Live: 2021 Travel Trends That You NEED To Know! 🚀

Sa. Sam. Sa.

Welcome everybody to a very special episode of the Boostly podcast. We're in episode 199. We're one away from 200. And in this live episode of the Boostly podcast, we're gonna be talking about travel trends 2021. If this is your first time tuning in to a boosted podcast, please make sure that you leave a hashtag live or a hashtag replay in the comments section wherever you're tuning in from. And also give your business a a bit of a pitch and a promo so where you are in the world, your website and all of that lovely stuff. But without further ado, we're going to get started and I'm really looking forward to interest introducing you to our very special guest this evening. But before all of that, you all know what we got right now. We've got a little freestyle wrap from Chris Turner talking about Bug direct. Okay, let's get on with the show.

This is a freestyle going off the dumb.

Ready for my close up.

Good looking, let me tell you. Get more bookings. Aw, that'd be nice. Giving me tips, tools and advice. Yeah, you're gonna get em hun. You're gonna sit back, listen to Mark Simpson.

Whoa.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee. Cause it's so hard and the tee is loose leaf making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely. If you want my respect, you're better but direct. Here are the words in the podcast. That's what comes next.

All right, gentlemen, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you very much for hanging in there while we did a little intro. And thank you to everybody that's tuning in. We've got Facebook Live right Now, we've got YouTube live and everywhere else in between. So if you are watching back on the replay. Thank you so much again, please do join in with the conversation because tonight we're going to be discussing some really important topics, topics that you can get ahead of the trend and actually take action on it to help your business get bookings in 2021. So first and foremost, we've got two fantastic guests with us this evening. We're going to start with Joseph and then we're going to go on to Debault. So Joseph, if you could just please, the floor is yours. Just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit more about guesty, please.

Thank you very, very much, Mark, for the introduction. My name is Joseph Weinstock. I'm director of sales of Americ Guesty Guesty is a leading property management software. We're global in 80 countries around the world. And I'm very, very happy to be here today to discuss travel transfer 2021 and provide guesty's insight.

Yeah, thank you. Guesty is massive. I mean the, it's so big. I feel like I'm getting to know everybody at Guesty and then somebody new just pops up. You know, I normally chat to Lauren and a few people but like Omar behind the scenes it is huge. So thank you very much doing this and I really wanted to get Guesty in on this because the data that you must have is like fantastic. So thank you for doing it. Okay, Tobalt. Now this guy I've been following for a long, long time, ever since 2000 and I think 2017, 2018 because I was in Bali and I know you've got a place in Bali and I, I think we just sort of. I was chatting so I can't remember if it was LinkedIn. I was trying to go back on my messages, but I've been a big fan for a big time. Your blog is one of my favorite blogs out there. Big on LinkedIn. So if anybody's on LinkedIn, you'll have seen a, you've seen a blog or a mention or a post from Toal. So can you just please let everybody know who you are, Talk a little bit more about rental scale up, rentalpreneur, etc and just, yeah, just the floor is yours, my friend.

Well, hello everyone. Thank you, Mark for having me. Now I have to live up to this. All right, so my name is Thibault Masson. I am French. Obviously you can hear it. I am a property owner of two holiday rentals in Saint Barts in the Caribbean and one in Bali. So I've been doing this for quite some years. And also I publish rental scale up. Rentalscaleup.com is a website that's all about industry trends, what's going on and actionable actions. Actionable actions. Well, actionable insights. I really, really, you know, as an owner myself, I really care about giving insights but making sure people could then say, okay, so what, what do I do? I think that's Mark, something you really love and we're going to be doing tonight. And so there's a free newsletter. People can just subscribe to the newsletter rentalscape.com Newsletter and every week we send out new the trends. What's going on, what's new either for direct bookings, also on the big bad OTAs because in the past I May have worked from one of those OTAs, so I knew quite a few things as well about how. How they work inside. It's always good to be this perspective, I think, to people understand what's on the mind of these big bad OTAs.

Massively so. And we can go in as little as much as that. Maybe, maybe this episode, maybe another one. Depends on what you can and can't talk about, but it'll be interesting. Really nice to have that insight and I just want to bring up Carl very quickly on the screen. So Karl Harrison, massive fan of guesty, recent convert to guesty. They're brilliant. A special mention to Tamer and Gabriella made the onboarding so straightforward, which is nice. Nice to see. And we've got so many people tuning in live. Fantastic. And there'll be loads more on the replay, so please do let us know where you are in the world. Please give your business a pitch and a promo. Drop your web link in the comments because you never know who's going to be watching this. Your next guest may be watching this. And before we get into the actual topic itself and really dig into some lovely, juicy data, I want to try something and test some out on this podcast. It's obviously episode 199 of the Boostie podcast. We've got episode 200 coming up very soon. But what I wanted to do is I just wanted to make sure that as many hosts as possible get to see this episode. So what I would really love for you to do, and we've got people tuning in from all over, whether it's Facebook or whether it is YouTube. What I would love for you to do. So right now I'm on the YouTube channel, there's a share button. So what I would love for you to do is tap that share button if you're watching on YouTube the same as Facebook, share it on your wall, share it in a Facebook group, share it anywhere. Just share it with a friend and tell them about this episode. And what I'm going to do if you share it and if you tag in@Boostly UK, or if you can't tag me, just send me an email with proof to market Boostly. And if you do it in the next 24 hours, or what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick one person's winner and what I'm going to do is I'm going to pay for your Friday night takeaway. So I'll pay for a takeaway. All you need to do to enter is you just need to hit the share button. Share it somewhere. LinkedIn, Facebook, Facebook groups. Just share it. Tell everybody why you're tuning in. You can tag in at boostly UK so I can see it or just email it to Mark at Boostly. I'll pick one person out and then tomorrow night I'll pay for your takeaway. So that's nice incentive. You can have a lovely little takeaway on the on courtesy of Boostly. But I need you for you to share it and spread the word, get more hosts aware of this. Okay, let's get into this. So what we're going to do, the way this is going to work, we're going to start with Guesty and then we're going to come over to Bolt and what we're going to do is I've just asked the guys to bring stats, data, anything that, that we can have to, that will give us confidence that what, what is coming around the corner and then we're just going to discuss and then we're obviously going to end with a quick fire question. But as we're doing this, I would love for the audience, for everybody tuning in to participate as well. So if, if you've got anything that you've noticed, any bookings that are coming in, if you're, if you're noticing that there's any weeks that are really strong at the present moment in time, or if there's any demographic of guests that are really booking, please do share it below because again we're all going to help each other. So Joseph, the. The floor is yours. Just let's begin and just anything that you'd like to start off with and any, any, any stats or numbers or trends that you are noticing.

