Heads In Beds Show - Branded Stays & Lessons and Strategies from Hotels to Vacation Rentals

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

In this episode Paul and Conrad break down hotel brands achieve global consistency while vacation rental franchises embrace local ops, but may struggle to build a true brand... they explore branding, marketing, and operational strategies — and share insights on what each sector can learn to scale and succeed.Enjoy!⭐️ Links & Show NotesPaul Manzey Conrad O'ConnellConrad's Book: Mastering Vacation Rental MarketingConrad's Course: Mastering Vacation Rental Marketing 101🔗 Connect With BuildUp BookingsWebsiteFacebook PageInstagramTwitter🚀 About BuildUp BookingsBuildUp Bookings is a team of creative, problem solvers made to drive you more traffic, direct bookings and results for your accommodations brand. Reach out to us for help on search, social and email marketing for your vacation rental brand.

Welcome to the Head to Med Show presented by Buildup Bookings. We teach you how to get more vacation properties, earn more revenue per property, master marketing and increase your occupancy. Take your vacation rental marketing game to the next level by listening in. I'm your co-host Conrad. And I'm your co-host Paul. All right, Paul, how's it going? What's going on? It's cold. level by listening in. I'm your co-host Conrad. I'm your co-host Paul. All right, Paul, how's it going? What's going on?

It's cold. It's real cold up here. When we were at Darm, we got to play the How Cold Is It Back Home game. And I think at that point, it was like single digits, which I can deal with that. I'm a good Western boy. I've been through this. It's minus 24, windchill today, Western boy. I've been through this it's minus 24 windchill today Conrad I am struggling to keep warm. So if we hear the space heater in the background, it's necessary I'm sorry. Otherwise, my teeth are gonna be chattering, but I hope you're warmer. How are you doing, sir? Yeah, I will not complain for the rest of the winter because I don't think my children would know what to do in negative 24 degree wind chill weather. I think they just fall apart and and collapse and perhaps

not make it. So I know you typically walk your son to school. Did you walk your son to school today or did you put him in a warm car or something like that? I battled the protests as much as I could and I did eventually just it was we were lucky we were a little late this morning. I said, oh, sorry, bud. I don't think we're gonna make it in time. So I think we're gonna have to drive today. So it was, I may have slowed breakfast down a hair to ensure that that happened, but you know,

well, when he listens to this in like five years or something, he can, you know, give me a hard time about that at that point. But yeah, we drove. Yeah, well, it's awesome that your son wants to walk to school, but the same token, it's like, there's a time about that at that point. But yeah, we drove. Yeah. Well, it's awesome that your son wants to walk to school. But the same token, it's like there's a time and a place for it. And that's probably not it.

You know what else there's a time and a place for in my experience? Brands and branding. So we've got kind of a fun one today, an interesting episode. We came up with this idea post-ARM. We're back here now a few weeks later. I'll be probably listening to this right around Christmas time eventually.

I think this is dropping around Christmas. So Merry Christmas to our listeners. We appreciate you guys and we're thankful for it. We'll have a joke at the end about giving us a review. It's kind of like a gift. Like we'll go from there. We came up with this idea on branding because I think it's something that we haven't spent a ton of time on. We did an episode a minute ago about branding versus direct response. That's not too long ago, but we haven't really done anything on this exact topic before. And I forget exactly how we even got to this. We're just brainstorming ideas, but we went to the bottom of the Marriott website, which if you're listening, I would encourage you to do this.

Go to the Marriott website, scroll down to the bottom and go to the Marriott Bonvoy section and they have, I think I've counted them correctly, 36 different brands. Here's one of the largest, if not the largest hospitality hotel brand in the world. And they've chosen to take all their inventory that they have available to them and chop it up into 36 different discrete and unique brands. And you and I were thinking like, think of the large companies in our space, think of a VTRIPS or think of a Vakasa large

companies, right? And they don't have this, they don't have, there's not different brands, there's not a luxury collection, there's not a budget collection, there's not any sort of differentiation. It's just like, Hey, here's 35,000 Vakasa listings, let us know what you're after. Right. And we just want to go through this. It's more of just kind of a fun like thought exercise episode, maybe more than anything. But what are the brands that maybe should be built in the space? There's franchises that are in the space, how are they doing branding? Like, how are they making sure things are consistent from location to location? And it's just kind of like an overview of these different ideas. So yeah, I just didn't know kind of what your thoughts were

