:58
part of the wider tourism sector.
9:01
And the belief that the change in attitude, that we aren't just
9:06
taking away people's houses, that we are providing vital
9:10
jobs, we are the future of tourism in our rural and coastal
9:14
communities. We've worked really hard to get
9:18
that opinion changed. And I think one of the things
9:21
that really shows that is that, you know, organizations like
9:24
Visit Britain are now sponsoring and supporting the Short Stay
9:28
Summit. Visit Britain and the team will
9:30
be there again this year. They were there last year, they
9:34
were the year before. They are supporting us as an
9:37
industry and we can do things at the SDAA such as the event that
9:43
James, you know you and Host Planet supported up in Blackpool
9:46
that we can get that people like the CEO of Visit Britain to come
9:51
up to Blackpool and talk about the benefits of short term
9:54
rental tourism. That isn't something that
9:57
happened three years ago, that would never have happened, but
10:00
that's what we've done and we've changed the narrative so that
10:05
people now believe and know the the value that our sector does
10:09
bring. Quick pause before we continue.
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right back to the show Andy regulation in the UK.
10:58
We know that short term rentals have grown quite a bit over the
11:01
past decade and that growth has come with in increasing scrutiny
11:06
in the UK. We're hearing a lot more now
11:08
about tourism taxes, statutory registration, planning changes,
11:13
energy performance certificates. Where do you think we currently
11:17
stand in relation to regulation in the UK and what should hosts
11:22
and property managers be preparing for?
11:25
Yeah, the, I mean that list of things you, you, you've read
11:29
out, they are each of them individually, you know, things
11:35
we can tackle. I think you reading that list
11:39
out is really is the issue that we've got in the UK with
11:43
regulation. We've got, we don't have in our
11:47
system of government, it doesn't matter which party's in charge
11:51
of government. We don't have a centralised
11:53
tourism minister. We've been, we as the STAA have
11:59
been working a lot with associations across the world
12:03
and helping them with our best practice and helping and, and,
12:06
and using the, the fact that helping other associations helps
12:10
our industry and creates new markets.
12:12
Now one of the things we've realised doing that is that
12:15
countries such as South Africa have a tourism minister, they
12:19
have a tourism ministry. It's a cabinet level job.
12:21
It's one of the big ones that gives us a central point of
12:26
contact that when we have issues with regulation with this, that
12:29
and the other, we can go to that tourism ministry and effectively
12:33
they've got our back as the tourism sector.
12:36
We unfortunately don't have that in the UK and that's one of the
12:39
big issues that you've got that list of things hitting us
12:43
because they some of them are coming from Treasury, some of
12:46
them might be coming from Defra, some of them might be coming
12:48
from housing, some of them might be coming from tourism.
12:50
And it's not coordinated. And this barrage of things
12:54
hitting our sector all at once with no big strong tourism
12:59
minister that we can pick up the phone to and say, look, this is
13:03
coming. We need you to to back this one
13:05
away. We're just seen as a sort of the
13:11
cash cow that keeps on giving. You know, you can hit us with
13:14
Epcs, you can hit us with, you know, removing FHO, you can hit
13:18
us with this, you can hit us with that.
13:20
Well, you can't because we've also got outside of that list
13:24
other things that that and we don't specifically look at.
13:28
But but organisations like Josh at UK Inbound are dealing with
13:32
the, the visa regulations. We've got, you know, the issue
13:35
that if you live in a country such as South Africa, you can
13:38
get a visa for Schengen and you can go to Paris, Rome,
13:42
Amsterdam. You can go all across Europe on
13:44
one visa which is acquired digitally.
13:47
If you want to come to the UK, it's a completely separate visa
13:49
and it only gets you to come to the UK.
13:52
So people are choosing to go to Europe and not necessarily
13:56
coming here. We've got all of these factors.
13:59
We've got things that, you know, the guys that the tourism
14:02
alliance are dealing with, which is the tax free for tourists has
14:06
gone. If you go to Europe, you can buy
14:09
stuff, you claim the VAT bath, come to UK, you can't.
14:12
Everything is more expensive here.
14:14
So we've got all of these factors that are coming at us
14:18
and it's affecting our business more than perhaps others in
14:23
tourism because short term rentals, as we've, we keep
14:27
telling government ministers is about small businesses.
14:30
We aren't major international companies like Hilton hotels or
14:35
AHG or anything else. We're small businesses.