Sure.

So one interesting thing that we saw in terms of trends and we're going to start with the UK is essentially after the UK roadmap announcement back in February 22nd, we really saw a spike in reservations, especially for the summertime as people have more certainty about travel, about reopening. We were really, really optimistic about the stats. And if we're looking at for example the UK 2021 short term rental summer reservation volume, that means June through August, we actually saw that was 36% higher than of the summer of 2020, which was very, very positive to see that. And that is of course directly correlated to the recent roadmap. And as last month pre announcement summer reservation volume in 2021 was 35% lower than what we saw in 2020. And this is data that was pulled on March 1. So it's very, very recent.

Yeah. So obviously March 1, 2020, I think it was just starting to trickle into Europe. Italy still wasn't in lockdown, Spain wasn't in lockdown. And it's really interesting that, so a 36% increase already. I think just again if you, we always try and find the context around a start or a number and you've got to try and think, well what's happened, what, what is happening which is really interesting. Obviously the vaccine is getting slowly rolled out, confidence is, is there. We're a year into this so we know a lot more now where this time last year everybody was panicking and didn't know what was going to be happening. So really, really interesting. Is there, is there any, any other trends that you've noticed, any other stats and is there any demographics in particular or what other things that maybe you can bring from guesty?

Yeah. So still on UK stats, so we're deep diving into the different months in the summer. So we're looking at for example July 2021 at a 14% more reservation volume compared to July 2020. For August, August we're seeing 53% more reservation volume compared to August 2020. So we're seeing a pattern that reservations are building up. There is this pent up demand and we think that as we get closer to summer months that volume may increase of course. So that is something that is very interesting. Also the average nightly rate. So if we're looking for example at the average nightly rate in June 21, we're looking at 180 pounds per night which is up 58% from last year. July 21 we're already at 222 pounds per night, which is a 53% increase. And in August it's the priciest month, it's at 222, 229 pounds per night, which is up 34%. So that is also a very, very positive, very positive, I think data that is coming out of the uk. Right.

Yeah. I think if, I mean to both, I'd love, I'd love for your sort of initial reaction to that but for me personally it speaks that people are booking obviously more in advance but people are willing to pay more for a lot of people they may not have got away for their regular vacation in 2020. And you know, I know how we allocate funds for a vacation. We have just a pot, we've got like a, a holiday pot, so to speak. And we just always have money just consistently goes in there and that's how we Allocate that to vacations and, and we didn't get to go personally on our 2020 vacation. So we, we've got this pot and we've got to build up so people is interested if other families and other people are doing that as well because they are willing to pay more. So I guess if you're watching at home and you're thinking about pricing, pricing is massive this year. It's a case of be that little bit extra confident so far out. I mean, we're caught in this in March and we're talking July, August, etc. For your dates in July and August, don't be shy, don't be scared. Put a little bit of extra on top because people will be able to pay it. Any way that we can recoup loss revenue from 2020 is a bonus. So people are willing to pay it. So thank you for that. Joseph Tabal, is there any initial reaction that, that you have from, from looking and listening to those, those numbers?

Yeah, I think, I think these are great numbers and obviously, I guess, guess you guys get the data because you see all this data pouring in from property managers, right, Looking in the uk. So this is where data comes from. So realize that's. So what I always love is seeing like data from property managers. That's fantastic. I think what's important here as well, when I hear this, and also for anyone who's not in UK as well, is to understand that it's when. When the British Prime Minister talked on February 22, it generated like a spike in traffic on, on websites of property managers, right? I think Sykes Hoyde Cottages shared that, you know, they had like 200% boom in traffic and 400% boom in bookings that evening. Basically, people have been lurking, looking for. But they were not booking. And then it was surge in traffic. But for people who, you know, who live in countries where there's not been any, where there's still very strong travel restrictions, no clear deadlines, it does mean people are looking right now, Right. And so I would say it's a sure sign that they're waiting for a signal. And when that signal comes, you see a boom. And the other thing I would like to talk about as well is that again, even within the uk, when there was this boom of bookings, it was, again, if you're not in the uk, it was the British Prime Minister talking, but it was really talking about England and Cornwall in terms of the plan. So that's where I was looking at different maps and there's a company Called Transparent that does like maps, uses data, it's free. Go and see what they do. A transcransprent.com I think.

Yeah.

