The Latest Trends, Threats and Opportunities in Hospitality

Okay, so today on the Boostly podcast we are discussing the latest trends, threats, opportunities and all the stuff that you need to know about within the hospitality industry with an absolute expert on the subject which I'm going to introduce shortly. But before we do, let me say welcome to the Boostly podcast. This is a podcast that gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the training and most importantly the confidence to go out there so you can get more direct bookings. My name is Liam Carolan, I'm Mark Simpson's co host and this is the Spotlight series where we we shine the spotlight on services, businesses and people that you need to know about. So let me introduce to you a very special guest. This is Thibaut Masson, who's the founder of rental scale up. Rentalscaleup.com is an awesome website which I had the pleasure of discovering because I interviewed Thibaut and it is just an amazing source of information in the hospitality industry. It shares loads of tips, best practices to help owners, managers within the short term rental industry grow their revenues, become more profitable, avoid some of the pitfalls and to save time in your business. So you can get the newsletter by going to rentalscaleup.com and I fully recommend you do so. It's one of my favorite reads each week when it comes through. So let's welcome Thibaut along. Thank you for joining me today. Are you doing Liam?

Very happy, happy to be here and hello to everybody on the the Boosting podcast.

Thank you buddy.

Great and great. And it's. It's back in Netherlands after 10 days in India. So actually we were in the mountains of Rajasthan, so it was not that warm, but it's still it. It is definitely colder here, so. But things are good.

Nice, nice. So can you give yourself a brief introduction? I know we've kind of teed it up there, but just introduction to yourself how and also I guess what Rental Scale Up's purpose and mission is.

Sure, sure. And thanks for the good words. I have to live up to the now, no pressure. So yes, rentals scalp. We do three things really right. So we have a free newsletter. It goes out usually on every Thursday. And what we do, we do three things there. We talk about what a big platforms are doing, Airbnb or Verbal for example. And we try to redecipher what's behind the decision. We say okay, what's new with them, why this happening and what you should do about it. So even if you have a book direct Strategy, for example, it is still very interesting to understand what the big Platforms are doing, for example, from introducing more flexibility to talking up about sustainability or any kind of thing they're doing because it has an impact on the way the rest of the market thinks. So it's very important what we do. We try to make sure people understand what they do. And I work for five years at the headquarters of booking.com in tech and strategy. So I think I kind of, you know, pretty good idea sometimes on how big companies think. And for little men or women like us, it's also very good, very interesting to understand how big companies think. So second thing we do, we share data. Data about for example the US market or European market. And again we're like, okay, that's data, that's what we see and that's, we think what it means for you and that's maybe the decision you should be taking. The third thing we do, we talk about tech. I love tech. My second life. I'm also the head of product marketing at Price Labs. It's a dynamic pricing solution. Well, I love that here my goal with retail scale up. We talk about all kind of tech, but really like what are the solution, what's happening? And for example, that's why we're very happy with talking Mark Simpson, obviously from Bruce Lee. Talk about direct, what kind of like tools could be using for good strategy. So that's really what we do. Big platforms, data and new tech.

That's cool. And I mean that is a mammoth amount of experience just right there. And you know, thank you for sharing that. So I guess before we get into the trends this year, how did rental scale up come to exist? What was the. When did you start getting into this stuff?

Yeah, it's a, it's a great question. I mean with my ex, there's always an X in my stories. With my ex, we built a fantastic house villain Bali in, you know, in the middle between the rolling rice paddies and the, and the black sand beach. Beautiful, A secluded beach, amazing place. And I was like, okay, we have a great place now and we probably need to get bookings to pay back what we borrowed to build this place. And I went to see several property management companies and they like great place but we don't want it. We don't want to have it in our inventory. And I was like, why? Well, it was because we were too far away from their agencies from where their offices were located. It would mean basically that whenever there was a problem with a guest, somebody from the office would have to drive 1 hour and a half, 2 and 1 and a half back from our place. So they said, great place, but yeah, we don't want this. So I had to start getting bookings on my own, which is probably story familiar to anybody on the Boostly podcast. Getting bookings on my own in my case. So I did create a website to get direct bookings. I started blogging about Bunny, for example, and what I did as well. I started listing on Airbnb, for example, and on homeaway, Verbal and booking dot com. And that's how I got to learn things, how the platforms work. And just for my own benefit, right? I'm like, okay, I have to understand these platforms, I have to understand how they work. I have to understand how to get direct bookings. And pretty fast. I mean, it was like eight years ago. We became pretty big on Instagram, for example, because, because we knew it was a good place to be is to get direct bookings, right? So that's how I got started. And people were asking me, well, can you do it for us? And I was like, hmm, that's interesting. Maybe I can share my experience. So I opened a blog, which was called rentalpreneurs.com at the time, and I wanted to get bigger clients to give more advice to and to find clients. I thought maybe I should go and speak at big conferences. And that's how I just, you know, I, I, I, I applied for a speaking gig at VRMA in Europe. @ the time, they had a conference in Europe, and I found myself speaking in front of a room. And yeah, that's, that's how in, in the room, actually, there was someone from booking.com there. So that's how I got a job in the end, instead of pursuing new clients, stayed there for five years, was great, learned a lot, and at some point, I want to do things on my own. So I really launched rentalpreneurs, which I renamed rentalscaler. And that was two years ago. And yeah, that's how I got started with.