on the branding piece as we get going here. Yeah, I think that the, certainly we know that the hotel space is more established, but that has allowed it to do this type of thing. I mean, we looked at the brand list for Hilton and IHG and Marriott and all those, and it really is stunning because all of the names, or not even shouldn't say all most of those names are still very recognizable names. So it's not

like they're diminishing their overall brand like spring like I'm looking at the select select line for very bomboy, right Spring Hill suites Fairfield, I mean, these are pretty, pretty accessible names that you probably see around a loft, you know, some of those, some of those other will say, I mean, these are pretty accessible names that you probably see around a loft. Some of those other, not the budget, but the middle level of hotels, those are pretty common. So I think that what hotels do a really good job of

is still having that overarching parent brand without losing out on the individuality of those sub-brands. Now, a lot of that has been as a result of acquisition and all this stuff as well, but let's go back to the VTRIPS example for just a second of it would have been fine for Steve to figure out different levels, maybe put together that type of strategic plan of, okay, I'm going to acquire this luxury brand, I'm going to acquire this luxury brand and I'm going to acquire this specific brand over here. I think, and it would be interesting to learn, just what kind of thought process went into

that. Was it solely based on markets? Was it solely based on unit count? I have some sneaking suspicions that it was, let's get that number as big as we can and then we'll figure it out from there. I have some sneaking suspicions that it was, let's get that number as big as we can and then we'll figure it out from there. At a high level, that's something that we can take that back down to that smaller level of, oh, I want to grow, grow, grow and be everywhere and do everything.

Well, at some point along the lines, do you want to establish yourself as, where do you want to establish yourself? How do you want your brand to be represented? And, and it is, if it's just, you want to be the biggest. Okay. That's cool. Do you want to be the best? I don't know that you can necessarily be the biggest and best, but I think in the hotel space, that is how you kind of.

Differentiate delineate is there is the best, and then there's this next level. And then there's this more reasonable level, and then there's this next level and then there's this more reasonable level and then there's a discount brand and you are sticking with that brand and you are sticking with that expectation of if I'm the best Western I'm not looking for I'm not looking to market to the St. Regis or the Weston or the Four Seasons or the Ritz-Carlton guests. Those aren't my people. I think having that clear delineation really does allow for a better understanding of who your target audience is and really allows you to narrow in and refine

how you're going after those people. Yeah, well, so two reactions that I had here when we were kind of coming up with this idea. One is that I think the franchise model is very challenging in this respect because I don't know this to be the case from everything that I've read online, but just from going and looking at the different franchise operators out there. And we made a list.

I don't know if we've got all of them. We talked about Casago, Skyrun, iTrip, Cassiola, PMI Grand Welcome was the list that we had kind of done some research on for this episode. And again, from what I can tell, I'm looking at their websites. So I don't know. We know some folks at some of these companies, but I didn't do, we didn't reach out to them before we did that. So if we're wrong, feel free to email me and you can correct me.

But I don't think there's some, there's not some like agreed upon standard for every Casago franchise or every Skyrim franchise to have as far as inventory goes. Like when you buy into that program, when you buy into that franchise, in theory, you're buying into a system to help you run your business more effectively. But you're certainly not, from what I can tell, buying into saying every Casago property has XYZ. Now, I'm sure there's some level of quality that we all aspire to or want to have as far as properties go, but it's very reasonable to assume, and I'm sure this does happen, that a Casago franchise operator in a given market, we have one, for example, in Idaho

that we work with, might have very different standards than the same Casago operator we're on base in Myrtle Beach. And they could be better, they could be worse, they could just be different. You know, it does not even better or worse, it's just different. I just think that concept makes it very challenging to actually build this brand awareness. Because one thing that you can say about the hotel brands is that if I go stay in the Red Scarleton in New York City,

and I go stay in the Red Scarleton in Rome, and then I go stay in the Red Scarleton in Miami, those are all gonna be, have a common standard amongst them. You know, maybe the property is laid out a little bit differently, maybe the amenities are slightly different. That's not a guarantee maybe that all those things are going to be in place. But when something is like a three star hotel, a four star hotel, a five star hotel, there is pretty clear lines of, you know, amenities and service that are expected and I would say not just expected, but have to be in place for someone to say that they

