The 2016 VRM Intel Summer issue is officially in the mail and heading your way. With over 30 original articles, this magazine includes an inside look at Booking.com and the reverse auction site Tansler, and there are three feature articles that discuss how current market conditions are helping professional vacation rental managers gain a competitive advantage (Revenge of the Property Manager, Winning at Google and Winning at Email Marketing). Also, there are some amazing articles written by Sue Jones, Doug Kennedy, Amber Mayer, Evan Hammer, Ben Edwards, Steve Craig, Josh Guerra, Durk Johnson, Julian Castelli, Rod Fitts, Mike Copps, Matt Curtis, and more.
Take a special look at Winter Park Lodging Company’s Sarah Bradford’s “Questions to ask a VRM” and Carlos Corzo’s article about open APIs in VR software. We will be talking a lot in the coming weeks about software and integrations and how software companies are working behind the scenes to add value and -in some cases -restrict your ability to take advantage of new opportunities.
If you are a U.S. resident and are not already receiving this publication in the mail, sign up below and we will mail you a copy. For non-U.S. residents, we will send the digital issue.
By Carolyn Said – San Francisco may revise its latest attempt to crack down on vacation rentals in private homes, hoping to stave off issues raised in a lawsuit filed by Airbnb that seeks to halt new enforcement measures.
Supervisors David Campos, Aaron Peskin, Eric Mar and John Avalos introduced new language at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting to update a get-tough amendment that the supervisors passed unanimously in June. The June amendment, which is now facing legal challenges from Airbnb, was scheduled to take effect July 27. Its enforcement is on hold pending a judge’s ruling on Airbnb’s request for a temporary injunction, which will be heard in early September.
The latest revision, which must now go through the legislative process, directly addresses issues Airbnb raised in its lawsuit, which said the city was violating the First Amendment, the Communications Decency Act and the Stored Communications Act.
The ultimate aim of both sets of amendments is to impose steep fines and criminal penalties to hold services like Airbnb, HomeAway and FlipKey accountable when vacation-rental listings lack the city’s mandated registration number for hosts. Only about 1,472 hosts, out of many thousands, have met a requirement to register with San Francisco before renting rooms or homes to travelers.
Potential penalties
The newest revision says those consequences would kick in only once a hosting service accepts a fee for booking a tourist to stay in an unregistered home. In the previous version, companies were on the hook for up to $1,000 a day per listing just for showcasing unregistered properties. Airbnb said that was a penalty for publishing content and therefore a violation of the federal Communications Decency Act, which shields Internet companies from liability for user-generated material. The latest update would remove the prohibition on displaying unregistered listings — but companies would be fined up to $1,000 each time an unregistered property is booked by a guest.
“These commonsense amendments aim to address some of the legal arguments that Airbnb has made in its lawsuit, and they strengthen the city’s legal position,” Campos said. “I think these amendments make the lawsuit moot.”
“The introduction of today’s amendment acknowledges the legal infirmities with the city’s recent changes to the short-term rental law,” Airbnb said. “The fact remains that the ordinance as it stands today violates federal law, and these new proposed amendments still wouldn’t resolve the legal shortcomings that were raised in our complaint. We remain hopeful that we can work together to find solutions that address our shared policy concerns.”
The revision would allow the city’s Office of Short-Term Rentals to subpoena records from hosting services when it discovers possible violations of the city’s vacation-rental laws. Airbnb’s lawsuit said it could not legally provide information on its hosts without being subpoenaed.
In another change, companies like Airbnb, HomeAway and FlipKey would have to submit monthly affidavits affirming that all their guest stays in San Francisco were in “lawfully registered” properties. The update would also require the companies to keep three years’ worth of records on hosts and guest stays in San Francisco.
Possible exemptions
While Airbnb and FlipKey handle all transactions for their hosts, HomeAway and its VRBO subsidiary function more like classified-listing sites, similar to Craigslist. That could exempt HomeAway from the new requirements.
“If a platform does not get a fee for booking services, it would be outside the purview” of the revised law, said Robb Kapla, a deputy city attorney.
Expedia’s HomeAway and TripAdvisor’s FlipKey had expressed interest in joining Airbnb’s lawsuit against the city. U.S. District Judge James Donato gave them until Tuesday to file motions. Although sources said they were expected to so, those motions had not been submitted by late Tuesday afternoon. The companies did not respond to requests for comment.
Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: csaid@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @csaid
By Skip Descant – For now there will be no moratorium on new vacation rentals in Palm Springs as city leaders opted to explore changes to the proposal to better accommodate the tourism industry and neighborhood groups.
The move keeps in place Palm Springs’ vacation rentals policy, and the city will resume issuing new permits Thursday.
City Council had been prepared to explore placing a temporary moratorium on new vacation rentals, a move that galvanized opposition and support and drew hundreds to Palm Springs City Hall on Wednesday.
Sensing the passion from each side, Mayor Robert Moon announced via Facebook, that the council will limit the number of speakers to 10 persons from each side. However, at the start of Wednesday night’s meeting the item was pulled from the agenda.
The crowd – filling the main council chambers and an overflow conference room – erupted in applause after learning the issue has been put on hold and City Hall would resume issuing permits.
The move to restrict rentals bubbled to the surface over the weekend, prompting sharp criticisms from the tourism industry, saying such a significant issue should not be rushed as an “urgency ordinance” without hearing thoroughly from stakeholders.
“This has also been about due process,” remarked Kelly McLean, of McLean Company Rentals, one of the longest running vacation rentals management firms in the city.
“We want to work with the subcommittee process,” said McLean.
“This proposed ban, though temporary, has already created economic turmoil in the real estate industry and business communities,” wrote the Palm Springs Vacation Rental Tourism Association in a statement Wednesday. “It does nothing to address the main concerns of residents and the root problem of enforcement, and poses the real threat of creating more problems by forcing future rentals underground with no accountability to the city and residents.”
A moratorium would have required approval from a super-majority of four out of five council members. It could have placed a moratorium on new vacation rentals until March 31, 2017, according to city documents.
From July 2015 to April, Palm Springs collected $21,769,881 in transient occupancy taxes. The city’s 1,819 registered vacation rentals accounted for more than 25 percent of Palm Springs’ TOT collections.