14:38
We're people who own individual properties.
14:40
Yes. You know, lots of times we get
14:42
called, you know, apologies to Airbnb, but we get called
14:45
generically Airbnb. Well, Airbnb doesn't own a
14:48
single property in the UK. They don't own anything.
14:51
Who owns those properties? And local people who buy
14:55
properties in their local area. Because in the UK we have told
14:58
people year and year again that actually what you should do with
15:02
your money is invest it in property.
15:04
You know, we have people watching Homes Under the Hammer
15:07
and everything else on TV. The whole system is geared up to
15:10
buy property. Well, that's what people have
15:12
gone out and done. They've bought property in their
15:14
local areas, they've invested in their local communities.
15:17
And now we're turning around to those people and saying, well,
15:19
actually you're wrong because what you're doing is, and that's
15:22
a narrative we've got to, to get away from.
15:25
But we've got all of these people who are doing the right
15:27
thing, investing in their communities, being hit with this
15:30
barrage of things. What can you do as an individual
15:34
host? The advantage that we've got,
15:36
and it's a massive advantage, is that we aren't faceless
15:40
corporations. We are people who are working in
15:42
our local communities. You are ambassadors for your
15:45
industry as a host. We've said this to people over
15:48
and over and over again. Get out there, be proud of what
15:52
you do. Tell people that you are a short
15:54
term rental host, you have a holiday left down the road and
15:58
actually I create jobs. I put people in the local pub,
16:02
my people go in the local restaurant.
16:04
It's not like staying in the Holiday Inn or staying in the
16:06
Premier Inn where the breakfast you eat is brought in by Booker
16:10
or Brake Brothers or whoever it is on a central buying thing.
16:13
Your people go down the road to the local Cafe and buy their
16:16
breakfast. They go to the local farm shop,
16:18
they create jobs. Get out there and tell them,
16:22
tell people and tell your local councillors what you do.
16:26
One of the problems of our sector is that we've been a
16:28
little bit too shy to be proud of what we do and we need to get
16:33
out there. And if I could change something
16:35
for 2026 is get every host to get out there and tell your
16:40
local community, tell your local councillor.
16:42
This is what I do actually. I'm not costing somebody a house
16:46
that they can live in. I'm creating pubs, jobs in pubs,
16:49
jobs in restaurants and jobs in my local community and be proud
16:52
of it. I've said it over and over again
16:54
at our roadshow events, if we don't shout out about our
16:57
industry and about the positive aspects of it, then nobody else
17:01
will. So yeah, really, really
17:02
important point. Let's just look at a couple of
17:06
those things that are mentioned in that, that long list of
17:09
regulatory issues, statutory registration, Where are we with
17:14
that? The the, the $64,000 question,
17:18
where are we with that? We, we don't officially, we
17:20
don't know off the record what we've been doing as the STA is
17:27
working really closely with DCMS almost on a a weekly basis.
17:33
They are phoning, calling, emailing, asking for help with
17:36
what should we do with this, what should we do with that.
17:39
We're getting there unofficially.
17:42
We understand that the registration scheme was either
17:46
going to come in in April. I would hate to think that it
17:51
was being used as a political football just before the local
17:53
elections. That's for people to make their
17:56
own mind up, or it was going to come in later.
18:00
Now, we now understand that and certainly from the work we're
18:05
still doing with DCMS, this isn't going to be ready for
18:08
April. So we've worked hard with the
18:11
politicians we've been talking to to say, look, please don't
18:15
bring this in in July or August if it can't come in in April.
18:20
You know, whacking a new registration scheme into the the
18:23
busiest time of the tourism calendar is not great.
18:27
So let's pause it until October and let's get the season done.
18:31
Let let the businesses in our sector make the income they need
18:35
to actually survive and pay their mortgages and we'll do it
18:38
in October. And as far as we understand it,
18:41
that's where we're currently at. We're looking at an October
18:45
instigation. And our argument with DCMS is,
18:50
you know, we've, we've waited. I mean, the SDA have campaigned
18:54
for this scheme since 2017. We have waited for years.
