This is a transcript excerpt from a YouTube interview (final episode of Season 8) between Mark Simpson and guest Matt Landau. Matt speaks from the Eastern Shore of Maryland (Chesapeake Bay) and notes he is originally based in New Orleans. Key advice: choose a vacation-rental destination you truly love so you can authentically promote it; be firmly rooted in the local legal/regulatory situation because some destinations have become unfriendly or illegal for vacation rentals; be aware of dependence on OTAs (Airbnb) and the financial risk if platforms refund guests; leverage industry associations; and embrace a "cottage industry" community approach. The clip also contains informal media recommendations and episode sign-off.
Questions this video answers
Maryland on the Eastern Shore, specifically the Chesapeake Bay.
New Orleans, Louisiana.
Final Episode, Season 8; 44 episodes.
We've made it. Final Episode Season 8:44 episodes have a great day. Listen to this advice, make notes on what you're going to do and most importantly, put it into practice.
Well, I am at the moment in Maryland on the Eastern Shore, specifically the Chesapeake Bay. And if you hear a low hum in the background, it's because the pool men are officially de winterizing the pool. Actually based in New Orleans, Louisiana, started to sense the direction that that city was heading with the crisis, decided to take this chance to come up and be with my family. Not unlike you, Mark. It's been two plus months now living with my family, but it has been. I wasn't aware of this at the time, but I think I fell into really good timing and positioning. But follow the vacation rental path. In the early days, it was just getting started. Now, even despite the fact that it has blown up, it's still at the very, very nascent stages. And now is. Well, this is actually a really good tip for people who are thinking about getting started. Work in a destination that you love that is the core of vacation in general. You need to really love the place. And if you don't love the destination where your vacation rental is located, you can't communicate that juju to guests. So it lacks the luster in that sense. So step one, make sure it is a destination you really love. You want to share with folks. So in choosing a destination that you really love, that's a great start. But also be firmly, firmly rooted in the legal situation. Because as vacation rentals have emerged over the last few years, certain destinations have become way less friendly than others. And what I wouldn't want to see is somebody investing a bunch of time and energy and money into a vacation rental business only to learn that vacation rentals are illegal in that destination. Or how, how? Yeah, head on over to VRNB.com blog. You'll see a couple things. You'll see a post part of a new series that we're publishing. Like right now, I just published part one. I'm getting ready to publish part two. He guessed. All you need to do is begin filling up the calendar and you will have reached something of a sweet spot. The dependency on an OTA has become exploited right now. If you didn't get paid by Airbnb, if they universally across the board, decided to refund guests, and that was at your cost, that hurts. It's the biggest, most organized industry association that we've got, so we must utilize all of them possible to get where we want to go. So the cottage industry is just this new kind of way of thinking about the future. My hope is that it can act as a magnetic north for everybody who's listening to say to themselves, yeah, that is what I represent. That is what I want to achieve. And when we have a gigantic group of diverse vacation rental managers all around the world who want one core thing the same, that's when the community really begins to take shape. That's when we can all start singing as a unified voice.
Have you had on the to watch list for a while now or is there anyone that you've recently watched that you could recommend? That's not Tiger King.
I've got two. No Tiger. Fuck Tiger King. I'm currently in the middle of chopping Chapo. That's the story about Chapo Guzman, the drug. The drug czar.
Listen to it.
Even better.
Matt, thank you. Thank you so much, buddy, for doing this. Really, really appreciate it.