Since the city of Palm Springs began tracking the number of vacation rental properties in 2009, it has seen a 94 percent increase in the number of certified vacation rental properties. The city estimates that almost 10 percent of all the “roof-tops” in the city are now certified vacation rental properties.
Marla Malaspina, part of the steering committee for Protect Our Neighborhoods, said in an email that the moratorium on all short-term vacation rentals gives the city time to meet with more stakeholders and learn about the impact vacation rentals have on the city.
Protect Our Neighborhoods, an organization representing people who feel short-term rentals are bad for the city, disputes that these ordinances will depress property values and believes the only people hurt by this moratorium “is the vacation rental industry and its outsider clients who couldn’t care less about the quality-of-life issues facing residents,” Malaspina said earlier this week.
WSJ -By Rolfe Winkler, Douglas Macmillan and Maureen Farrell – Airbnb Inc. lined up investors for a new funding round and an employee stock sale that will value the room-rental website at up to $30 billion and help defer an initial public offering, said people familiar with the matter.
The San Francisco company plans to raise between $500 million and $1 billion from more than a half dozen large, investors in the coming weeks, the people said. The deal is expected to value Airbnb at about $30 billion, up from $25.5 billion a year ago.
One of the people familiar with the deal later clarified the company expects to raise up to $750 million.
In a separate transaction, investors are planning to buy about $200 million in stock from Airbnb employees, one person said. Because those investors will be purchasing common shares, rather than preferred shares which grant certain investor protections, the employee stock sale is expected to value Airbnb at less than $30 billion, the people said.
That transaction could value Airbnb as low as $25 billion, one of the people familiar with the deal said.
Airbnb has already selected investors and expects both deals to close this summer. It is unlikely to pursue an IPO in 2016 or 2017 as it continues to expand aggressively, the person said.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Airbnb projected an operating loss of about $150 million last year. The company also told prospective investors last year that it expected to achieve $3 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization by 2020.
By Joseph Pimentel – After a five-and-half hour special meeting Wednesday, the Anaheim City Council voted to ban the operation of short-term rentals.
The owners of the 363 permitted short-term rentals will have 18 months to stop operating. (HomeAway has over 1,500 listings, half of which are property managed).
Mayor Tom Tait and Councilmen James Vanderbilt and Jordan Brandman voted for the ban. Councilwomen Kris Murray and Lucille Kring voted against it.
“The sharing economy is exciting and something that gives people a chance to earn extra income but this is not really the sharing economy,”Tait said. “These are motels in residential neighborhoods.”
The meeting capped off years of debate between residents, who claimed that the steady stream of vacationers in their neighborhoods ruined their quality of life, and vacation rental owners, who say they invested heavily in turning eyesore properties into beautiful income homes.
Wearing white T-shirts and holding up signs with “Ban STRs,” opponents packed City Hall for an indoor rally and picketed outside before the meeting started.
Organizers riled up a crowd of more than 150 people inside the chamber with chants of “Si Se Puede!” (Spanish for “Yes, we can!”) and yelled that these “businesses don’t belong in our residential neighborhoods.”
With popular destinations such as Disneyland, the Anaheim Convention Center, Angel Stadium and Honda Center, Anaheim has become a hot spot in the “sharing economy” as families look to websites such as Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway for ways to shave their vacation expenses.
Residents have pushed the city to step up enforcement, complaining that vacationers are staying in “mini-hotels” and holding rowdy all-night parties, littering the streets and taking up parking spots.
“STRs are a cancer, and they need to be banned,” said Peter Page, adding that the $200,000 enforcement cost the city pays overseeing the homes is not worth the $3 million they’ve brought into the city since July 2014. “This does not help the community.”
“For the past several years, Anaheim residents have suffered,” said Martin Lopez, a resident of Sherwood Village, where he says 50 of the 211 town homes are operated as short-term rentals. “I urge you to ban STRs, current and future.”
Short-term rental owners argue that they fix up properties that enhance the look of the neighborhoods, help surrounding home values and bring in much-needed revenue for the city.
“Before my husband and I moved into our home, some of the homes in our neighborhood were not kept up. Some were abandoned,” said resident Beth Farnell. “Ever since STRs became more prevalent, those unsightly homes have become some of the most beautiful homes in our neighborhood.”
The council weighed two options:
A complete ban of short-term rentals, with current permits phased out in three years, which was later changed to 18 months.
Or enhanced regulations to limit the number of people staying at a home; extended “quiet time” hours; providing neighbors with a contact who responds “around the clock,” and increasing the age of renters to 21. Owners would also lose a permit if they are cited for two major violations in a 12-month period.
City officials also said they would enhance its current regulations. Anyone caught operating an unpermitted short-term rental would have their home’s power and water turned off. Anaheim runs its own electric and water systems.
Anaheim began handing out permits to operate homes as short-term lodgings in 2014. Operators pay an annual $250 registration fee, and guests pay a 15 percent tax on their bill, the same as those staying at a local hotel. After the number of permits doubled to 400 within a year, the city in 2015 issued an emergency moratorium on more permits.
After the vote, several short-term rental owners cried and stood, stunned, outside the council chamber.
“The sad thing is we worked so hard to do the right thing,” said Valerie Van DeZilver, who represents 23 short-term rental owners. “We’ve taken care of our properties … it’s tough to lose when you’re doing the right things.”
In their continuing effort to give Property Management Companies (PMCs) the tools they need to successfully market their vacation rentals online, LeisureLink has published a free guide titled “Make More Money: Turning Your Property Management Company into a Revenue Generating Machine”. LeisureLink has been the global leader in innovative vacation rental technology and distribution since 2007 and has delivered over $1 billion in bookings to its clients.