have a four star or a five star property. So that's the piece that I think we're really still struggling with in our industry, broadly speaking. And I think it makes the marketing honestly really challenging. So it's something that you and I picked out a lot on previous episodes, this idea of everybody wants to manage the high end homes, everybody wants to manage the one, two, three, four or $500,000 a year annual revenue driving of occasional properties, of course, like everyone wants to be six foot four and be with a supermodel, right? These are all things we want. But if your brand doesn't actually align with the vision

of someone who has a $250,000 per year grossing home, then that homeowner is too smart. Like they're not gonna get your postcard or your direct mail or see an ad from you and go click on your website and see the equivalent of very low end inventory to see super eight style inventory on your website, right, they have the equivalent of a Ritz Carlton in the vacation to world and

then go, yeah, that's my guy. Yeah, that's my gal. I'm gonna sign up with that person to manage my home. And I think that if you're building a brand in this space, that's ultimately what I what we're getting at here is that companies that succeed and get brand awareness and get referrals and get homeowners almost on autopilot and then get bookings through brand awareness have a standard they're upholding. And that standard makes sense. It sort of, as you look at the inventory on the website, it kind of all lines up. Those are the people that I see that do the best.

When there's a little bit of discrepancy, I think you can work your way around it. Maybe you have a condo collection and a home collection and you're in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. We worked with a client in that market before in that way. that seems to work, that seems to be a viable path where there's not too much confusion. But it probably would work better if they had only the home inventory and they had no condos from a conversion rate perspective, it'd be a little bit more clear. Now, that being said, there's lots of demand for condos, you can make money off condos. I'm not saying don't ever have anything that's even remotely different, because that might make your company growth really, really challenging. But certainly one thing that

you and I don't like to see is a massive difference in quality. So we see the $100 a night condo next to the $2,000 per night home, that seems to be really challenging from a marketing and brand building perspective. Or one thing that you and I really dislike, I know, is, oh, I'm everywhere. I got seven here, Arizona, I got four in Texas, I got three in South Carolina, I got two in Massachusetts. And that's where it's just like, okay, you know, or even if they're all unless

they, the argument I would make there unless they tie in something so unique, that people have to do it. Maybe that's my one caveat there, right? Like, was it storied stay? Is that the one or the storied collection where it's like castles or collection? Yeah, collection where it's like, okay, that's different, right? Because it's like, okay, those are all over, but they have a certain thing in common amongst them. But if you have like a two bedroom condo in 12 different

markets, and you got seven of them, again, what's the brand? How are we how are we connecting these things together? And I guess what I'm getting at here, just like rounded out and kick it back your way, is I used to be just not in tune with this, or I'd be like, What does brand even mean? I feel like it was felt filled this creative people who wouldn't really define what it means. I think a brand is just like a logical collection of what you expect to see matching what you actually see. Like I

think it's just like the expectation of what you think the company stands for and offers you and then you get there and it matches all the way through. Like when you go stay in a high end hotel, you expect there to be great service. So when the great service is there, you're like, oh, that makes sense. You stay in a low, low end hotel, and you get like decent service, you're actually happy. You're like, oh, I didn't expect nothing. And I got decent service. I'll take it. You know,

this is this is a positive thing. So anyways, just your reaction to those different ideas I'm picking up, brand awareness, franchise standards and location pieces. Yeah, I mean, I think the brand awareness is a key one. It's one of those things that it is hard to, especially on the vacation rental side, when you are in multiple markets,

like how are you going to define that brand? Because I think inevitably part of that branding is you're relating back to your location. If your location is North America or the United States or Canada or something like that, it is just very hard or challenging to make that differentiation happen. And at that point, you aren't, you may be in all those little markets, but let's say I'm, you know, I'm not going against the local competitor then at that point. Now I'm being measured against a Virbo. I'm being measured against an Airbnb because that's the only comparison really that someone

can make is that, well, if they're all over the place, they must be like that. No, you're not a big OTA. You're not a lot. I mean, that's never going to be how you can really stand out from the crowd. So I think that locationally, yes, you want to be in, in, maybe you do want to be in a lot of different markets, because you think that that's going to protect you from whatever travel trends, anything like that? I don't know. It sounds good. When people say that it sounds good in theory, you know what I mean? Like, I don't I want my self right more diverse than my income sources and stuff. But it's like, are