And you look at maps and like Scotland, Northern Ireland, nothing. Because if you're not in UK basically it means that the plan was not. Was only for England and Cornwall basically. I think even, not even Wales was there, I think. So you had a lot of bookings in certain areas. So suddenly also what's very interesting, all this, you see these borders reappearing and if you look like this map in Europe, same thing like France is actually doing pretty okay at the moment because we have a strong domestic market in France. In the US California is not doing well. Florida is crazy. Well, it's always crazy in Florida, but it's booming. So what's very interesting as well to me is that there was a boom, but certainly more in rural areas in places where people knew would be open a certain date. So it does mean that for example in cities like London things were not so great. So I don't know how many people here, maybe they can say in the comments are actually own properties in cities. But it's a tough one. And Mark, I would like to react to what you said as well is that yeah, I agree that if you have a property, a cottage on the coast for example in UK but same thing in France and Brittany for example or other areas. Yeah, I mean why discount? Don't discount. Right. If there's been a boom in the UK there's going be pent up demand as well in other countries if you have a strong domestic market. Right. People will come. So don't discount. There's no need to discount for early bookers right now because you can even imagine that people will be booking even late to go to your place. Now if you are in London, I would say actually the prices are not on the price side, things are not as great because people will be traveling more. Right. But then you also have to compete with the hotels and hotels are desperate in cities for books bookings. So I would say my comment on the pricing issue would be like maybe in cities it's still going to be tough this summer.

We've got some really sorry Joseph, if I would definitely love your your input on that. I'm just going to say in the comments, people reporting that they're getting longer bookings, longer stays, average stay last year. I'll just bring up Caroline's comments. It's a really good one. Average stay last year was two nights. But this year we're already Looking at an average of four nights in, in May and June. So yeah, yeah, Joseph, I will come to you.

Yeah, I just, yeah, I just wanted to talk about the length of stay. So we're actually seeing the same thing. We're actually seeing the length of stay in June up 8% from last year and it's at 4.3 days per stay. July we see a 24% increase than last year and in August it's 7%. But we're still seeing that increase in length of stay which shows basically, you know, the pent up demand for people who want to travel. Right. And they want to spend more time outside their home. So I mean it makes complete sense especially with that, you know, that roadmap there is that build up for vacation. So obviously as soon as they can do that, you know, they definitely and especially in the summertime it makes complete sense. As for the properties, the type of properties that being booked this is, is also something that we're looking at as part of our data. So we're seeing actually the most popular are apartments, followed by houses, condos, cottages, service apartments and then last townhouses. So maybe this means that you have a lot of friends and family going to visit, which makes sense. During the summertime you see the urban locations perhaps start to open up, confidence is restored and people are really interested to travel back also to the urban locations, not perhaps just to the leisure markets. And also it's identifying of course the short term rental market as being the hottest market right now. Any, any short term rental property that you can get your hands on for a good price in these, in these locations. So that's, you know, that's very interesting as well.

Yeah, definitely. I think with the return of events and I know that there is a hospitality event who's looking to get going in September, an in person one. I think when you see events starting to come back then you will notice more of this urban trend. It's really interesting that apartments are actually number one. I would have, I would have put my hat on it that houses, you know, you know, would be, would be number one. But I guess, you know, it's, it's one thing that hasn't stopped since March 2020 is the need for accommodation for essential workers, key workers, essential workers, doesn't matter where you are in the world. And I think this has surprised a lot of people just at how many hospitals bring in staff, you know, and those that have stayed and, and traveled mostly I guess would have been in, in apartments. And that hasn't stopped even during lockdown. 1, 2, 3, whatever. Lockdown we're on over. Over the world. So really, really interesting on, on that one as well. And, and yeah, I think that the urban, I mean, obviously right now people are wanting to escape to, you know, the countryside, the beach, the normal destinations that you would, you would have. That's not maybe in a city, but I think, you know, as soon as, as soon as people have that confidence again, then then the urban market will pick up as well. Anything you'd like to add to about. To those that's either said there.

Yeah, I mean, so I'm trying to play my role of the French guy who says no and disagrees with everything. I agree with what you guys said. And just to add a few more color here as well as the length of stay is very interesting to me because what is at some point last year, for example, you know, at that time, like in March, April, we're looking at data, you saw length of stay exploding and like stays became like 3, 4, 8, 20 days in average. I was talking about my property in Bali, right? My property in Bali. Like in Bali, for example, stays were over a month on average in the market. Why? Because basically they were the only stays. So if you're looking at data, there's just a pure average, not the volume, but the average of the stays. You only had people who were stranded in Bali, like Russians didn't want to go back to Russia and they wanted to stay over and ride the COVID wave in Bali. So I really thought last year, like, okay, basically we see these longer stays just because we don't have shorter stays, because this, we don't have this demand. What's very interesting is to your point to see actually things we do have again this year, longer stays happening. It is very interesting. So does it mean. I don't know. Right. But does it mean that we do have more remote workers, for example? We'll say, you know what I'm planning right now? I'm planning right now to stay in June in the Cotswold. And I'm booking now because I want to make sure I have this place. They have a desk, they have great wi fi, apparently. And booking this place. Or do we have right now booking people who are the people who are planners, right? No, the kind of people you have, usually people who book with you in January, usually people plan ahead. Are they just like, are they the ones who've been planning and booking and like, because they want to have the whole week and make sure they have the whole week and maybe Closer to summer we're going to have these like people booking last minute for like just like two or three nights. They don't know and then the average could go down. I don't know. It's very interesting. So I agree with you. I was, I was super surprised. And a second thing as well, Mark, you said about the cities. I agree with you. I think family is very important. Right. This year is going about reconnecting and right now I'm in my brother's apartment. Normally I live in Netherlands or in the Caribbean, depends. But right now I'm in France in my brother's holiday rentals. If looking for a nice place in the mountains in France, that's the place to be. But I'm there to see my mom. She was getting her second shot of the vaccine and, and people have then seen her for six months. And I think if you have family in cities, you'll travel to see them. So a lot of people say our family is big with people, we want to stay in a bigger place to be with their family. Also people want to see and see their family. Right. So think about university students coming back home or we'll talk maybe about that later. But expats, that's a big market, expats coming back to their city. So if you, if you, if you can market to people who are expats and come back to your own home country, that's pretty smart.