PMCs are responsible for marketing rentals, serving guests and satisfying owners, often with minimal staff and strict budgetary constraints. At the end of the day, these efforts must result in profits. To do this, PMCs have to stay competitive to increase revenue in all possible ways. The 19-page eBook is available for free download at leisurelink.com/make-more-money-ebook and explores the most effective strategies to make more money in the following chapters:
Making the Most Out of Mobile
The Value of Data and Consolidated Reporting
Understanding True Competition to Increase Vacation Rental Revenue and Profitability
What Hospitality and Channel Management Technology Have in Common
LeisureLink FastPay: Increasing Profitability in the Midst of Unpredictable OTAs
A Deep Dive into Single Contracts & OTA Performance: Precious Time, Pooled Inventory, and Preventative Maintenance
Ancillary Services: Essential in the 2016 Hospitality Industry
According to LeisureLink CEO, Julian Castelli, the emerging nature of the vacation rental market has provided unparalleled growth opportunities for PMCs. “Online marketing, distribution, and mobile are proving to be the wave of the future as it is significantly impacting the vacation rental industry today. We are excited to have the opportunity to help PMCs discover how the latest trends and technologies align with their critical business objectives and driving revenue.”
As the preferred choice for top performing vacation rental suppliers, LeisureLink offers three main products to help grow revenue for hotels, vacation rentals, timeshares, and resorts: Managed Distribution, Reservation Services, and Booking Engine Technology. In addition to providing access to the industry’s largest distribution network, LeisureLink owns a family of consumer brands including VacationRoost, Mountain Reservations, Mexican Destinations and Hawaiian Beach Rentals.
“We’ve learned a lot working with hundreds of PMCs over the years, so it was a pure pleasure for us to compile highlights of our revenue enhancing expertise into this book,” Castelli adds. “We encourage all PMCs to download a copy today.”
ABOUT LEISURELINK
LeisureLink helps vacation rental companies maximize bookings online, offline, anywhere. Through industry leading online connectivity tools, such as distribution, yield management, and booking engines, LeisureLink drives better lead conversion without the time-consuming work of managing multiple extranets. With the industry”s largest distribution network, vacation properties have the opportunity to connect to top online travel channels like Expedia, Booking.com, Airbnb, HomeAway, all the major GDS players and travel sites. Suppliers can manage all of their listings from one platform – optimizing rates, availability, specials, and content changes. LeisureLink consolidates all accounting, payables, and receivables with a single, source of payment, providing clarity to the often-complex accounting issues. Founded in 2007, LeisureLink is a privately held company and headquartered in Salt Lake City, UT. For more information, please call 800-976-4925 or visit leisurelink.com.
Unless indicated otherwise, all trademarks and service marks herein are trademarks of LeisureLink or an affiliate thereof.
LiveRez.com, today announced that Airbnb’s Michael Endelman will join its growing roster of instructors at the company’s annual Partner Conference October 10 through October 13 at the Lost Pines Resort and Spa in Austin, TX.
Endelman, a content and experience strategist for Airbnb, is a highly-regarded expert in using content to engage travelers. His past experience includes a stint as a senior content strategist for Google, as well as editor gigs at Rolling Stone Magazine, Food & Wine Magazine and Spin Magazine.
“Securing Michael as an instructor was a huge goal for us,” said LiveRez VP of Operations Tina Upson. “Not only does he have deep experience in writing and editing content that engages travelers, but he’s tuned in on a daily basis to what’s helping hosts get more bookings on Airbnb.”
In 2015, LiveRez was selected by Airbnb as the first North American property management software it would integrate with. This came after Airbnb Head of Global Vacation Rentals Shaun Stewart met with 87 different software providers worldwide.
In the past year, hundreds of professional property managers using LiveRez (called partners) have found success advertising their properties on Airbnb through LiveRez’s real-time integration with the global leader. In addition to the convenience and cost savings of the integration, LiveRez partners are also seeing an uptick in revenue.
At the 2016 LiveRez Partner Conference, Endelman will teach a variety of classes on how managers can further optimize their properties listings on Airbnb and elsewhere, and use this content to better engage travelers and earn more bookings.
Endelman joins a stacked lineup of instructors at this year’s conference. In fact, he’s the second high-profile instructor LiveRez has announced in just the past week. On Thursday, the company released the news that it had secured vacation rental marketing expert Matt Landau as a key instructor for its marketing classes.
LiveRez.com is a complete, online, vacation rental property management solution, focused on making vacation rental property managers fully operational online and thereby increasing bookings. LiveRez.com offers an all-in-one cloud-based platform, featuring best-in-class websites optimized for online bookings, a full-featured reservation and property management system, a robust CRM system, an exclusive connection to QuickBooks for trust accounting, and a unique “Pay-for-Performance” approach, which provides a mutually beneficial partnership between LiveRez.com and its vacation rental manager partners. The company’s largest competitor is HomeAway Software for Professionals.
With a high-level agenda designed to provide top-tier education about the issues that professional property managers care about in today’s vacation rental marketplace. VRM Intel Live! is designed with three educational tracks to give your team a full day of information and intel for vacation rental managers.
By Josh Guerra, Bizcor – Vacation off-season can be one of the most frustrating times for rental owners, especially if their property isn’t in a year-long destination, such as somewhere tropical. Vacation rentals tend to sit vacant more than you’d think, actually: up to 85% of the year for most properties. When you include the nearly six million vacation homes throughout the country, that adds up to an incredible amount of vacancy. While this is completely normal throughout the vacation rental business, that doesn’t mean you have to accept it!
Every vacation rental owner and property manager knows to plan for the off-season, but often, this just consists of gritting their teeth and bearing the slow period. For those of you who are tired of staring at an empty booking schedule, it’s time for a new plan! Wherever there are people, there are bound to be attractions; it’s all in how you highlight them. Read on for a list of our top tips and tricks that can help you draw in customers to your property during the off-season!
Bring Back Previous Guests
The first and most lucrative pool for you to tap into to help improve your off-season rental rates are your previous guests. Because they have already seen (and most likely enjoyed) how nice your property and the surrounding area are, they don’t have to be convinced that they will have a good time; your goal here is to draw them in with a convincing deal. There are a few ways you can do this, such as:
Personal Calls – If you have plenty of information collected from previous guests—put it to good use! A personalized call to ask how they enjoyed their stay is a great opportunity for you to ask them to come back—with an incentive, of course! Sweeten the deal with a limited time customer appreciation rate or added amenities.
Email Specials – A monthly email newsletter is one of the best ways to get guests back to your property during the off-season. You can include and highlight the interesting activities available during these off-season months, as well as include special deals and packages that will draw anyone’s interest.