you good enough to do that? You know what I mean? Like, are you good enough to be splitting your attention across five different places? And, you know, that's always what I say, too. And this ties in the branding pieces. To you, it's going to be one of those markets is going to be your fifth priority if you're in five markets. Do you have enough right infrastructure, budget, cost, etc, in place for it to be your fifth priority, but still perform well. I mean, some people might some people might have that ability, they can

build a structure or team where it can be a lower priority for them. But in the grand scheme of things, they're operating at a high level. Cool. Like I've not seen that very often. I can count on one hand the number of times that's actually occurred for me. Right. And I think I mean mean, it does, it comes down to a standard and it's just very hard to, there are different standards in different markets and that's just, that's the reality. So to try to bring something universally, like, I mean, hotels do an incredible job.

There is a brand standard for each of these things. For the franchises that are in the vacational space right now, there isn't a brand standard. It's the branding on top of people are. People are using that name. And if the brand, if Skyrun, Nicasiola, and iTrips has done a really good job of differentiating themselves and establishing their own brand, awesome.

But even there, I think that it's, I mean, we're pretty well-entuned with the space. We're pretty well-entuned with these companies. And we're not property managers, that's not our jobs. But if I asked you right now, what is the differentiating or the defining characteristic between Casago and Skyrun and iTrip and Cassiola and PMI and Grand Welcome.

I don't think I could, I know I couldn't answer the question of what makes them better than them. It's what's the standard? Like what is the standard to be held to? And do we need to be able to be better to hold people, hold all those franchises to more of a standard? Would we have a better understanding of, okay, Skyrun is our, I mean, I know they're in mountain markets, are they the luxury brand? Is iTripped the luxury brand? Are they the select brand?

Are they the premium brand? You know, those words get thrown around a lot in conversations in the vacation rental space, but I don't think anybody could truly define what is a luxury home? What is a premium home? What is a select home, what is a, what do all those levels look like? And that may be something that holistically, we do need to put a little more effort towards in trying to define those things, because if there is more of a collective vocabulary that we're all using and we are able to

kind of get on some of those same terms. That might be the only way we can move someone off the concept of Airbnb is where I go. Airbnb is where I go to start the search for inspiration, to do this, to do that. Verbo is where I go. I think it does. It takes a collective concept of a market that is going to be able to battle with an Airbnb or do something like that because again, that's why these franchises under these big hotel brands do stand alone. They do have the standards and everybody can look to the level of standard, hotel stay standard of which they're looking to stay and experience there. So I think Travis at 100 Collection, he's trying to do something,

but that seems like more of a, I see some really great operating companies and I'd like to work with them. Then there's probably more to that as well. There is a, I'm sure there's a layer of you need to do this, you need to do that. It's the thing I like about Marriott Homes and Villas right now. If you go into, if you want to go into that program, you have to submit a fairly decent amount of work and you have to prove that you maintain the standards of Marriott's Homes and Villas. So it's, I don't know, maybe that's kind of that next step is where does that standard

lie? Should there be a line to draw there or what are those, you know, going down into the individual brands? Which brands would we recommend? Which brands have we have we worked with and things like that? Yeah. Well, I think a few things to pick apart there. I guess my my reaction to a lot of these franchise companies, and this is the analogy that I that I've driven before or I've used before

as an example, let's pretend there was not McDonald's within 10 miles of wherever you live. Let's say you live in a relatively populated area and a McDonald's opened on a popular street corner. I suspect, and I could be wrong, that McDonald's basically doesn't have to let anybody know that much about it. If they're opening in the right location and there's visibility and people can see the location, see the restaurant, they probably do just fine over a long period of time. Now, initially they had it going, would you want to let people know and do some advertising? Probably. But I don't think and it could be wrong. You know, again, the McDonald's has some like really complex local marketing strategy for when they open a new location. People see it, it's in the right spot.