Yeah.

Because in these Facebook groups that's, that's, that's where the action is right now, to cater to expats, for example.

I love that. And speaking as an expat who's trying to get home back to England because I'm obviously in Spain. Yeah. 100. And again, when we go back to England, we will need accommodation because we're not going to fit all of our family of five in, in with our parents and you know, and, etc, so that, that will be a big, big, a big, big demand. And this is maybe why we're seeing such a, a demand early because people are trying to forward plan as best as they possibly can. But I liken it to a horse race especially specifically like the grand national. And I don't know if you've ever tuned into the grand national, but it's a big horse racing and what happens beforehand, the horses are just going in circles, just basically waiting for somebody to set off the starter gun and the horses are going in circles, the riders are getting ready, they're all getting jockeyed into position and that is basically what your guests are doing right now, they're going in circles. They know they're just waiting for. Waiting for that starter gun. And for a lot of people that start a gun was like the bolt said, it was the. The Boris Johnson going up and setting out a roadmap. That roadmap had clear dates and people had the confidence. And I think the most important thing, like, how can we give advice to the. To the hosts that are watching now, is just keep it really clear, keep your lines of communication really clear. Make sure your website is updated, make sure that you're regularly communicating via social media. If you've got an email list, just keep being in constant contact, because that is what your guests or your future guests will want. They want to hear from you. They want to know what's going on. Because if you go dark and if you go quiet and if you put nothing and don't change your website to try and explain the current situation, then they will be lost and confused, and then they'll just go elsewhere. So if you're proactive now, even if you can't physically take bookings right this second, be proactive. Put messages out on your website, email, social media, and then your guests will, when they hear that, start again and they're ready to go. You'll be the first person they go to. So. Which is really important. So thank you for that. Now, Tabal, have you. I know, obviously we've talked a lot of stats, we've given a lot of numbers. Is there anything that you've picked up, any. Any bits of juicy information you can share with us? And there was a rumor you might want to share your screen. Is. Is that still the case?

No, actually, I'm just gonna go.

Go with the flow. Fantastic. Okay, that's good, because the technology nearly beat me tonight. I think sharing the screen might have tipped me over the edge.

I think. Fantastic, what you're doing. I'm very impressed by the tech.

Oh, thank you.

Excited. The comments. I can. I can read the comments, by the way. You know, guys, leaving the comments, I really love that. I don't know, maybe I can expand and share a bit more data about Europe and us. You're okay with that?

Yes, please. Please do. Yes. So we can get a real nice feel because we've got a worldwide audience right now.

Exactly. And I think, again, what's very interesting, in the UK example, again, we saw different. There's a big announcement, but basically it was maybe for some regions. Right. As I said, it was the same thing in the US it's very contrasted or if you look at this map of Europe, it's like France is greenish, England is greenish, not Scotland or Italy is completely red. In terms of new bookings or actually, sorry, let me rephrase, it stays right now, what's happening and new bookings. Again, there are several explanations for that, right? It's like some people, some countries have like lockdowns or not. France, for example, there's no real lockdowns, but there's like stronger measures that been put on the city of Paris or around Paris. So people fled and it booked up in Brittany, Normandy. That's why you see search. It's very interesting, but again, it's very hard if you don't know the one country to be able to explain everything. It's very, very tricky. So I think it's tricky as well. If you. An example, if you live in Spain, like you Mark, right. For example, Germans booked in Spain already, but Germany just announced. Well, they announced, they changed their mind anyway, that would be more or less travel restrictions. So there was a new wave of cancellations again. So again I saw people in the comments mentioning, oh, we do, we're getting cancellations and news is positive. Right. But then it's still right for bookings happening in April and maybe that stays supposed to happen in April, in May, it's so uncertain that to understand what's going on in feeder markets that you depend on, it's very tricky because even in those countries, I can assure you it's not very clear what's going on and it's very. Again, I was looking at data and for example, if you look at February 2021, so last February, it's data from RDNA basically in Europe in terms of room, nights, stayed, so stays that happened in February itself. Europe was at minus 48% and US was at minus 27%. So what was very interesting with the US so again, there were 27% less room nights sold and stayed that month compared with 2020. But what's interesting though is that 2019. Sorry, 2019, because it wasn't make sense to compare because. Oh yeah, it's the other thing like with comparing data now, from now on, starting now, you have to compare with 2019. Yeah.

You're going to miss a year.

Yeah.

Pre Covid and post Covid data.

Yeah, exactly. So if you look into your own data, make sure you Compare it to 2019 from now on, from March. Right. Because it's a mess. But anyway, what's interesting here, the US is only minus 27%. So what's been happening in the US that the crisis hit them. But the worst they had was in April last year. They were at minus 35%, Europe was at minus 55%. So the crisis hit way harder in Europe and it's still there. There was a boom in January, another boom in bookings in February in the us, not so much in Europe, just maybe right at the end of February, because thanks to the uk. But what's very striking to me is the divergence. Basically if in the us, Florida, it's fantastic. This is a bit too much, too many people. But this really is divergence where you see that. I don't know if it's linked to risk aversion, the way Americans are versus Europeans or whether the money that President Biden gave to each American, they're spending now in booking things. I think Las Vegas right now is full because people are spending money there. So I don't know what it means. But again, what's very interesting is that things are very contrasted from one place to another. International travel is very uncertain, but the US certainly is rebounding faster than Europe and again in uk, faster than mainland Europe and even in uk, certain parts of uk. So I think it's very tricky. What we know again when we look at the data, things look a bit more certain for say June, July, August. But my advice was really like expect cancellation still for April when people don't know what's going to happen, for example. So yeah, remain flexible.