Highlight Off-Season Draws
Despite it being the off-season, there are still bound to be plenty of things to do and see nearby your vacation rental. After all, locals are there all year long, and they don’t want to be bored, either! Find those interesting things to do and places to visit, and then promote them to your potential guests relentlessly. Local museums, theaters, or concert venues make great highlights for indoor activities, while hiking trails, swimming pools, or skiing opportunities are good points to sell for outdoor enthusiasts.
No matter what you choose to promote, keep one thing in mind: Off-season is still the off-season. Even the most amazing marketing can’t completely counteract the fact that there’s a reason for a lull in business. Temper your expectations, but set yourself up for success anyway!
Utilizing Paid Search Ads to the Fullest
Online marketing through the use of paid search can be extremely effective at generating traffic for your property, especially if used correctly. Sure, there is something to be said for high saturation advertising, but in order to truly maximize the effectiveness of your ads, you’ll need to target the proper demographics—those who will convert on your site. For off-season vacations, you should target your ads towards people looking for special rates and cheap deals.
By letting people haggle and “name their price,” a popular method recently, you can attract deal hunters and other guests you may not have previously converted. Since the rooms you will be filling would have been empty otherwise, you aren’t really losing money by offering cheaper rates. The most important thing is to drum up new business and fill your rentals!
Charity Auction Demand – Geronimo
The final tip for filling your rentals during off-season involves something you may have never considered: charity auctions. In fact, charity auctions and fundraisers frequently raffle off vacations as prizes; they happen to be the most popular prize! This enormous market is just waiting for you to dip your toes into its waters, but how do you get started?
Services such as Geronimo.com are the perfect way for you to get into the charity auction game. You can promote your off-season properties to non-profits for both profit and visibility. Thousands of organizations will be able to see your property, including through slideshows and video footage promoting your property at these auctions, giving you significantly more chances to fill vacancies in your bookings calendar.
Through Geronimo’s vacation certificate platform, your property will be marketed to non-profits across the country, creating an entirely new market for your rentals. With easy setup and integration (you will receive calls from certificate holders to book your property) there’s nothing but upside to using this type of marketing system.
To Lauren Packert, the charm of Charleston is mostly meant for people who live in the Holy City.But she’s torn, when it comes to whether short-term rentals websites, like Airbnb and VRBO, are good or bad.”If you’re bringing in more visitors and tourists, it might take away from the charm of Charleston.
But then again, it could bring in tourists to bring in more revenue for the city,” she said.
A task force is now studying this issue at city hall; do short-term rentals push out people who live in the Lowcountry to make room for visitors?Planning director Jacob Lindsey admits the task force’s mission is vague for a reason.”We don’t really understand the effects of short-term rentals or residential hotels on the city. So this process of studying how they work will give us better insight about effects on quality of life,” he said.
He said 18 people appointed by city council and the mayor would comprise the task force. The mayor will appoint six members while council members appoint the rest.
“The most important thing for us is the quality of life for residents who live here. So we want to make sure that our neighborhoods are protected, that city doesn’t become one giant hotel,” he said.
Right now, short-term rentals for less than a month are not allowed in most of the city, except for the Cannonborough-Elliotborough neighborhood. But the president of the S.C. Vacation Rental Managers Association hoped the task force would find a way to accommodate its members.
Charleston chapter president Denise Holtz released a statement Thursday:
Making short-term rentals a legal and effectively regulated travel option is a win-win for everyone. It addresses the concerns of the community, protects local homeowners looking to make ends meet, and it preserves a critical lodging option for travelers. Charleston short-term rental operators want to pay taxes, follow the rules, improve our neighborhoods, and continue to offer travelers the unique opportunity to stay local. We look forward to continuing our conversations with the city and working with the Task Force to craft an ordinance that protects local property rights and preserves the long-standing vacation rental industry here in Charleston.
The task force will start meeting in about a week, Lindsey said. He did not know how long the work would last.
The move adds an additional 185 St Petersburg Beach-area vacation rental properties to the management portfolio of Vacation Rental Pros, giving the company over 1,650 total properties under exclusive management contract.
“We are thrilled to expand our existing presence in the Tampa/St Petersburg market, which plays host to more than 21 million travelers per year,” said Steve Milo, founder and owner of Vacation Rental Pros. “In addition to Waterfront’s existing client base, their top-notch management team brings a wealth of experience in new and growing markets of St Petersburg Beach, Clearwater Beach, Madiera Beach and Indian Shores, and puts us in an excellent position for even more growth in the near future in Southwest Florida.”
Prior to the acquisition of Waterfront, Vacation Rental Pros had expanded into Gatlinburg, Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains with the acquisition Jackson Mountain Homes in March 2016, and into Hilton Head Island, South Carolina with the purchase of Hilton Head Rentals and Golf in December 2015.
Vacation Rental Pros is a growing and innovative property management and rental reservation system which leverages a proprietary technology platform to maximize occupancy and revenue. As a result of the Company’s integration platform and marketing expertise, the company is successfully expanding through both acquisition and organic growth into its new markets. The Waterfront Vacation Rental deal is the fourth major acquisition in 12 months for Milo’s company which forecast’s growth of 60% in 2016.
According to Steve Milo, there will be several additional acquisitions in 2016 with more in the 4th quarter which is the off season for many property management companies in North America.
“Vacation Rental Pros is getting approached by more and more sellers as the vacation rental market gets more and more complex due to technology and the significant changing business models with online travel sites,” said Milo. “The recent major changes at HomeAway with their business model as well as ongoing negative performance with TripAdvisor’s/Flipkey’s vacation rental platform have caused severe disruption in traditional relied upon marketing channels. A growing segment of vacation rental management companies and owners are becoming concerned that they are unable to navigate this disruption which has caused traditional revenue sources to decline, and which many fear will only continue to change at a pace that will be difficult for them to keep up. Many of the sellers we talk to started out when there was little technology, and advertising channels did not change their business models on the fly with little or no notice to their client.”
“Sellers are approaching Vacation Rental Pros because we have an exceptional reputation in understanding how to manage a vacation rental business that business owners worked so hard to build,” said Milo. “We know how to keep the property owners happy, and we are keeping their brands active in each market. Plus, we know how to leverage our technology platform in each market to increase revenue.”
Milo added, “And, when they talk to me, they are talking to the principle. I have built this business without venture capital partners or other outside equity partners. I am the decision maker.”