18:58
Let's wait another couple of months and get it right rather
19:01
than, you know, suddenly having a mad rush in the last couple of
19:05
months and, and putting something in that needs changed
19:08
and changed. If you look at the the issues
19:10
that we've had dealing with Scottish Government where they
19:14
put stuff in and it's being sort of changed and adapted on the
19:17
hoof a bit. Now they are listening and
19:19
changing which is great but would have been much better to
19:22
get this right in the 1st place. So hopefully that's where we are
19:25
with DCMS. But as I say on the record, I
19:29
don't know. But October is where I'll be be
19:33
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19:35
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19:39
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20:53
Why is statutory registration a good thing for the industry?
20:58
Yeah, there's two sort of real planks of that.
21:02
One, why is it good for the industry?
21:03
One is we know that one of the sticks that government
21:09
politicians beat us as a sector with is, is the housing issue
21:12
that we take away houses. We are costing, you know,
21:16
working families housing. Well, we can't really until we
21:20
know how big the sector is. We don't know if that's true or
21:22
not. We have no idea.
21:25
We've have instances, and I quote this one quite a lot, did
21:28
this at the roadshow for. So for anybody who was at the
21:30
roadshow in Portsmouth last week, apologies, I'm going to
21:32
repeat the story. We had a situation in Brighton
21:35
as a, for instance, last year where Steve Taggart, one of the
21:38
property managers over there, and I were giving evidence to
21:41
Brighton City Council. They quoted 6000 properties in
21:44
Brighton and we're using that as the reason why they needed to
21:48
bring in regulation into Brighton to limit the number of
21:50
holiday lands. Fortunately with Steve, we
21:54
managed to get the information to find out where they've got
21:57
this 6000 figure from because you know, I was living in
22:00
Brighton at the time. Steve's a Brighton boy.
22:02
This seemed completely bonkers. 6000 holiday let's we found out
22:07
that what they were actually doing was using a data unit
22:11
which was the entire South Coast from Worthing to Eastbourne and
22:14
as far inland as as Crawley, which obviously is massive and
22:19
disproportionately, you know, skewed the figures.
22:23
They were also doing the issue that they looked at Airbnb and
22:27
said, OK, there's a property there.
22:28
And then that same property's listed on booking.
22:30
It's listed on Expedia, it's listed on on the local property
22:33
manager site. So they were clocking the same
22:35
property multiple times. Through Steve's hard work, we'd
22:40
estimated that the actual number of holiday let's was about 1500.
22:44
Now 1500 is way, you know, is wood sorting out 1500 rental
22:51
units in Brighton's South Brighton's property crisis, of
22:54
course it wouldn't wouldn't do a thing, but taking 1500 tourism
22:59
units out would put out a business, various hotels, cafes,
23:03
restaurants, etcetera in Brighton and the registration
23:07
scheme and having that data will enable us to make and work with
23:11
councils to make accurate decisions on how many holiday
23:15
let's are there that actually our industry probably needs
23:19
support in lots of cases, not not restriction.
23:23
It would also enable us. So from that point of view, it
23:26
will help us take away this constant thing of you are
23:29
causing the housing crisis. We'll have accurate data to be
23:32
able to say, no, we're not. What we're doing is providing
23:35
jobs, etcetera. The other thing that it would
23:38
enable us to do is understand how big the sector is,
23:41
understand that if there are 6000 members in Brighton or
23:44
Holiday Let's in Brighton, well they're not members of the trade
23:47
bodies. So let's go out there and find
23:49
them. Because one of the things that
23:51
that we want to do and we're doing with Visit Britain is, and
23:55
I think everybody I've ever spoken to in our sector wants to
23:58
do, is raise the standards of the sector.
24:01
One of the overriding conversations I had with hosts
24:05
and property managers in Portsmouth at last week's Host
24:08
Planet Roadshow was how can we improve quality standards in our
24:13
sector? How can we work to get sort of
24:19
accreditation for the quality that we provide people out there
24:24
like Justine Ireland from from the Isle of Wight, who is
24:27
providing a real quality product that's benefiting her local
24:31
economy and the local community she's in, saying, well, I need
24:36
to be able to get that quality standard out there and show
24:39
people. Now we can only do that if we
24:41
know who is in our sector and that's where it's also going to
24:44
help. So it's two things.
24:46
One, it's going to help us from a regulation argument, housing
24:49
supply angle. The other is it's going to help
24:52
us and help the people in our sector who want to improve
24:55
quality to be able to do that. Tourism tax then moving on, This
25:01
was suggested before last year's budget as something that might
25:06
be brought in. Lots of mayors around the
25:09
country were very happy at the prospect of being able to charge
25:13
a tourism tax. What's your reading of this?