I think a big thing that will stay the same. I know we're talking about compared to 2019, but if you look at what will stay consistent with 2020 and now is that the staycation. If you look at last year and you can look at your own reports from last year, from what bookings you had, most people were driving maybe one to three hours. You know, you in mainland Europe, you could get people that can jump in their car in Germany and, and drive down. But what you will find is that that trend from last year isn't going to go anywhere fast, especially with countries or even municipals. You know, here in Spain we've got instead of counties are calling municipals or states, they you can change their mind really, really quickly. Like us in April, we are going away for three days. We are driving 90 minutes, minutes for a staycation. We are 90 minutes. That is literally how far we are. We are driving to go away for a few days and, and there's another trip we're going to do when we're driving 35 minutes down the coast. So it's literally that's how far that we are traveling. But that is, that is how much we want to get out. You know, we have been in the same four walls for the same amount of time and you know, we, I, you know, so many other people will be thinking exactly the same. So what can you be doing to get in front very immediate audience? And Tobalt has already said it. Facebook groups, you know, fantastic local source of, you know, people that you could put your advert, your property in front of and it's free. It is a lot of work because you're going to have to do it daily. But just pick your top five. You know, go on to do a bit of research tonight, go and find local groups and for a lot of people, especially those based in Spain, Germany, France, you may have to go onto Fiverr and Upwork and be pay for a translator to get a real nice double language advert that you can have for your local language and for any expats that may be in the area. You know, if we've got a lot of English people tuning in here, for example, and if you're, if you're Spanish and your French isn't quite strong, just pay that little bit, pay whatever it will be on Fiverr Upwork to get a little ad put together and go on canva get your images and just put the word staycation. You know, emphasize all of this and utilize these channels because you're going to have to again think outside the box in 2021, like 2020 because a lot of the, the amazing numbers that our guests are bringing this evening are speaking to that. So Joseph, is there, is there anything that you wanted to just has come to mind since we've been talking from what to ball or I've been saying anything you'd like to add to that?

Yeah, I think in terms of the tips providing to the listeners, I think that it's very important how to implement these trends in the properties. Right. How these properties are going to stand out. So one thing that we're looking at guest is how your property has become now the main attraction is the actual destination. Right. Because people sometimes need to stay longer indoors. You also want to make sure that your short term or vacation rental is prepared for that. Right. You want to have great Wi Fi, Netflix, more storage, right. You know, you want, you want to make sure that it will be able to accommodate, right. They're not going to be necessarily out of the property the majority of the time. So that's something that you want to prepare also. You want to have a property that is a bit more flexible. Right. People want to work, they want to play at the property, they want to do a few things at the property. So you want to make sure that it's ready for that. And another thing that we see, of course, is providing more flexible cancellation terms so people will feel safer when they're booking the property. And these are things that you can do just with, you know, with how you set up, of course, your listing on the different booking channels. And that is of course, something that is. That is very important. And you know, and I think these are something that are, in terms of the way they book the property, the guest journey. Right. Throughout the guest journey, the different touch points. If it can be a light touch state, you know, or even completely touchless, it would be also very beneficial. And of course. Right. Talking about the cleanliness of the property. Right. Which is super important. So these are sort of the tips that, that I would suggest just listening to the conversation right now. You know, how to increase, of course, the volume of bookings.

Yeah. Any tips? I mean, you give so many great advice via the blog. Is there anything that comes to mind on some actionable advice that people could be doing right now that we haven't mentioned already?

I mean, level Joseph's tips, they're great. So I'm trying to add something to that. So I will start Talking about the OTAs I know and then go about book direct. What I mean here, what's important is that if you're in UK in US or France, for example, you probably have seen on TV or YouTube a huge ad campaign from Airbnb. And also in French market, I see a lot of ads on verbal or slash home away. So what it means, again, it means that these people are spending, these big platforms are spending a lot of money right now to do just what we're talking about right now. Right. They know that they want to be ready for the moment the wave comes. So it does mean to. Exactly, to Mark's point, Josh's point, that your listing, if you have a listing on Noteier, it better be ready. Right. If you, if you have installed, set up like a desk for people to do work remotely, I'd better be able to see that photo. Right. This desk right now I'm sitting like on a kitchen. In the kitchen. Like the laptop is on a fondue set. I swear it's true. And my microphone is in a tee box. I love my brother, I can deal with that. But frankly, I'm like, come on, you could do better. It's not the best. But again, update your photo should be ready, for example, with any kind of new feature you have. Right. Same thing for the pricing. That should be ready again. And if you go to. I was, I was updating my Airbnb listing yesterday. I was shocked. I mean, I forgot there was some stuff I. They've introduced like new filters.

Loads of new filters. Yeah.