According to Milo, “Vacation Rental Pros has built the best technology platform model in the industry to expand in both a scaleable and sustainable manner. We have built this platform through a focus on technical efficiency which translates nicely to expanding incremental profitability. We have a powerful mix of robust growth, profit and no dilution of equity.”
LiveRez.com, the most widely used cloud-based software for professional vacation rental managers, today announced that Matt Landau will join its growing roster of instructors at the company’s annual Partner Conference October 10 through October 13 at the Lost Pines Resort and Spa in Austin, TX.
Landau’s Vacation Rental Marketing Blog (VRMB) is one of the top blogs in the vacation rental industry. Each month the publication attracts more than 15,000 visitors and its Inner Circle (a private community that financially supports the free blog) has grown to nearly 800 members.
“Matt is widely regarded as one of the world’s top experts in vacation rental marketing,” said LiveRez VP of Operations Tina Upson. “And, we’re thrilled to have him join the LiveRez community as a key instructor at our 2016 Partner Conference.”
This year LiveRez is splitting the conference into two different training tracks, a “Coaches Track” intended for company leaders that focuses on growing your business, and an “Athletes Track” that focuses on intensive system training and is designed for team members that are executing a company’s daily operations.
The instructors in the Coaches Track will be made up primarily of the industry’s top experts in different subject areas, whereas the Athletes Track will feature a mix of LiveRez software experts, ranging from LiveRez team members to professional property managers using LiveRez (called partners).
Landau will teach two classes in the “Coaches Track.” The first class will focus on creating a balanced marketing portfolio, with an emphasis on building your own brand. The second class will walk professional managers through the process of building their 2017 marketing plan.
“The definition of what it means to be a successful property manager today is dramatically different than what it meant only 10 years back,” Landau said. “Industry events like these are vital to the well-being and sustainability of the vacation rental industry as a whole because they bring progressive thinkers together under one roof, and they prove that you don’t have to run your business the way big corporations expect.”
In addition to two separate training tracks, the conference will also include a big reveal of new technology, as well as exciting keynote speakers, which the company will begin to announce in the coming weeks.
LiveRez.com is a complete, online, vacation rental property management solution, focused on making vacation rental property managers fully operational online and thereby increasing bookings. LiveRez.com offers an all-in-one, cloud-based platform, featuring best-in-class websites optimized for online bookings, a full-featured reservation and property management system, a robust CRM system, an exclusive connection to QuickBooks for trust accounting, and a unique “Pay-for-Performance” approach, which provides a mutually beneficial partnership between LiveRez.com and its vacation rental manager partners. The company’s largest competitor is HomeAway Software for Professionals.
Airbnb will be allowed to operate in Chicago after the city council passed two measures on Wednesday that allow short-term rentals, but there will be a few restrictions on that process.
Under the new rules, there’s a cap on how many listings are allowed in each building, the Chicago Tribune reports: buildings with fewer than five units will be allowed only one unit listed online at a time, while buildings larger than that will be limited to six units or 35% of the total number of units, whichever is less.
If you think you’re suffering “an extraordinary burden” by not being allowed to exceed the limit in smaller buildings, you can try to convince the city Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection to make an exception.
In certain neighborhoods with single-family homes, individuals can also petition the city to either ban new Airbnb listings in the area outright, or allow them only in the “primary residences” of the people listing the properties. That process can be challenged, however, as the new ordinance lets residents within the precinct to get their own signatures on a petition to overturn it.
Airbnb will also have to pay fees to the city, including a $10,000 license the company will have to buy to operate in Chicago, and a 4% tax on each rental that will go toward providing services for homeless people. Each Chicago address listed on the site comes with a $60 charge as well, which the city says it will use to help cover the cost of enforcing the rules.
InvitedHome, one of the country’s growing multi-destination vacation home rental brands, announces that travel industry expert Owen Miller has been hired as Head of Revenue Management. The role will focus acutely on maximizing revenue for owners, refining rental processes, and delivering the best possible rates to vacationers all around the country.
Miller comes to InvitedHome from the airline industry, where he most recently headed revenue management and pricing for Frontier Airlines in Denver. There, his team was responsible for establishing pricing strategies, managing seat inventory, and initiating sales for the $1.6+ billion revenue airline. Prior to that role, Miller was part of Seabury Group in New York, where he spent five years as a management consultant working directly with airlines around the globe. He began his storied career working in revenue management at Continental Airlines in Houston, and has been building travel industry-related skills and experience ever since.
“Owen comes to us with a great deal of education and experience related to our industry,” said InvitedHome CEO, Michael Joseph. “We’re excited for him to lead our team in increasing revenue, optimizing calendars, and increasing efficiencies for our owners, our guests, and InvitedHome.” Miller holds a Master’s in Transportation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Rice University.
An avid traveler, Miller has made good use of his airline flight benefits and business travels to see different corners of the world, and will bring a unique perspective to the already well-traveled InvitedHome team.
KUSA – This week, Scott Yates and Gregg Moss sat down for the regular Tech Tuesday to discuss a Denver startup that aims to make rental properties both safer and smarter.
RemoteLock from LockState has developed keyless entry door locks and safes since 2004, but began to focus its efforts on WiFi systems in 2011. In 2013, it developed its first internet-connected building access management system, a completely cloud-based network allowing anyone with a need to keep a door or area safe to do so remotely and via the Internet.
Among the many current technology trends, short-term rentals and locks may not seem to have much in common, but LockState is connecting the two, allowing homeowners, resorts, and short-term landlords alike to use WiFi-enabled locks.
The concept is simple: install a lock on your door or safe, and program a keycode for access. But unlike traditional keyless locks, LockState enables you to remotely access and change your door from any computer, smartphone, or tablet, thanks to WiFi capability.
The technology has become particularly useful for vacation resorts and short-term rentals. In November, LockState announced that it had struck a partnership with Airbnb, enabling hosts using the app to easily integrate the technology into their rentals.And this is a successful tech company that’s breaking with some traditions of tech companies. For example, it’s not located in Boulder or the LoDo neighborhood, but on Colorado Blvd. Regardless of location, it’s clear that this company has figured out a way to merge the old world of locks with the new world of Airbnb and other new-tech companies.
Today, LSI announced that industry veteran Scott Leggatt has been named CEO.