25:16
Is this something we should be expecting and what do you think
25:19
it will look like? Should we be expecting?
25:23
I think you need to ask yourself the question if, if when a local
25:28
authority is offered the chance of imposing a tax, what do you
25:32
think the chances of them saying no are?
25:35
So yeah, we're going to get tourism tax.
25:39
When you look at tourism tax in other areas where it's been
25:43
introduced, such as Amsterdam, there was a survey by the EU in
25:49
2017 that showed that the implementation of tourism tax
25:55
has almost no effect on bookings and it it doesn't when you bring
26:00
it in. The problem that we've got in
26:04
the UK is this isn't the only thing, as we've already said in
26:08
this this conversation, we've got all of these other things
26:11
hitting us because we don't have the advantage of having a
26:15
tourism ministry that's controlling it.
26:17
We've got PPCS, you know, FH, we've got all this other
26:21
barrage. So on top of all of that and on
26:25
top of the fact that, you know, we don't have things like tax
26:28
free for tourists etcetera. We're already the most expensive
26:31
place in the in Europe to come on holiday.
26:34
We've got these super expensive visas that only work for the UK
26:38
and you can't go anywhere else. We've got no, you know that back
26:42
etcetera, highest VAT rates. Yeah.
26:45
So on top of all of that, in isolation, I can see how a
26:51
government department has looked at tourism tax and said, OK,
26:54
well, everywhere else it's been implemented, it doesn't make a
26:57
difference. We can bring it in, but that
27:00
isn't the case for us because we've got all of these other
27:03
things and we're already super expensive.
27:06
So you know, how many tourism owners in you know, you go and
27:11
ask anybody who's got a property in Margate, Blackpool, Skegness,
27:16
actually, you know, can your business take a bit more tax and
27:18
will people of course not. It's just one thing after
27:22
another after another after another.
27:25
And just shows that I'm I'm afraid the government just
27:29
doesn't have no idea. And, and this government,
27:32
previous governments, because it's tourism tax in the UK isn't
27:35
a new idea. No one understands and values
27:38
the tourism sector. We've got to get and it's the
27:42
big challenge that, you know, I didn't manage to do when I was
27:45
at the in my role at the STAA. And I know that with Graham and
27:49
my replacement will take this one on.
27:51
We've got to get the tourism industry valued as a tourism
27:56
industry. We've got to get into the
27:59
industrial strategy because we're not even in it recognised
28:02
as the valuable bringer of jobs and investment across our rural
28:06
communities and, and appreciate it.
28:09
And then we need to have all of these things that are hitting
28:12
our sector listed and tourism tax should be dropped, but it's
28:17
not going to be, it's going to be brought in.
28:19
So what we're trying to do as a sector is campaign against it.
28:23
And that's, you know, UKH and and Kate Nichols over there at
28:26
UK Hospitality. We're backing them up, doing a
28:28
lot of work with them to try to get this stopped.
28:32
But with the other hand realising that if it is going to
28:34
come in, well, let's try and make it easy to operate, easy to
28:38
to administer and not some great onerous thing because it's going
28:44
to come in with registration. We're going to have this, we're
28:46
going to have, you know, and that recognising that in our
28:50
sector, we are small businesses and most of our hosts out there
28:54
probably don't have a, a tax or finance department.
28:57
How many of our hosts are employing ACFO that they can say
29:00
sort this out? Well, nobody, you know, as a
29:04
host, you're doing your check insurance, cleaning the rooms,
29:08
fixing the toilet seat. Then you've got to come home in
29:10
the afternoon and start filling in all your, your tourism tax
29:13
forms. Well, how much more can we give
29:16
people? If it's coming, we've got to
29:19
make sure that it's going to be easy to administer.
29:22
We shall see. We shall see, I'm sure it will
29:25
be discussed in April. We've got a big week coming up
29:29
of course. The Short Stay Summit taking
29:32
place on the 22nd of April. House Planet Rd. shows London
29:36
event the day after on the 23rd The summit then What can we
29:39
expect from this year's event? Yeah, certainly the biggest
29:48
summit that we've ever done. It's, I mean, you would assume
29:54
that I would say this, but got you.
29:56
I'm really chuffed with this one.