I had not ticked boxes. So now they have all kind of new thing I have to tell them, whether from the hot tub to the brand of shampoo. Okay, maybe it's overkill, but. But anything they want me to give them, I know they've tested this on the platform that they know that this kind of information can convert better. So it's not like they're just not like randomly asking you for things. They know what they're asking you for. So again. So let's reverse it, reverse engineer this. Look at what they're asking you. Like, what are the new things that Airbnb or Verbo or Booking has introduced? Right. They're asking you more information, but a desk or more things about. Exactly your point. You offer self check in this information you should have on your website. Right. If I'm coming direct to your website, I kind of need you to tell me this because the platforms, I kind of need to tell you this. Right. If you look at the Airbnb ads as well, looks like it's about entire homes, looks like it's about reconnecting with friends and family. And for example, on our blog, really talking more our Instagram accounts, we're talking about people reconnecting for properties, friends and family. Finally come with your friends or your drunk kids, and you're going to be together in this house and you're going to be cooking together. So again, look at the platforms, update your listings, but also take inspiration from them for your own benefit. The other thing I wanted to mention is Instagram in my case. So for St. Barts, I have domain name sinbad.com and the Instagram account to go with it. And right now, every day, we have plenty of people asking us questions about when will the island reopen. So, as you can imagine, there's a lot of people who want information right now about travel restrictions when they're going to be lifted. And I see a lot of some property managers dancing around information, not wanting to talk about bad news on their social media. But I disagree. I mean, I would be looking if I have my plane ticket in hand. I want to know when the island will be open. So it's very interesting and it's a moment where you can make a difference with your own properties and say, hey, I know what's going on in the market, I'm a local, or have properties there and let me help you. So again, big brands can't do this. You can do it. So again, for the direct bookings, that's so a tip. At least it's working for us. We have more people now subscribing to our newsletter, coming from Instagram feed because of that.

I think the big takeaway is the word reconnect. And again, if Airbnb is spending millions on this message, then success leaves clues at the end of the day, they wouldn't be investing so much money into this ad campaign focusing on the word of reconnection, focusing on families and multiple families coming in and, and staying together, etc. If they didn't see that in the trends in their data. And they get a lot of data. So again, it's, it's, how can you relay that to your messages? And again, even if you are, if you've just got a two bed flat, for example, an apartment, don't discredit that because there will be somebody in your area, in your town who needs to have, or wants to have, maybe their son or daughter or, or you know, auntie, uncle, whatever, come into the town and they don't want to them to stay with them. You know, they need a place for them to stay. So you can still have that reconnect message. But, and even if you, even if you don't have a massive house, so to speak, you know, it's, it's still one that I think we can definitely agree on. And the most important thing is to talk about it. Don't shy away from it, talk about it, actively communicate about this and your future guests will love you for it. Like when they're just waiting for that start again, that's all they're waiting for. And as soon as they get that, then you'll be the first one that they come to. So thank you very much. And one more thing about Airbnb we talked about all of the new listings and amenities have added. One thing that I noticed last night is that in the wi fi section, they've now changed that. So where you put your speed in. So we're talking about workations, we're talking about work away, you actually put your speed in. And I remember Brian Chesky being on a podcast at the back end of last year, the final quarter of last year, it was on how I built this. And he said that they are working on in the filters having WI fi speed as one as the sliding scales that people can choose from because again they're just going at what their guests are telling them the data is telling them. So if you have got really good WI fi, now is the time to shout about it. Why? Because so many people are looking to work away. I was just on a webinar with David Jacoby from Hostfully the digital guidebooks and he has spent out of the last 12 weeks, he has spent nine weeks on and off because he's got building work going on in his house, traveling around, his kids are doing virtual learning. Him and his wife have got working from home and they didn't need to be in their house. He was traveling around the deserts and whatnot and he was working away and his family is not the only one. There's so many people doing this. So that trend is definitely going to stick around staycations workations and just make sure your property is ready for it. And like to bolt said really super simple designate an area doesn't have to be much to stage it differently and put like a little work desk in, make it look like a work desk and then take a picture of it it and have it as your second picture on Airbnb. Have it as your second picture on booking.com, have it as a main post on your social media and talk about it. Talk about the benefits of what you do. And again, you're just going to be available to so many more potential bookings because that's what they're looking for. Joseph, before we go into quick fire questions, I'll leave the final words to your good self. Anything you'd like to add or anything you'd like to bounce on the top of what we've just said?

Yeah, sure. I just wanted to talk about the specific Personas that we're expecting. And this comes up from our recent survey of more than 500 participants from the hospitality industry. So the first Persona that we're talking about are travelers that are looking to reunite with friends and family. We're looking at another Persona that is basically revenge travel, right? The future surge in travel due to the cabin fever that has caused because of the pandemic. And also some travelers are just looking at it, obviously a change of scenery. Some travelers would decide to travel, of course for business reasons, but much less. But we're also seeing these changes patterns also in terms of the traveler and the traveler and the traveler Persona, which is very, very interesting and Also based on that you can make the necessary changes. Right. Or updates if it's to the listing, if it's to, you know, the advertising strategy and so on.

Awesome, thank you. And I'm going to leave with the audience comment for probably my favorite comment of the day again from Caroline. My neighbor always books her mother in law to stay with us. She can't actually has a spare bed but can't cope with her. That's fantastic. I, I absolutely love that. So thank you very much. And again in the comments, if you've got any takeaways from this podcast tonight, this episode tonight, please do leave it in the comments even if you're watching back on, on the live, whether it's YouTube or Facebook and I will go and pick them up. But as we always like to do, I love to finish off roundtables with quick fire questions and I have pre warned Tobal and Joseph with us. I have given them the questions but it's, it's good because we get to find out a little bit more about our guests. We give fantastic hospitality advice but it's nice to dig in a little bit deeper and find out more about them. And of course I would love every single one of you tuning in to join in as well. So the first one, Joseph, I'm going to come to you first and then we'll do to bolt. So the first one is in the last five years what have you changed your opinion on our mind on? So what, what opinion did you have five years ago and over the last five years you have changed it. We'll go with Joseph Venterbalt.