Leggat has more than 20 years of hands-on experience in the vacation rental industry as a key member of senior management at Outer Beaches Realty and Seaside Vacations.
“Leggat worked hard at both companies to develop a deep culture of trust, hard work and high standards – which are very much in line with the values here at LSI,” said Sean Stallings, LSI founding principal. “Scott is an accomplished leader with a proven track record, has been involved in the vacation rental management industry for more than 20 years, and is regarded by many to be one of the foremost experts in our industry.”
Leggat is presently a real estate broker in North Carolina and has participated on many committees and boards, including serving as President of the North Carolina Vacation Rental Managers Association, chairman of the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce, the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau and the Hatteras Island Council of the Chamber of Commerce. He currently serves on the Outer Banks Community Foundation and the National Vacation Rental Managers Association boards. Scott is a graduate of the University of Hawaii and did his post-graduate work at the University of Virginia.
“Scott’s diplomacy and ability to bring clarity to deep and complex issues are second to none,” added Stallings. “He brings a deep mix of leadership, inspiration, operational experience and passion for client care. One of LSI’s primary goals is to become the most client focused company in our industry – and Scott is just the person to help LSI execute on those opportunities. Having Scott will allow me to singularly focus on the tech – and I can tell you that we have some incredible offerings coming!”
Vacation rental management companies have been working hand-in-hand with municipalities for decades to grow destination awareness, remit lodging taxes, comply with safety standards, and implement good-neighbor policies.
However, Airbnb, in its rush to legalize its home-sharing platform, has upended the regulatory environment for traditional second home vacation rentals. Consequently, this year alone, Austin and Denver city councils voted to phase in a ban for second home vacation rentals while upholding the right of primary residents to rent rooms in their homes.
And they are not alone.
The precedent being set by these city officials will take years to reverse, and Airbnb is entirely at fault for pushing the agenda of primary residents renting rooms in their homes over second-home owners renting professionally managed, licensed, tax-paying, safety-compliant whole homes.
Editor’s Note: As founder and editor of VRM Intel, I argue that Airbnb is doing so at the detriment of their own long term sustainability. I also argue that professionally managed second home rentals do not have a negative impact on affordable housing. However, denying the ability for second home owners to rent their homes as vacation rentals does have an overall negative impact on the real estate market and on tax revenues from property taxes, lodging taxes, and sales taxes from businesses and employees related to a tourism economy.
Below is the press release, in full, from Nomadness Rentals. Vacation rental managers who are facing battles with Airbnb in the marketplace might consider crafting a similar announcement in their local and state media to create awareness about the issue and differentiate professionally managed vacation rentals from unregulated room sharing.
The Truth Behind Airbnb and Other Vacation Rental Giants
Massive companies like Airbnb are trying to evade rental requirements put in place by local towns like Mammoth, while local companies like Nomadness Rentals advocate for renter rights.
LOS ANGELES – June 10, 2016 – As vacation rental giants like Airbnb continue to grow in size, they begin to wreak havoc on local rental companies that have dedicated a lifetime’s worth of hard work to being honest, loyal, and cooperative with the towns and areas they represent. Airbnb’s latest controversial move involves using scare tactics to trick small towns like Mammoth Lakes into allowing them to bypass town ordinances, regulations, and guidelines in order to conduct business.
Local, long-time companies like Nomadness Rentals must mandatorily abide by all town ordinances, and for good reason. These ordinances are present to ensure the security and well-being of guests and local residents, ensuring that all vacation rentals are properly equipped, meet all safety regulations, and are up to renting standards.
In May, Airbnb approached – and was subsequently denied by – the town of Mammoth Lakes with a proposition to offer short-term rentals in the area without meeting ordinance requirements such as paying TBIDs (Mammoth Lakes Tourism Business Improvement District fees), conducting inspections, or providing documentation in case an audit is required. For those unfamiliar with TBIDs, these are small fees that fund marketing and promotion efforts for local businesses. The element of waiving inspection requirements is self-explanatory – without Airbnb conducting inspections and reporting to the town, guests don’t receive the assurance they need that their rental is up to par.
Additionally, Airbnb’s format of being homeowner-operated means guests may not receive all the services they’d otherwise get with a rental management company like Nomadness Rentals. Where Nomadness Rentals offers 24-hour emergency line services, licensed/insured housekeepers, pre-approved repairmen, and professional/experienced customer service representatives, Airbnb offers a user-generated contract that does not pre-approve the services promised by those homeowners.
Mammoth Lakes refused the requests made by Airbnb and is working to further spread the word as these attempts by Airbnb are being made in many other small tourism-oriented towns also. This begs the question: If Airbnb is making underhanded requests to small towns and cities, what might they be doing with the millions of renter/homeowner accounts on their platform? Nomadness Rentals and similar vacation rental companies offer complete transparency, doing their best to ensure all their units and guest experiences are up to par.
This latest development is just one peg in the ongoing controversy surrounding Airbnb, who take away from the hard work of hotel owners, small-scale lodging providers, and local property management companies – all of which dedicate themselves to every aspect of quality assurance, from repairs and cleaning to customer satisfaction. These things are not a guarantee with the rental giants that tend to abandon their users once the booking process is complete, leaving them wondering what to do when they arrive to their rental.
In a letter from the Mammoth Lakes Town Council, it is stated that “this document [from Airbnb] would have other agencies lining up at our door to get the same sort of ‘waiver'”. If more and more unfamiliar companies began asking for waivers on town taxes, requirements, etc. – what would happen to the quality of vacation rentals in Mammoth Lakes? This is a pressing question that we ask our renters to ask themselves before choosing rental companies like Airbnb for their next vacation. When it comes to quality and professionalism, we ask our guests to consider certified and upright vacation rental companies like Nomadness Rentals for their next trip instead of settling for their more large-scale, unregulated counterparts.
Media Contact
Nomadness Rentals
888-472-5777
info@nomadnessrentals.com
Pennsylvania’s Department of Revenue has reached an agreement Airbnb for the online home rental service to begin collecting and paying the state’s 6 percent hotel occupancy tax.
Starting on July 1, Airbnb’s hosts in Pennsylvania will begin paying the tax to the company, which will then remit it to the state in an agreement expected to generate nearly $1 million each year.
