Interview with Yoav from Guesty and ASTRA

Okay, so thank you very much for doing this, taking time out your day to speak with us. It's fantastic to get people from all over the world and all over the industry to come together. And what I love as well is we've got people from property management software platforms that everybody is using to come in and sort of talk a little bit more about that, but also as well, Astra, so if you could just do us a massive favor, please, and just give a little bit of background on yourself, where you're from in the world.

Where am I?

Yeah, exactly. Who are you, how you came to Australianly?

What am I doing here?

Yeah, what are you doing? That's brilliant. So the floor is yours.

Fantastic. Excellent. So, first of all, thank you very much for, for inviting me. It's an honor to be in your podcast, you know, as a, as a viewer and as a listener. So I'm really happy to be here. My name is Yoav Turel. So let's, let's first of all start with the name. So as I mentioned to you before, nobody can actually pronounce my name here, even not my mom, so I go by Joey. Usually Joe is my coffee name, but Yoi, that's how everyone in Australia calls me. So I'm based in Sydney, Australia. I've been living here for 18 years now. Originally from Israel, hence the accent and the name. My, my background is actually advertising and media. I was born and bred in advertising agencies. Later on worked in EdTech company. And three, three and a half years ago, a bit more, I got a call from Guesty. They were looking to open an office in Australia, an office that will serve the entire Asia Pacific region. And we started kind of to chat a few rounds on interviews and. And here I am, so joined guesty back in September 2019. Pre. Covid, even pre. For the audience who remember before COVID we actually had the bushfires here in Australia. So actually just before that, we opened the office here. Guesty property management software already had clients in this part of the world, but the, the idea was to establish a local presence to be able to cater to service clients, partner at a local time, obviously with the different kind of different languages in our area. So we opened the office here. We are now fast forward. We are now 33 people here in Australia. That's also thanks to a recent acquisition that Guesty did. So we are now, we got into one big family here in Australia with an amazing company called Hiroom. Hiroom, that's also a property management software that's been around for Many, many years I always say what they forgot we haven't learned. So we are now one, one team. We with a few offices across across Australia and basically serving, servicing all of the, all of the region. We mainly customer facing. So the entire function from marketing all the way to customer success and support. We do have a few devs here on the ground as well and we, we work with clients at different size and segments whether it's urban rentals, vacation and rentals apart hotels, resorts, motels. So we have quite kind of quite a nice mix of clients. When I'm not guesting and I'm also on or you know what, at the same time that I'm in guesty I'm also on the ASTRA board. ASTRA is the Australian Short Term Rental Accommodation Association. I've been on the board for just over two years now and in the last couple of months I've been also the acting chair. We're now in the process of basically look we're looking for a permanent chair. So I took voted for the position of the architect chair and for the, for the time being a lovely amazing group of people. We are nine volunteers directors from different, from different angles of the, of the industry from property managers to tourism and travel expert to hospitality experts. Technology we have, we have kind of, I think that we are two or three that coming from the technology side, from legal, from finance. So an amazing bunch of people that try to represent, to unite, represent, advocate for the, for the industry and in the spare time here's a little kind of thing in a little anecdote. In the spare time I'm doing stand up comedy. Stand up comedy as an amateur kind of. I'm not the next, I'm not the next thing on Netflix. But yeah, I started really to, I started it just to improve my presentation skills. Yeah because the feedback is immediate, either laugh or not. And yeah I'm just doing it in pubs, open mic evenings.

Brilliant. So loads to unpack. Thank you for that. Okay, so what is within guesty, what is like your normal day to day role when you jump into the offices in Sydney? Like what's your normal day to day look like within Gesty Towers?

So the normal day it's kind of split between client management and work with our partners, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia. As I mentioned we have a team that is dedicated to support them. So there is a lot of work with any challenges or any optimization or any discussions on where to take the business. So. So quite a lot of the day goes to that. There is obviously also the element of new business and identify new opportunities within. Within the space. The fact that the sky is now pretty much open now in Southeast Asia, we see kind of. We see more traveler comes in, we see a lot of opportunities. So there is a lot of work in. Work around that. And, and most of the time it's. It's people management, it's managing the team on the ground. That's also one of the reason why guesty wanted to have an operation here on the ground. Because at the end of the day, and we all know it from our teams, it's. It's working with our people. How do we motivate them, energize them, grow them, learning together what to do. So there is a lot of that in the work.