And then they go, awesome, I'm going to go eat there because it's convenient. I know what I expected stuff like that. So my point is McDonald's itself drives demand, just the real estate itself, the logo, the icon, the location will drive its own demand and they get the bookings there. I don't think and I could be, again, I could be wrong, but I've not seen any guest say I stayed in a insert franchise name here. I must stay in another insert franchise name here and another location next time I vacation. Right. So the, the, the we're in the industry, we're in the bubble. Like I would say that like we're in our own little bubble. And when we go, we know the difference between these different franchises. And

we love many people operating these companies. And we have nothing, I have nothing but good things to say about many, many of these people that are excellent people. But that doesn't mean that their brand holds any awareness in the mind of the consumer, right? Maybe it does for someone who's been to Orlando before and say, but then it's like Casio La, maybe being something if someone's been to Mexico before and stay with the original some of the original Casago branding down there,

perhaps that does that is the case there and that like local connection. But honestly, that's no different than like, you know, working with some of the brands that Milo acquired, like VTRIPS or Carolina Retreats was a client that I'd worked with pre acquisition. And people knew that brand because he had worked on building it up and then it was sold. And then the brand kind of is intact kind of isn't like they kind of move things around. But that's where I guess like even the largest operators are struggling a little bit to be like, what do I do with this local brand when I go and acquire it? We all know the Vakasa playbook, which is buy the brand, kill it, merge it into our company. And 95% of the time, they seem to have done that. There's a few random

carve outs, by the way, when we were doing a research for today's episode. And maybe there's someone listening who can like educate us on this. We found was it Hatteras was the one that we found. And then I think it's like Latitude 38 was another one that we found. We found a few companies that were purchased by Vakasa some time ago, it wasn't like a recent acquisition and they're still branded as their own company. And then on the bottom of it, it'll say like by Vakasa. So like Hatteras Realty for example, it's like Hatteras Realty by Vakasa.

Again, I think Latitude 38 is the same. I think they're out in telegraph memory serves on that side of things. So yeah, just like interesting pieces of the puzzle. I'm not sure if they're like testing it, if they're trying to see how well that's gonna work and they're gonna maybe come back and do this more. But I thought initially,

oh, maybe these were recent acquisitions that happened like in the last few months and they're just working on killing the brand and moving it over, but then it doesn't appear to be the case. So I don't know, just an interesting little nugget there. But it makes you wonder, going back to the hotel conversation, like the brand comparison of like,

yeah, what are they trying to achieve by that? What is the ultimate goal there? What is the outcome? And I'll admit, I don't know if a casa like called me tomorrow and said, like, fix our problem, I'll pay you all the money in the world. I'd be like, I don't know what the right answer is. Like, it's, it's a very challenging discussion to have. Because I'm actually I could, I

could really say that I'm kind of surprised by the fact that Airbnb has got the market share it's gotten with the diversity of the of what they have going to Airbnb and just for fun, pick a market and then sort price ascending, lowest to highest, and you'll be shocked at the inventory in a given market that's like 30 bucks a night and it's like someone's spare room in a house and then $3,000 a night and it's like a 20 bedroom

high end luxury home like in the same market. So it's actually almost like a testament or a kudos to Airbnb where they have branded themselves in a way where it's like we are places to stay and you shouldn't be ashamed or afraid to go on Airbnb if you're looking for a $10,000 vacation or a hundred dollar night stay. Like both things are on the platform.

So I kind of give them some credit. I wanted to hit on marketing and loyalty programs. That was something that we had in our outline and I think that's worth discussing. Cause that in my mind is another thing that's very clear. The value proposition is very clear on the hotel side of things. I get my Marriott points.

In fact, I can even take my American Express points and convert them into Marriott points, which is what I did when I booked for that trip that we did to Rome this year. And it feels like it's all very interconnected and logical. And I understand the benefits there. I don't see anything remotely similar at all in the vacational space.

The closest thing I think you'd point to is one key with Verbo, where they've got like this one key cash, and that's something that you kind of earn, although it's not really at the property manager level, that's more at the OTA level. But I don't really see anybody who's trying to crack necessarily the loyalty program code. I think there's

people that are entering that space now that are going to try to figure it out. I think journey comes to mind. We talked with Zach recently about that's coming, you know, it's not here today, but that's coming down the road. So I think that's but it's just such a powerful hook, right? Like I'm going here, I'm going to stay with this company, they know my name, they know my preferences, I get my points. And I think people draw into that. And we as vacational operators or marketers just haven't

cracked into that code at all. And I think that's a huge miss. So anyways, are you like a points person when you book hotels? Or what's kind of your reaction? Yeah, I mean, that's something that I think I have seen some of those ideas and concepts of, oh, yeah, this is well, this is what we're going to do. We're going to link into all the property management systems, we're going to do this. And I think that's kind of where, a lot of these discussions really lie around all the franchise stuff is like, ultimately when you are putting together that franchise,

you're putting together a tech stack for all of your franchisees as well. And I think some of it is that some of the marketing and loyalty opportunities are limited by the property management systems that are out there. They all know it. I'm not saying anything that they don't know right now.