29:58
It's we've got some really, really good speakers, some
30:02
really good sessions coming. We've got Mark Simpson's running
30:08
the learning labs running alongside the summit, so you can
30:12
listen to experts, you know, people like Graham Donohue, our
30:18
chair from Sykes Cottages, who's leading the way on AI in our
30:22
sector. Then you can go along to the
30:24
learning Lab afterwards and try to actually implement this into
30:27
your business. It's going to be an amazing
30:30
summit. We had over 1300 people last
30:34
year. We're aiming for about 1500
30:36
people this year. It's going to be packed, it's
30:38
going to be busy, it's going to be a hectic day, but it's not
30:41
just the day. And that's the thing for this
30:43
year, we've got all of these other things happening the day
30:46
beforehand. We've got a few of us going
30:49
along to House of Lords and we've got an event.
30:52
Now. I know that you, James, are
30:53
coming to represent hosts and host planet, which is fantastic,
30:57
and we are meeting with the DCMS and shadow DCMS teams talking
31:02
about our sector in the evening. You've then got a choice.
31:06
You can either go off to the Shorties Awards or you can come
31:09
along to the short stage summit icebreaker event at at Island
31:13
Records and hopefully not start the the the summit with too much
31:20
of A fuzzy head. We need you there first.
31:22
Bright and breezy in the morning, in the evening.
31:26
We've got a host of other events happening.
31:28
You've got guesty as one organising and I know I got the
31:32
e-mail yesterday saying Andy, don't forget to put your name on
31:34
the list because we're going to be oversubscribed.
31:36
So, you know, going to put my name down to, to try and get
31:39
into as many of these as I can. And then, yeah, the following
31:43
day we've got the host Planet Roadshow, which is supported by
31:47
the STAAI will be there. I know that some cracking
31:51
speakers like Carl, who runs policy for Airbnb, he'll be
31:55
there answering questions. And that's at the Royal Overseas
31:58
League in central London. And great venue.
32:02
If, if nobody's ever been really, really nice venue to be
32:07
at, to show yeah, that, you know, short term rental tourism,
32:11
we can go in places like that. And going into the Royal
32:14
Overseas League, Yeah, great venue.
32:16
I'm really looking forward to it.
32:18
The event last week in Portsmouth was fantastic.
32:23
Really. You know, I took away, I mean,
32:27
I, I live and breathe short term rentals.
32:30
It's what I do every day. It's my job, but I went to that
32:33
event last week in Portsmouth. I came out and I sat down with a
32:36
bunch of our directors and said actually goes, we need to change
32:39
what we're doing on this. We need to listen to people on
32:42
that. It's that value in our sector of
32:47
sharing and learning from each other.
32:49
And that's something that you really get from being at, you
32:54
know, being at the summit. You're going to get those big
32:57
ideas on how to change and improve your business,
33:00
complimenting that the following day by coming to Host Planet
33:03
Roadshow. If you are a host, you really
33:06
should be there because that's when you're going to put this
33:09
into practice and share it with other people in that room.
33:12
Say, look, you know, you, you heard Graham talking about AI.
33:15
Well, how are we going to do that?
33:16
You're going to get that at the Host Planet Roadshow event.
33:19
So make sure you're there. And I think you've actually got
33:21
Graham coming to Host Planet Roadshow as well, haven't you?
33:24
We do, yeah. We're going to have a bunch of
33:26
brilliant speakers there, including yourself and Carl,
33:29
like you mentioned. We've also got got a an AI
33:31
afternoon really. So Graham's going to be talking
33:34
about all the AI that they're implementing at Sykes Cottages.
33:38
We've got Sidi Mittal coming along from Why Hangry and Sidi's
33:42
going to do a 30 minute demo of how you can build your own
33:46
upselling AI agent and you'll be able to do it on your phone
33:51
literally as a Sidi demonstrates.
33:53
So that should be a really exciting.
33:55
We've got Mark Simpson there as well, Richard Vorton, and these
33:59
guys really are at the forefront.
34:01
They're actually the, I think Mark's actually set up this AI
34:05
WhatsApp group and a few of us are in that.
34:07
And to see what some people are working on, a lot of it, I've
34:10
got to be honest, goes over my head because I'm not a very
34:13
techie person, but but hearing and finding out what people are
34:17
developing, it's very, very interesting and very exciting.
34:19
So yeah, should be a brilliant event.
34:22
If you want to come along to the Road Chair, we've got a few
34:23
tickets remaining, head to our website host Planet dot Club.