Rentalscaler. What I love about that story, Thibaut, is the fact that hospitality is something which has opened up so many doors. And I know the amount of value that you share. And to think that, you know, in a perhaps another reality that, you know, the management company just said yes, and none of the rest of it happened happened is, is crazy. Do you know what I mean? But all of what hospitality gives people in general is not just obviously a good cash flow and business, but it means that it upskills you. So when you're looking at this industry as a whole, and this is this has worked for me. Just being interested, being around hospitality. Some of the great people within hospitality opportunities come your way. And whether that is just things which will help your hosting business or whether it's actual opportunities where you can help others, which is exactly what now rental scale up does. And now obviously being part of Price Labs as well, which is amazing as well. So helping all these people globally is just a great story there. So I feel inspired by that. So let's talk more about some of the trends that is happening at the moment. Particularly like, say, people listening to this are going to be hospitality owners. Many of them are interested in getting more direct bookings and that side of things. There's a lot of fear I can see in the industry at the moment. There's some big sort of influences. Talking about Airbnb bust or Airbnbust or whatever it is, what do you think is is happening within the industry? I guess what trends have you seen that's changed since, say, times like the pandemic over the last few years? How is the industry.

Changing? I think it's good. You talk about the ebb and be bust. What's interesting. So once the Airbnb bus, basically what it means is that people, since last summer 2022, some people have started noticing that they were getting fewer bookings for their listing on Airbnb. That's what it means, right? So here we're talking about a channel Airbnb and people getting fewer bookings. Right. It does not mean that the overall demand for Airbnb has gone down. Right. Demand on Airbnb exploded again last summer. The idea is that there's just more competition, maybe more supply on Airbnb, resulting in fewer bookings per listing. And what's very important to understand is that a lot of the time, a platform like booking.com or Airbnb is a world of itself. It's got its own rules, it's got its own way to draft demand, it's got its own supply. And the trends that you see in Airbnb could be the same on booking.com or not. For example, booking.com is very much European. Depends way more on European demand, less so on us on Airbnb, which is more US and Europe. Where I'm going here is that if you have your own, if you really bought direct bookings and you have your own base of your own list of past customers and the things, if you go back to them and keep on marketing, it does not mean that the Airbnb burst again. So the fact that on the Platform Airbnb, there's fewer bookings per listing does not mean that it would expand to you with your direct booking strategy. Because these are, I would say, different worlds. Of course, you can argue there's like macroeconomic effects, right? Everybody if like, you know, if everybody goes into recession, of course overall demand may go down. It would be threatened. But think about that, right? Things are specific. I will, I will go again about Airbnb, right? Airbnb, basically, even right now, they are really aggressively advertising. They have a four new hosts who join that platform. Airbnb has a campaign called Having Be it great. I think, I think they're doing such a great job to attract new host, right? So basically they're telling anyone that anyone can become an occasional host. So they're going after people who want to put maybe their place or a bedroom for know, a weekend, two weeks, three weeks on the platform. So again, they are probably going after people who are different from the boosted podcast listeners, right? But that's the goal of Airbnb. They have, they want be super easy for people to host. In the end, it's good for Airbnb because more supply means more pressure for prices to go down, right? That's the other complaints about the Airbnb bust, that not only are we getting, people are think they're getting fewer bookings, but at a lower price. So last minute, I'm going to say about Airbnb bust, it's such a great topic on the social media, right? Think about it. If I'm going to do a TikTok video, post something on Twitter, if I talk about anything Airbnb views, if I talk about something negative about Airbnb, even more views. If I come up with a term like Airbnb burst, Fantastic, right? So there's a, there's some kind of burst behind it, I would say. I was talking yesterday with four different property managers in the us, in the Caribbean and in Spain and was like, how's it going for you guys? They're like, well, pretty good. Pretty good. So it does defy reason, you think? I mean, there's wars going on and energy prices are still high, but people are still booking. What I was hearing is that people are still booking. It is true in some market, like smoking markets, mountains in the U.S. prices are lower or are not as high as they were. So basically they will not be increasing as, as much as they did in the past after the pandemic. But in some places, like, you know, beach destinations, they booked up, Peruvian booked up. It's. It's it's fascinating. It's like we were so concerned with the recession, we were really afraid of that. But the need for traveling, especially still after those lockdowns, is so strong that people are saving money to travel. Now, what could be happening? They are saving money to search your property, which is great, but they may, may spend less going to restaurants or other things that they want to do at any destination. Right. So we look at, well, my advice for host is look at what your current guests are doing. I guess if they see coming have they changed the way they spend money? And that could really tell you as well, like maybe, you know, what you should maybe put forward the fact that you have a great kitchen where families can have meals and prepare themselves. It's way better than a hotel because again, if people don't want, they say, you know what, not going to go to Starbucks to have breakfast, we're just going to make coffee at home. You know, it's the moment to show up your coffee.