The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue announced the new agreement and expects it will help level the playing field with the hotel industry in the state that already pays the tax.
The tax applies when renting out a house, room or apartment to a guest for less than 30 days.
Evolve Vacation Rental Network, a Denver-based vacation rental management company, announced today a $5.5 million investment led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. The round brought the company’s total funding to $12 million, and included participation from Annox Capital and Allen & Company. Evolve plans to use the investment to expand its team and fuel marketing to the 10 million vacation homeowners in North America.
“The vacation rental industry is becoming mainstream. This is creating an opportunity to build a business that helps homeowners serve the consumer in a high-quality fashion,” said Henry Ellenbogen, portfolio manager of T. Rowe Price New Horizons Fund, Inc. “We believe that Evolve is uniquely positioned to elevate the booking experience in a flexible, cost-effective manner.”
Evolve’s vacation rental management owner-facing service assists homeowners with every aspect of generating rental income: creating listings optimized for online booking performance, promoting them on the major vacation rental marketplaces as well as its own site, responding to traveler inquiries seven days a week, securing bookings online and offline, and handling all pre- and post-stay guest communication.
The company features owner-friendly policies like no term commitments or limits on personal stays, and offers homeowners the option of coordinating on-the-ground services through a provider of their choosing, or by accessing its network of vetted local partners. There are no upfront costs and homeowners pay 10 percent per booking.
Founded in 2011 by Brian Egan and Adam Sherry, Evolve services more than 2,000 vacation rental properties throughout North America and has booked more than 55,000 trips since its launch. The company also benefits from the extensive experience of Bob Mylod, founder and managing partner of Annox Capital Management and former vice chairman and CFO of Priceline.com, who serves on Evolve’s board of directors along with Egan and Sherry.
“The vacation rental marketplaces are transitioning from travelers inquiring online to travelers booking online,” said Mylod. “With this shift, the market has grown increasingly complex and competitive. I see Evolve playing a cornerstone role in helping vacation rental owners succeed in this new environment.”
BookingPal is announcing the launch of myOptimize. myOptimize is the Vacation Rental industry’s first platform that consolidates the ranking requirements of dozens of the world’s leading consumer travel websites into one proprietary algorithm to provide clients with real time analysis and suggestions for better product merchandising and engaging product content.
“We are incredibly excited and proud of myOptimize,” says Alex Aydin, CEO and Founder of BookingPal. “This is a game changing solution that allows us to really leverage the power of the connections that we have created between property management software systems, consumer travel websites and property managers to create a better experience for travelers worldwide and more revenue opportunities for all parties involved.”
The myOptimize algorithm utilizes more than a dozen metrics to score and calculate the propensity of individual rental properties to perform via distribution channels and then provides contextual notification if there are issues with a listing as well as guidelines and suggestions for improvement. Each listing will benefit from a myOptimize report that will provide suggested updates to merchandize the property better and ultimately lead to higher conversion rates.
“The preliminary analysis shows that our properties that score at least an 80% or above in myOptimize have twice the conversion rate of those that score lower. The results are very dramatic” says Alex.
“myOptimize overcomes a lot of hurdles that our property management and distribution partners have been facing, “adds Brian Brown, BookingPal Vice President of Sales. “The goal is not to just distribute a lot of inventory, but to distribute incredible rentals that perform well across our marketing channels. If our property managers use these same suggested changes and feedback on their own websites their direct revenue should also benefit.”
Property Managers can begin to take advantage of the myOptimize platform by the end of June. To get added to the integration list, please contact sales@mybookingpal.com or visit www.mybookingpal.com.
About BookingPal
BookingPal is a cloud-based travel technology company providing the vacation rental and holiday letting industry with a global distribution platform that features real-time connectivity between the leading property management software systems and top consumer travel websites in the world.
The BookingPal platform offers Vacation Rental Managers and Property Owners superior revenue opportunities by utilizing proprietary products to optimize distribution capabilities including myOptimize which calculates listing quality and provides key feedback to achieve optimal channel placement and conversion and myInquiry which provides a qualified team of reservation agents to handle guest reservation communications.
Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Irvine, California, BookingPal seamlessly connects over 180,000 rentals located on 5 continents, from 28 different property management software systems to over 35 online global consumer travel websites and the travel agent industry.
The DOL’s new rules raising the salary threshold to $47,476 have small business owners facing difficult decisions. The decisions you make not only impact the financial aspects of your business, they also have a direct impact your employee morale, engagement and productivity.
Are you prepared for the unintended consequences of this new ruling?
Attend the KLS Group Webinar to learn more about:
What the rule is and how it impacts your business
What it means to be “Exempt” and paid a salary
Best practices related to pay and communication
Next steps to take to comply by 12/1/2016
Webinar details:
Date: Thursday, June 9th at 11:00 AM PDT
Cost: $99.00 (includes a 30-minute one-to-one consulting session)
Sue Jones, Founder and Managing Director of KLS Group holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Northeastern University, is both SHRM-SCP and SPHR certified and is a Veteran of the US Navy.
Airbnb has been all over the news lately, but this time not because of their high valuations, disruptive platform, uninhibited ability to raise capital, or even their regulatory battles.
This time Airbnb’s headlines are about discriminatory actions by “hosts” when deciding if a renter is “suitable” to stay in their short term rental property.
Editor Note: It is important to distinguish between Airbnb’s “hosts” and the professionally managed listings on the site, Professional Vacation Rental Management Companies operate as lodging providers and do not deny bookings based on race, religion, gender or sexual preference. It is simply against vacation rental management best practices to do so, and if they did, they would be sued immediately.
In doing research for the upcoming 2016 Summer Issue, we reached out to vacation rental homeowners who choose to self-manage their homes instead of using a professional management company, and the top two reasons homeowners gave for self-managing are the cost and “Knowing who is staying in my home.”
In case you’ve missed the headlines referencing Airbnb’s problems with discrimination, here is a recap followed by how the discriminatory actions of homeowners might lead to industry-wide instant booking on Airbnb and its competition.
1. Study Released Showing Discrimination by Airbnb Hosts
In December 2015, a working paper by three Harvard Business School researchers found “widespread discrimination” by hosts against people with black-sounding names seeking rentals. Fictional guests set up by the researchers with names like Lakisha or Rasheed were roughly 16 percent less likely to be accepted than identical guests with names like Brent or Kristen.