And you came into Guesty at 2019, like you said, just before the forest fires, and then obviously Covid and everything else that's happened. And Australia's had one of the strictest lockdowns probably worldwide. How have you. I mean, you have seen this industry go from 2019 to now in 2023. How have you noticed the industry adapt and grow in Australia? And what does the current scene look like in terms of getting back to 2019 sort of levels?

It's a. I'll do. I'll even. I'll try to answer and even try to do the connection between the lockdown or the pandemic and regulation. Okay. What we've seen, first of all, like everywhere else in. In the world, it was. It was, you know, I might use a positive word when I'll say amazing, but it was such an unbelievable experience to go through that. And I think that we all shared it. You know, just kind of working in such an unknown situation and not knowing what's. Kind of what's going to be and just adapting it day by day. That was quite. You know, we can't believe that it's only, what, 18 months ago that we were in that situation here in Australia. From the industry perspective, we've seen the industry going through evolution, process and getting more mature because we could see that companies that had good operation, good management, good leadership, they usually survived. Most of them survived throughout that time and actually got out of it stronger. Okay. It gets back to the basics. How do you take care of the people? How do you manage your business? How do you find opportunities? Australia, you mentioned. Yes, we had. We had kind of the strip, one of the most stricted kind of lockdowns. I'm in Sydney and, you know, we have our sisters and brothers in Melbourne that they Were even kind of in the worst situation in terms of the length of the lockdown. But with the lockdowns, the short term rental, it was a pivotal, it was a tipping point, I should say here in Australia because it actually within the lockdown, within each state, it grew. We've seen new guests are discovering short term rental, are discovering Australia. We had a lot of conversation that we heard from property managers in the market that they heard from their guests, that they found the equivalent to Bali, the equivalent to Thailand. They kind of those same places. But here, here in Australia. Australia is fortunate to have such a variety of places. So we've seen kind of debt coming coming up. So there was kind of a good evolution and as I said, those who, who had a good management and a good operation survived and became stronger for that. Now I mentioned that I'll also link it to regulation across Australia. We start to see, especially in New South Wales moving to more regulation or there are more discussions about regulation of short term rental. That's another phase in the evolution of short term rental and the maturity here in Australia. Because what we see now, we see now the realization of a. This is, this is a serious profession. It needs to be accountable, a host needs to be responsible. With the surge of guests come also increase of the guest expectations. So now you're not only competing with the hotels on the actual beds, you're also competing on the guest experience. And that's another, an important step. So if you, if you put everything kind of together, the bottom line is that we feel that it's a stronger industry, more resilient and that it's ready to the next step in the evolution of the industry.

It's like Australia is having to grow to the next level of this industry because I think exactly. For everybody who's been a part of it and everybody's been around it for a while, you could easily say that for many years Australia was behind in terms of tech technology from like UK and the usa. Obviously Guesty having a big presence in there. You're more on the ground, you're chatting to people and obviously being part of Astra as well. Do you see that now coming out of like 2022, going into 2023, there is more of a need for technology in Australia in this industry and we're not just talking property management software, but we're talking about other tools as well. Is this something that you're seeing from, from, from Astra and from Guesty?

Yeah. So look, it's a. Australia, I must say Australia is quite an advanced market when it comes to technology within our industry unlike and I can say from the APAC perspective unlike other markets that it's very common to see that they're not using technology and they're moving to technology. I think that the usage of technology for the industry is. Is quite common. The need for technology is not only that it's still here but as you kind of pointed it's actually kind of. We see that it's even kind of strengthened in that sense because you have now whether it's the to master the operational efficiency we're dealing with will there be a recession? So I need to make sure that I'm working properly staff shortage I need to make sure that I automated the right thing. So you see that now. Now the need is. Is. Is growing there is the basis and now kind of you need to improve in what you're doing compliance that's kind of related the regulation and that's more the now the Astro I'm switching ads the as there are lots of good tools that. That allow you to be a more responsible host whether it's noise awareness or guest screening or anything or remote access etc. So there come the needs to that the grow of the brand the brands kind of within the operators you have here. You. You ever kind of. You start to see in Australia brands that are establishing themselves whether it's a BNB made easy in orange, whether it's made comfy, whether it's a logio, whether it's on time, whether it's a. I don't know a perfect stay. By the way, these are not. I'm not mentioning only kind of guest declines but you see kind of labaud brands within the market that are getting kind of to become well known and with that also come the needs to more direct booking. So how does the website look like and the upsells. So you, you definitely see that that's. It's. It's a new level of. Of technology.