That is just one of those things where we are trying to unify the experience a little more to be more like the hotel side of things and pull in loyalty opportunities and make sure that the marketing is available and you can leverage your brand as opposed to just doing this and that. I would love to see loyalty programs in this space because I do think it would allow these individual brands to create more lifetime customers. The closest we have is you're adding to the email list. That's your membership right now.

And it doesn't feel like a membership when you're maybe receiving an email sequence and a long nurture or something like that down the road, but that's not loyalty. There's only so much you can do on the marketing side there. And it is, and I think that's kind of going back to the franchisees is putting together that tech stack., you know, kind of going back to the franchisee should be, is putting together that tech stack. They're putting together kind of that, I hope,

this is because a lot of people who are buying into these franchise models, they're not marketing experts. They're not even necessarily operational experts. They've probably been successful in another business. They see this as the next vertical that is going to take off, and they need the help of the experts that have been in this space, that have helped create these franchises for dozens of other individuals and franchisees. So it's hard to get uniformity around a loyalty program when we don't necessarily have uniformity over what website are you using? What PMS are you using? I think it's getting better there. And then we're going to go back to Steve a little bit

here at V-Trips. He knows, you know, that was part of his acquisition strategy is he was bringing on people who are already using the PMS that he was, quick switch stuff like that. But I do think that that's kind of the under the covers part of the franchise agreement is that, okay, yes, I've got the brand and I'm going to bring on the properties, but how am I going to run the business? And I do think and hope that all these franchises are giving a really solid direction. And we're going to talk about here on the next slide is the scaling challenges is how

am I going to be able to scale the business and do I have that right infrastructure in place? And you and I have both seen some examples of, yeah, the franchise comes in and everything runs reasonably smoothly, or it's really, really bad. There is no in-between there. It's smooth and it's a nice clean break or it's a disaster zone. So what do you see when you kind of you're looking at the loyalty, but also the scaling challenges as you're working with some of these now more franchise models?

Yeah, I think the technology in theory, that is in my mind where the most value can be created because it's like the average typical vocational manager that we're working with is constantly worried about or stressed by or is dealing with technical issues. Oh, man, you know, my cleaning software isn't hooking up right to my, you know, PMS right now we're having issues. You know, it's so funny people ask me to recommend PMS is all the time. I'm like, honestly, if I listen

every client that we're talking to in their PMS, I don't know if any of them are happy. So it's like how what level of happiness can you achieve, right? It's like the the ceiling is six out of 10. You know, like, so we have clients that one out of 10 where it's like, okay, I want to change tomorrow. If clients had five out of 10, it's like, I don't I can think I want to change, but I know it's gonna be paying the tail to change. So I don't really want to do it. And then we've client, you know, people clients in between, but it seems like that's the piece where if franchise operator were to make

a lot of headway, or like, honestly, this is what's been rumored that the cost would eventually sell their own technology, and that you'd be able to use like the Vaca's tech stack, if you will, to power your vacational business that obviously has never come to fruition. And I think the indication is that if anything, the opposite might happen, which is a VACASA when they eventually go private and you know, go off the public markets. And in fact,

they would take like an off the shelf system, I guess, do you attract or something and then run VACASA off that which is interesting. So in my mind, it's like, that's where I would see value and like, cool, all my tools are here working in place, I don't need to stress about it, worry about it, as long as it's stuff that you like. But I think the trouble that I would have there recommending someone go down that path is like, you know, just give the example because I know it, let's say you don't like Streamline, maybe you use Streamline before you haven't, you know, you don't use a platform anymore going

forward. But you are a Casago franchise, I don't think you've got a choice, like that's what you're agreeing to signing up for. So it's like, you're also kind of giving away some decision making power on tech. And if they're. So it's like, you're also kind of giving away some decision-making power on tech. And if they're not building their own tech, they're just kind of repackaging and selling you something else, maybe at a discount, maybe not. I kind of wonder like, what's the value there?