34:27
And if you want to get to the summit, I'd really encourage
34:31
it's the best event in the world for short term rentals, short
34:34
stay summit.org, I think Andy for the, for the website address
34:37
so you can get your your ticket for that.
34:39
And hopefully we'll see you there.
34:40
So much going on in that week in relation to the STAA then Andy,
34:46
why should house and property managers and people involved in
34:49
the industry be joining up? What do they get out of it?
34:52
And if they want to join up, where do they go?
34:55
Yeah, go to the website the, the, the James has already
34:59
listed UKS, taa.org that will take you to to the all you can
35:05
pick us up from the short stay Summit website.
35:08
Why should you join? We'd encourage everybody to join
35:12
their trade association. You know, the STA as the trade
35:17
association is the voice that gets out there and we, we are
35:20
the ones who are defending your sector from, you know, without
35:26
your trade association, you know, we would have had 90 day
35:29
caps, we'd have limits, we'd have this, that and the other.
35:32
And unfortunately in the Cold eye day, it costs money to put
35:36
people out there in front of politicians.
35:38
It's it's expensive. We run, we're really fortunate
35:43
at the SCAA that people like Carl Thompson from Airbnb,
35:48
Charlie Reece, Expedia Graham, etcetera, they're all
35:51
volunteers. You know, the work that people
35:54
like Mark Simpson, etcetera are doing with the STAA, he does it
35:59
for free. And it's they're doing that
36:02
because people believe in our sector and they're giving their
36:06
time for free. The summit is a non for profit
36:10
event. Every penny that is spent at the
36:13
summit is paying for the STAA. It's paying for those meetings
36:18
with politicians, it's paying for that work that we're doing
36:22
with the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government, etcetera.
36:25
And yeah, we need people across the sector to support the cost
36:31
of joining the STA. It's down from 15 LB a month.
36:35
It's not expensive, but because of the number of members that we
36:39
have, obviously those £15 a month, they all add up and it
36:41
all helps. You also get the ability to have
36:44
a say. We are, as I said earlier on,
36:47
we're A1 member, one vote organization.
36:49
It doesn't matter if you are Brian Chesky or you own #1
36:54
Acacia Ave. and that's your own new property.
36:56
You opinion and your vote counts as much as anybody else's.
37:00
So you get to have a say in the future of your sector.
37:03
You get to come to our policy working group meetings.
37:07
You get to come to our meetings. You get to sit there and talk to
37:11
people like Mark, like Graham and ask their opinions and, and,
37:16
and have your inputs. And I know that, you know, it
37:20
sounds a bit silly, but if I wanted to go online and, and go
37:24
to Fiver or one of these websites and say, how much would
37:28
it cost to get an hour with the CEO of Sykes Cottages, it would
37:32
cost me a lot more than £15 a month.
37:33
So take that opportunity, use that advantage that you've got.
37:37
These guys are there and they're available because they're the
37:40
ones who really care about our sector.
37:43
So yes, we need your help. We need, we need your money.
37:46
We need you to, to, to pay in because we're out there fighting
37:49
for your businesses and trying to make this work for everybody.
37:53
But you also get back, you get the opportunity to, to, to, to
37:57
talk to, to share, to learn from all of these people.
38:00
You get our weekly update emails on policy on what's happening in
38:05
your sector. Anything that's changing for
38:06
your business, you get that every week.
38:08
You get our quarterly magazine, the associate, which I'm very
38:12
happy to say was in, we didn't win, but it was in the top three
38:16
national trade association awards.
38:19
It was the top three best magazine from a trade
38:23
association. You get that every, every
38:25
quarter and you get the the ability to, to, to share and
38:31
network with your colleagues. You also get discounts off STA
38:34
events such as the Short Stay Summit.
38:37
Fantastic, Andy. It's been a real pleasure.
38:40
Thank you for joining us again on the Host Planet podcast and
38:43
thank you for all the work that you've done over the last few
38:46
years representing STR host property managers in the entire
38:49
industry. And I wish you wish you all the
38:51
best for the future. Thank you very much, James.
38:54
Thanks very much. And I'll see you in London next
38:56
month. Looking forward to it.
38:58
Now over to you. If you're watching on YouTube,
39:01
drop a comment and tell us what regulation concerns you most in
39:05
the short term rental industry right now.
39:07
Is it the tourism tax or registration scheme?
39:10
Let's start the conversation. If you found this episode
39:14
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