Yeah. So I think that the most important, I think event over the last five years that made me really, I would say change my opinion or be more stronger of it as well is you know, I was just surprised how we are resilient as an industry, as a society in the face of so much uncertainty, especially due to the global pandemic. And we really managed to accommodate our lives to this new normal that I believe most of us has never experienced before. And I just find it very remarkable and, and I'm very hopeful about the future.

So I like that. Nice would be a nice rousing message. Very nice. Love it. Thank you to both floor is yours?

Well, I think probably I, I thought there'd be no room for a kid in my life. I know. Mark you, how many do you have?

Okay, I've got three. They just keep coming, they just keep arriving. I can't stop them.

Yeah, so it's a, it's a big thing. I mean, and then. Yeah, you know, complicated story. But my partner now is a dad, and there we are. So it's, you know, things change. So it's. It's interesting. So you never know. You never know.

Wow. Wow.

Yeah.

These things called children, they change everything. They change everything, especially sleep. I've never slept. I haven't slept in eight years. So. Fantastic. All right, let's move on to the next. Yeah, let's move on to the next one. What absurd, crazy, or fun thing do you like to do that others think may be crazy? For example, guilty pleasure. And I put mine example in the Google Doc. So in the magazines and. Sorry, in the supermarkets, at the checkouts, you always get those trashy magazines, gossipy magazines. I don't know what it is, but I absolutely love reading them. My wife used to buy them and I just used to just scroll through them. I just love them. And I still keep that trend to this day. I cannot resist looking at, you know, gossip, celebrity stories, and all that jazz. So that. That's mine. We'll go to Bolt first, and then we'll go to Joseph second. So is there any guilty pleasure, I think is what you call. I don't know. I don't know what the French version of it is guilty of pleasure is, but is there anything that you like doing that others think are crazy?

No, we're a Catholic country, so we're all about guilt and pleasure. I think, to me it's. It's pretending I'm doing social media research and trying to understand the YouTube algorithm, when basically I'm just following random videos and trying to see where I'm landing. Like last night I was watching videos about Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. wow.

How do you get down that rabbit hole? Yeah.

But then I would pretend I just wanted to study the algorithm.

Yes, that is true. So talking about YouTube, is there any. Any channels that you like watching? Is there any. Any people that you like to tune into on. On YouTube when it's not hospitality or not Christian fundamentalists and things like this?

So beyond the Bruce Lee channel.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, yes, yes. This. This guy who's French and Japanese, he's of two cultures. And I like Japan. It's always like, you know, anyone who's speaking about being of two cultures explain difference from one country to another. I find it fascinating, I think maybe because if you have two cultures or an expat, it's something you like, and it's. Yeah, I think this is. This guy's. Has kind of things I like as well, because I'm. I'm like, yeah, can. I can relate to a few things. It's. And you learning about another countries and.

You'Ve traveled a lot and you. Yeah, I like that. Fantastic. Okay, Joseph, before we go on to your guilty pleasure, Is there any YouTube channels that you like to check out? Any. Any. Are you a YouTube fan? You know, did you watch it? Do you tune into it?

I'm more of a podcast fan on Spotify and I love business and technology podcasts. So, for example, there is a very interesting podcast from Scott Galloway, who's a professor in nyu and he talks a lot about technology, about business, and he's very interesting. Recode. There are different type of podcasts, but that's, you know, that would be right now top of my list.

So do you ever tune into things like Masters of Scale or things like that with Reid Hoffman?

Yeah, yeah, one of my. Yeah, one of my favorites. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a very good podcast. I'm a big, big podcast fan as well, so I love that. I will check out Scott Galloway. Okay, so let's. We're not going to get past this one. The. Your guilty pleasure. What. What is it? What absurd, crazy thing that other people think is mental that you love doing?

Yeah, so, you know, I. I connected it actually to travel to make it interesting. So as a kid, I used to actually collect different things. So I used to collect, you know, coins, stamps. Obviously everyone collected sports cards, right? And recently, the last few years, every place I visit, I like to collect memories from that place. So, for example, I went to Prague and I visited a gallery that showed Andy Warhol. And so I had to save that ticket for the gallery. Or for example, I went scuba diving in Catalina island, just off of California coast and near Los Angeles, and I just had to hang on to the brochure. So these are just little things that I like to do, you know, a key card from a boutique hotel. So it's just all kinds of things that I like, and it's just a habit. The last few years. Yeah, that.

Well, a special mention to Helly Woolly, Helen Woolley of compa, who is literally in competitive week. We went to stay with her last year and she packed off my boys with a fridge magnet of the property of Villar and Delufia, and that is still on our fridge. So again, if, like, hosts are thinking about turning guests into super fans, right there, like what Joseph said is so true. You people like to hold on to memorabilias, and we're in the Industry of making memories. Memories. Right. So what can you do to. Even when somebody's left your property, that's a really nice little tip for everybody. And again it costs very little to do and it's got lasting impacts. I do like that.

So basically can you get, how can you get connected, how can you connect your property to the destination? I, I think it's a great point. Right. So if you have that memorabilia in your property, it's sort of, it's, it's, I think it's distinctive and it's, it's special.

Yeah.

Yep. My, my boys at the moment I've got an eight year old, a five year old and a two year old. But the five year old and the eight year old are mad on Pokemon. They are going through the Pokemon card fascination right now. So they are, they are all in on their collectibles right now at the moment and in 20, 30 years time they'll probably be doing the whole NFT and cryptos and all that malarkey. But no, that's very, very cool. So moving on to the final question and again I'm not seeing anybody in the comments telling me what your guilty pleasures is. So who's going to be the brave one to do it first? But the final question and whenever I ask this question to our guests it always leads down the travel one. But I'd be interesting to see if we've got any alternatives. So we'll come back to Joseph first and we'll finish with Tobalt. So what is in the next year? So the rest of 2021 dipping into 2022 in the next year, what are you most excited about? We'll start with Joseph and we'll go to Tabal.