Or I would say if they are building tech, is the tech they're building better than what you can go get off the shelf for, you know, X dollars from insert, whatever service here, from Odoraz, from Guesty, from Track, from whatever, right? You know, I'm not even saying you should pick one or the other, I'm just saying like, what is that? What is that value proposition?

So that's where I think the hotels, it's very different. Right? Like when you get into Marriott, it's like, yes, I'm sure you're getting a very dated system, but it's like the same Marriott that, software that runs everything else, right? So it's that there's a lot of battle tested, I think proof there that what you're buying is pretty sure fire commodity.

I don't think you can say that very truthfully about the vacation on the side of things. It's not like when you buy again, Casiola or whatever, just pick your pick your platform here doesn't matter. My understanding is none of them have their own proprietary technologies that they're running off of. They're mostly repackaging and reselling something else. So I think that's something that you know, like maybe the hotel space can learn from us a little little bit in some ways. But tech wise, I don't think we're probably holding a candle. And there's so many platforms like this was the was a topic at Darm.

I forget who said this, if it was at a talk or if it was something I heard after or something. But someone was saying, like, it blew, he was more from the hotel space. And he was like, it was blowing his mind that there's like the hotel space, there's like five PMSs that drive like the majority of the hotel reservations.

And he's like, why do you guys have like 50? Like, you don't need 50. What's the point of this? And no one could really give him an answer. It's like, I don't know, like people want different things, different regions have different, you know, requirements or some software just seem to get popular with a certain type of person. So there was no logical reason for it. I think that's something that the hotel space has figured out better than most for sure. Yeah, I mean, I think that the Don and Kathleen did a buyer's journey of how you correctly select software. The best software is the software that actually fits your needs and that's the thing with some of these franchise models. I don't know that you get to pick. I mean you may have unique needs that are not like all the other franchises and and that's something that it's just

another consideration to make there because yeah you can ask me what the best software is. I can't answer it because I don't know what the needs of your business are. So make sure that if you are going down that franchise path, that you understand all of what you're getting into not just that big brand up top, but what is the what's the engine underneath underneath the hood that's helping you actually run the business. And again, if you are a tech person, they're coming from a tech space and coming from a tech job. Yeah, that you feel free to mean that's something you actually run the business. And again, if you are a tech person, they're coming from a tech space and

coming from a tech job. Yeah, that you feel free to mean, that's something you should be poking around and saying, Hey, this doesn't quite seem right. Are there some other opportunities? Or have you considered this x y and z? Yeah, yeah, it's a challenge. I mean, I don't know if we got to the, you know, bottom of it here in the last 30 minutes or so, because it's really a, you know, unique problem set that we're dealing with in our space. But I think one thing that I can say with confidence

is that I don't think that like, I actually wonder how much ceiling Airbnb has to be honest with you, because I do think that it's possible that someone else could come in and, you know, start to steal market share away from them. I mean, at Durham, we saw booking.com is like tripled their growth over the past few years. I mean, it started at a very low percentage, to be fair, they went from like 3% to 9%. But by next year, is there any reason to think that booking.com will be 12 or 15% of bookings? Like, is there any reason to think that, you know, Airbnb is going to figure out something in the next 12 months that's going to make them accelerate? They're already the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Can they get to be the 900-pound gorilla on the OTA side? And then in

the vacational space, like, who is the scaling growing brand that's trying to even get anywhere close to where some of the largest brands are in our space? Like, I don't see them out there. Like, I think it's returning back to this local manager that does a good job that delivers a good service. And yes, their tech and their service and their properties at times is a little fragmented. But I don't see an easier path in the next year or two for that to change. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe something will happen.

But I think this hotel-vacational comparison will keep going on. And I think that hotels have figured out that they can model some of the things that the vacational space does a little bit easier than we can model off them. That's kind of one of my insights. And maybe why hotels are returning a little bit of popularity now is that, again, they can mimic us better than we can mimic them. That's kind of my take on it after we look at everything here. So I know we're time today, Paul. So again, we need to wish the listener a Merry Christmas. We hope they have an awesome one if they're listening around this time, or if not, it'll be probably a week or two after they're gonna be in Christmas time.

But we do want something, don't we? We want a gift, Paul. And that gift is a review. So here's the good news. Not gonna cost you anything. You don't have to wrap it. It's not gonna, you don't have to worry about shipping or anything like that.

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