Well the good thing for me as you're listing off those clients and those team members that there's companies that you mentioned I was thinking that's the boosting member, that's the booster member. That's the booster member. So it's lovely, lovely to see, lovely to hear and yeah I mean we can see it from our end. We can see when the bookings are coming in we can see the amount of direct coming in and this is, this is one of the reasons why we want Boostly personally wanted to do a big push in Australia because we can see so much growth from the members that we have. So it's like how can we help more? Because it is like you say with, with more technology, with, with more awareness comes more responsibility. And I feel like regulations is not just an Australia thing. It's definitely hot right now in the uk. It's definitely hot in certain areas of, of America and Canada. And I feel like with regulations it's nothing but a good thing because what it's going to do is going to shake out the bad characters, the ones that are just coming in this for like a quick win, passive income, etc. And it will just make this industry stronger 100%.

And Astra's Astra tagline is here to stay and short term rentals is here to stay. And because that it's getting, that it's getting stronger. You mentioned it before. I think that it's also kind of, I think that it's Spider Man. With power comes the responsibility. It's, it's growing. You see the is the nightly rate are now in some cases higher than the motels for the same kind of, you know, even, even room size. So and as I mentioned more kind of new, new audiences discover the short term rentals. So they come with their own expectation. So you see that there is now there is the regulation to make sure that okay if you, you know, if you play in that field make sure that you're responsible. But there is also the, call it the guest regulation. If you want the expectation of growing. They want, they want to fill it in the way that your market to them, in the way that you communicate with them, in the way that you're doing your CRM. Definitely when you come and see. I always mention BNB made easy in terms of kind of what a brilliant guest experience they have. I stayed in few of the properties and you feel that you know this is, this is a real competition to hotels because this is it. So that's, that's what pushes kind of the industry. Yeah.

So in terms of the next steps and like the Australia let's just put our hats on our next hat on which is going to be looking to sort of 2024. What is Astra doing to make sure that the members up to date with everything that's going on, what's the next sort of plans and the phases and what are you looking to implement even you know in an acting chair or being on the directors like what sort of the next sort of things that you're looking to implement for Astra and the members.

Yeah. So ASTRA from the get go. ASTRA been around by the way for seven years now in the current format. It used to be a different association before, but the last seven years it's being ASTRO as as we know it. We. One of our main tasks is basically is the education is to keep educating the market, to keep standardizing, raising the standards for, for the market. So whether it through publications and meetups. We just said, I mentioned you before when we chatted. We just had a good meetup in the New Zealand with, with the local community there, webinars conferences. So the, the. The need to, to share knowledge in the industry is very, is very strong and that's one of the main things that we're focusing on. And you spoke about kind of what we have later on this year in 2024. That's definitely a pillar that we're going to. The industry will see more investment in that. That's, that's kind of, that's one main thing. The second thing is everything around regulation and advocacy because we will, we will see in 2023 a lot of discussion around it and some of it will be implemented and executed in 2024. So this year we are unlikely to see actually changes this year because it usually take 12 months to take effect. But 2024 we expect kind of to see more regulation actually in place and this is something that we need to be ready for. So we spend a lot of time in discussions with the different governments. ASTRA is supportive of regulation. We think that it's important for the future of the industry from the professionalization, standardization as well as from the security to the operators that they know that they have a valid business which is here to stay. So there's a lot of discussions around that. And with that it's also related to education because you want to ensure that you have responsible members that, that are doing it. So that will be kind of, that will be another thing. And then we have all other kind of initiatives we want to see if, if we can work and partner with different training programs. How do we. Actually I think that that's or nothing. That's, that's something that is missing in our industry. How do you create the new generation? It's like kind of in the hotels that you have the apprentice and you have all the programs. Why not in our industry? So this is also something that, that we're looking at amazing.

There's a lot happening in Astra and in Guesty and just in Australia as a Australasia as a region. There's so much going on down there. It definitely feels like that it's often been the forgotten part of the world because it is just on literally the other side of the world. But it is, it is so much going on. Like I said, the skies are opening, people can travel a lot more freer and I feel like the bounce back is only just beginning for Australia, New Zealand and Australasia as a whole.