Researchers set up 6,400 fake profiles of Airbnb guests and assigned them stereotypically white or black names, based on Massachusetts birth certificate data from the 1970s. None of the guest profiles had identifying pictures. They used the accounts to request bookings with hosts in five cities: Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Airbnb hosts decide whom they want to rent to; requests from white guests got “yes” responses 50 percent of the time, vs. 42 percent for black applicants. The researchers controlled for a variety of factors, such as the host’s gender and ratings, and the “race effect,” as the paper described it, persisted.
2. #AirbnbWhileBlack
As awareness of the problem increased, Tweets with the hashtag #AirbnbWhileBlack gained in popularity with users sharing their personal stories of discrimination.
I’m about to book an international @Airbnb so I’ve made my profile as white as I could. “I’m a writer & I love hiking.” #AirbnbWhileBlack 😞
3. Lawsuit Filed By User Accuses Airbnb of Discriminatory Housing Practices
In May, Gregory Selden, a 25-year-old African American, filed a complaint against the startup on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. He claims that an Airbnb host denied him accommodations when he requested a booking under his personal profile, which included a photo, but accepted the booking when he applied using two fake profiles of white men. Selden went to Airbnb with the issue, but he claims the company ignored him.
When Selden questioned the host, he told a local NBC station that he received this response: “It’s a disappointment people like you always victimize yourselves solely on the basis of skin color.”
Selden’s suit seeks class action status, and he doesn’t appear to be alone in his claims.
Airbnb banned the host referenced in the Tweet above.
“We were horrified when we read these messages,” Airbnb spokesman Nick Papas said in a statement, USA Today reported. “The language and conduct are unacceptable and violate both our policies and everything we believe in. This host has been removed from Airbnb and we’ve reached out to the guest to offer our full and complete support, including ensuring the guest has a safe place to stay.”
The incident in NC was disturbing and unacceptable. Racism and discrimination have no place on Airbnb. We have permanently banned this host.
6. Hotel Organization Uses Airbnb’s Discrimination Troubles in Ongoing Battle Between Hotels and NYC Short Term Rentals
The New York Hotel Trades Council quickly capitalized on Airbnb’s woes in the ongoing battle between hotels and short term rentals. A new ad, launched earlier this week by ShareBetter, a nationwide organization reportedly funded by the New York Hotel Trades Council, paints Airbnb as unfair and discriminatory to guests but could ultimately cast a long shadow across the entire lodging industry.
The ad tells the story of a guest who claims the sharing site routinely discriminates against her because of her skin color.
“I am a black woman,” she says in the 30-second spot. “I get declined all the time on Airbnb.”
7. Will This Lead to Instant Book on All Listings?
With Airbnb hosts abusing the process of accepting a booking, Airbnb and other sites have the opportunity to use the discrimination issues as leverage to move all listings to “Instant Book” or “Book It Now.”
Since 1) Instant online booking is the best way to increase transactional revenue, and 2) The awareness of discrimination issues is increasing, Airbnb and its competitors now have a paved avenue to move their platforms forward. If they get backlash from the homeowner community, Airbnb can simply say they are battling racism and discrimination. Hard to argue.
We now have 500,000 instant book homes available today on @Airbnb.
If Airbnb moves all the inventory on its platform to “Instant Book,” HomeAway and TripAdvisor are likely to emulate the model as they have recently done with with service fees, cancellation policies, two-way reviews and site design.
Vacasa today announced its partnership with TPW Vacation Rentals of Bondville, VT. The company will assume management of more than 80 short term vacation homes in the Killington, Stratton, Mt. Snow and Okemo markets, where TPW will continue to provide their association management services.
Following a $35 million Series A deal last month, Vacasa is on track to become the largest player in the vacation rental industry, which is predicted to reach 169.7 billion by 2019.
Over the past three years, Vacasa has fueled growth through heavy investment in acquisitions and since then has closed 29 deals.
“This deal is really a result of a shared vision between TPW and Vacasa,” says Paul Carroccio, CEO of TPW. “We endeavor to provide TPW clients with the best customized service possible, and we feel confident that our vacation rental customers can continue to expect the same and more from Vacasa.”
Currently, TPW manages thousands of homes in the New England market and has expanded its Vermont and New Hampshire footprint every year since its inception. According to Vacasa, the partnership is an opportunity to gain market share in Vermont and the larger New England region, where it currently manages 211 properties. The company manages thousands of vacation
rentals on the west coast, and now plans to increase inventory in east coast vacation markets.
”This deal enables Vacasa to increase our market share in a desirable area with a strong winter market, and provide guests with another destination option when booking with Vacasa,” says the company’s founder and CEO Eric Breon. “We are proud to now provide TPW owners with top of the line resources to optimize booking processes, including yield management technology, improved marketing, and SEO.”
In 2016 alone, Vacasa has acquired nine companies, including Black Diamond in Sun Valley, ID, All Seasons Collection Fredricksburg, TX, MiaVac in South Beach, FL, Island Escapes in Naples, FL. and Discover Sunriver in Sunriver, OR, adding over 500 properties to their inventory.
PMCs are responsible for marketing rentals, serving guests and satisfying owners, often with minimal staff and strict budgetary constraints. At the end of the day, these efforts must result in profits. To do this, PMCs have to stay competitive to increase revenue in all possible ways. The 19-page eBook is available for free download at 
“Securing Michael as an instructor was a huge goal for us,” said LiveRez VP of Operations Tina Upson. “Not only does he have deep experience in writing and editing content that engages travelers, but he’s tuned in on a daily basis to what’s helping hosts get more bookings on Airbnb.”
Miller comes to InvitedHome from the airline industry, where he most recently headed revenue management and pricing for 
“Leggat worked hard at both companies to develop a deep culture of trust, hard work and high standards – which are very much in line with the values here at LSI,” said 
The myOptimize algorithm utilizes more than a dozen metrics to score and calculate the propensity of individual rental properties to perform via distribution channels and then provides contextual notification if there are issues with a listing as well as guidelines and suggestions for improvement. Each listing will benefit from a myOptimize report that will provide suggested updates to merchandize the property better and ultimately lead to higher conversion rates.