Yeah. So again I'm very excited about different things that are happening in our industry. So one thing that is very exciting is just looking forward and seeing the continued resilience of entrepreneurs in the industry and how they built their business within our ecosystem, how it's becoming more decentralized and how we see that sort of more of a democratic ecosystem, so to speak. And also it really shows how flexible the short term rental ecosystem is. And I think I'm very optimistic about the future. I think there is a very bright future for the short term rental industry, vacation rentals and especially for these entrepreneurs. So that's, I think that is very exciting and you know, and we see them right, our users, we talk to them every day. Yeah. So I think that's very, very impactful.

Is the one thing I love about guesty is that you just got such a good communication with your customers. It's always something that I've loved. And any event, show or talk, when I've been talking at a conference or whatnot, the guesty booth is always full of people because they just want to come over and say hi. So that is a big compliment to the, to the community that you've built over these years. So well done. I love that. Thank you very much to both. Moving on to yourself. What is your most favorite thing that you're looking forward to doing in. In the next year?

I'm gonna see two things. Sorry about that.

That's fine.

Linking to that I look forward to. I mean I'm really enjoying this experience right now. Great job market with this, you know, talking. I love the chat. I love the comments. I'm looking the comments. What I'm missing in this sense of community in real life. So I'm really looking forward to the first events coming back to see you all guys and talk about this because industry I like. But second, the thing I had in mind really what I prepared was also to say well I'm looking forward to we right now in Sinbad. We've so we've destroyed and rebuilt our home basically because there was a big hurricane two years ago. Two things and we patched it. It was okay but it was like we had to rebuild it. So we spent last year rebuilding the house. It's launching this week which is fantastic. The island's closed for tourists.

Fantastic.

We all relate to this.

Yeah.

Yeah. So looking for. I look for. I look forward to actually staying in my own home in the coming weeks. Yeah, that's something I look forward to. The house is ready and I got my ex is fantastic. It's been doing good job handling the last finishing works. But yeah, I look forward to. To going back to the island, seeing the house and just looking this fantastic view we have and feeling home. I miss that.

I have to. I have to add that I'm looking forward to in person events. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone in person. I have to say that because it's. This is really something that I'm also excited about. So you know, the sooner the better.

I think that I've said this to a couple of and the people that are organizing the September event in. In London. I've said to like I think the first event company, the first conference, the first expo that gets the timing right will be the. The most talked about, the most popular event going. It'd be the best PR Because I think everybody's just ready for it now. I love doing podcasts, I love doing virtual podcasts, I love doing this. But I've never been more excited to be able to speak on a stage and get to meet people and do all those things. And I used to not like it, I used to despise it, I used to shy away from it. But now I'm just ready to, I just really want to do, I really want to get out and see people again. Because you're right, you know, we've been sort of slowly having to revert to this ready player one world. If you've read the book or had the audio, but I've seen the movie, we're just being sort of reverted to that by just being in, in homes and stuff. So it'd be good to see people and, and really, you know, what this industry is all about is hospitality and just to be able to be hosted hospital and to see, and travel and see everybody around the world. So yeah, thank you very, very much. And again everybody in the comments, thank you for, for joining in. And you know, and if you've got any questions directly to our guests, I'm going to give them a little 30 second pitch where they can talk about the product and the business and you can go and find out more. So we'll start with Joseph and then we'll come to Bolt and then what we'll do is we'll sign off. So anybody wants to find out about guesty, Joseph, where is the best place for people to go?

So obviously you can go to guesty.com our website. There you can learn everything about our features, our solutions, our marketplace partners. You can learn everything about of course guesty and of course you can request also a demo with us to explore the platform further and also to learn about any type of upcoming events, virtual and in person. That would be the best place for you guys to learn about guesty.

Fantastic. Thank you. And to both YouTube channel, podcasts, blogs. It's all there.

Yeah, exactly. So let's make it simple. If you go to rentalscaleup.com especially to rentalscale.com newsletter, you can just sign up for free to newsletter and every week you get some of what we talked about tonight. Like, you know, industry trends, what's going on, Europe versus us. Also super actionable stuff like, okay, what's going on in Airbnb, that's new. Go update this this week. So yeah, that's, that's it. And, and if you want to contact me, just go on LinkedIn Spark said I'm pretty active there. Yeah, just send me a message and I'm super happy to chat.

Fantastic. Thank you so much, gents, it was a pleasure. I just want to say a special hello to Vince from Vinnie from Uplisting. He was meant to, but he had a baby, like, literally in the last 24 hours. So congratulations and I'm looking forward to seeing all of the pictures. And to everybody that's tuned in, thank you so much. It means the world, don't forget, if you're watching this at any point on the replay, you've got 24 hours to do this, but just share this video. So grab the YouTube link or the Facebook link and share it into LinkedIn, Facebook, Facebook groups and just tell the world of hosts out there that there are people helping to come out of this, not only surviving but thriving on the other end. And if you do, tag me in it@boostlyuk or take a screen grab, email me Mark boostly.co.uk Tomorrow, tomorrow lunchtime. What I'll do is I'll just pick somebody at random and I'll pay for your takeaway tomorrow night. So, from me to everybody that's tuning in, thank you so much for being part of this live event. Thank you so much for. For joining us to the guests. And we're going to finish with me just basically saying thank you to every single one of you and bringing a few up on stage and just sharing some of your comments. So thank you very much and we shall see you all when we see you all.

Thank you very much.