So it's exciting to see we're far away from everyone. But it is every time that one of us go to a conference overseas, whether it's in the UK or in the us, every time that we hear from Aussies or Kiwis that are going there, they are always kind of. They love the fact that, wow, it's the same challenges and actually maybe we're even, you know, have better solutions kind of around it. So I think that kind of, I think that definitely we're definitely we're in power in terms of the challenges and the thinking with other parts of, of the world. We never know if we're ahead of everyone, on behind of everyone. But it's always the big conferences kind of allow you a sense check to.

See where you are and talking about conferences, obviously. Guesty guest eval. Are you going to be going to that event?

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

And it, I was going to say give us a little bit more information. Where is it, when is it? Just give us. Because it's always, it's one of those that's always on the calendar of the must to go to events.

Yeah, look, it's kind of, you know, I'm obviously speaking kind of, you know, as a guest, so I will say we say that that's kind of the best thing ever. But, but it is, it is. It's kind of knowing, knowing our people who work on that, they really kind of. There is a team that works on that and they're doing a really great job in terms of the agenda and the event production and everything. The date, what an Australian date. It's May 8, mate. All right, so May 8 till May 10 in, in, in Tel Aviv for the listener, for the viewers who haven't visited Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv, it's, it's quite a fascinating city. It has kind of, it has a bit from New York, from Europe, from, you know, from different places of the world. It has the beach, he had the tech, he has the food. So it's going to be a really great experience. And I haven't seen the agenda yet, but again, just kind of based on the past. Guestival the Last one in Austin and I've been in the Guestival in 2019, which was in Tel Aviv. It's. Yeah. It's usually kind of very insightful, very kind of innovative and thought provoking. So if you have a chance, please go.

I'm waiting for my invite from the guesty people. Alexandra, I. Alex.

Alex. Yeah, take over Mark.

So before we finish, I can't skip by this. Yeah. Stand up comedy.

What. Yeah.

What would you say has been the biggest lesson that you have learned? Obviously you're not looking for a Netflix special. Like you said, it's the more to help with your presentation skills. But what is that one thing that you've learned from doing stand up comedy that is, that has enhanced your thinking or just how you, how you do other things?

So, so there are, there are a couple of things. First of all, and you know, it might sound very trivial, but the preparation. No, they just kind of rehearse and prepare. Not. There's no substance to that. That's, that's one thing. First of all, the preparation. Second thing that was one of the reason why I wanted to do that is I, I find that always when I present at work and you know, in different discussion, I tend to, you know, to, to be maybe a bit apologetic, maybe kind of not sure how the other side react or you know, kind of consider that as stand up comedy taught me, you know, you have something to say, don't be afraid, say it. They either laugh or won't laugh but, but say it. Be kind of, be confident kind of to say that. So that's, that's that a. Listening to the, or paying attention or reading the audience. Again, trivial. We see it in the day to day but the reaction, what vibe they are kind of even before you go on stage, just seeing, you know, I mean pub. So usually you either have five drunk people or you suddenly have a bunch of 50. So, but just kind of reading the audience a bit and trying kind of to acknowledge it in your, in your delivery. And the last one is that. And that's actually I took from the great Ricky Gervais that. And it's true. He always said, look, if you do the same joke 50 times and people laugh, you know that you have a good joke, it's like kind of, it's mathematics and it actually works good.

Yeah, it's, it's fascinating and it's. I love the world of stand up and regularly just been watching them on Netflix and it's so interesting how you can put that into presentations and just, just the wider world. So thank you for sharing for.

For me. Yeah. No and I'll just say that for me and you can hear it from my accent, from the way that I speak it's English is obviously not my native language. And using humor as a universal tool to cut through, that's quite amazing. Fantastic.

Thank you so much for coming on today. Really do appreciate it.

Thank you.

And thank you for spreading and sharing more knowledge on what Astra is doing but also guesty as well. And yeah I will include all the links to everything that we talk about guest eval, guesty Astra. I'll put it all in the show notes. But thank you for coming on the podcast.

Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it. So thank you very much.

Having a blast gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee cuz it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf making up those rhymes don't write it just do it loosely.