Maker. I love that answer as well, because you've, you've. First of all, airbnbust is a major draw on like you say, social media is the first thing and it isn't necessarily what's actually necessarily happening with within everybody's experience, you know, like you say micro markets, but also, and I'm so glad you mentioned that airbnb are now really targeting those second rooms, the people who occasional homes, you know, where they live abroad and that side of things. And a lot of those won't take away certainly from my market as a host. You know, those aren't going to affect me because that's not my target Guest avatar So I guess this always comes back to what you've said, which is that the market isn't shrinking from a global standpoint. There's micro markets which are still growing. And also it's looking at it as who is my guest? How do I serve my guest, how do I contact my guest? And what can I do to get my unfair share of the market, which is still growing, but to a lesser degree. And what can I do to attract them, which is cool. So what would you say then, looking ahead for 2023? Let's go for let's look at a question in two parts. Let's say one, what are the biggest threats to most hosts in 2023? And then we'll swing it around to what is the biggest opportunity.

Sure. I think one of the threats is actually complacency because we just said, you know what most market, a lot of market is going to be good. Actually we have to think that people are still price sensitive, right? What I mean is that even though it's booking may not be the same as high prices as in the past in some markets, number one. Number two, as I said price sensitivity can be around many things. Like they can book your place at the price but they wouldn't save money on other stuff. So make sure about price sensitivity you that you address this right. If you have a website, make sure you talk about this. If you have special deals or you know like discounts on longer stays. Really, really make sure they are clear there or again or ways that you could help them save money by booking your place. That there's like cheap supermarket nearby with these free activities for the kids to do. That's important. Again, right. You want to address the fact that people are price sensitive this year. And number two, I would say people are still after bringing after flexible policies, right? We look at data consumption policies. I mean here we look at data at price labs, for example. I can see that the booking window so the time between the amount of people book and actually it's going to stay at your place. The booking windows are getting longer and almost back to 2019 level. But what the big difference that people still want to book something flexible still way more than again make sure your, your policies are really well spelled out and people know when they book with you what's going to happen if they have to cancel. They have some concerns. So that's, that's really the, the things that's, it's like complacency here on like yes, we see getting bookings but I'm like yeah, but make sure you still addressing things. Now the danger is we talked about this with Airbnb's oversupply in the sense that in the U.S. in Europe as well in the U.S. look at you know, since summer 2020, I mean there was, it's great to think about it. But Covid hit in I think March 2020. It was disaster. It was the end of the industry, right. And everything. And in the US it started booming already summer 2020, nearly three months later. Crazy. So of course and it's, it's been relentless, relentless boom. Meaning like people have had two years to say, you know what this short term rental thing, I'm going to invest in it. I'm going to get you know, places built or put some money in a condo or something, right. Which means that end of last year and this year we have a lot of new products, lot of new Properties coming into the market and add to this again, I will be telling anybody that they can list, you know, a bedroom in a garage and whatever. So there's a, there's a glut of supply, right? That's something that's really happening. And you also have to have in your mind that again, during the boom, some people said, I'm maybe going to get a third or fourth rental. I'm going to just borrow money and get this. But now that the interest, interest, sorry, interest rates are higher, some people may have issues with paying you back the loans. So anybody ready to do anything, get bookings or to get some revenues which could be lowering the, lowering their adrs, their. The rates they're setting to, setting for. So that's something. Again, the impact on supply is big. There's still new supply. And some people may have, for example, to sell something and a person buying the soul has to buy it with. Sorry, it's a Dutch word in my handset, the interest rate is higher, which means that themselves, they're going to have to make more money to pay for that. So it's attention here. Supply is not going to go away. Another factor that some people may not have in mind here necessarily, it's currency fluctuations. That's a big word. But basically what we're seeing during the first two years of the COVID crisis that are well contracted are welcome, right? People in the US traveled in the US then a bit more towards Mexico and, and Canada when. I mean the border with Canada was closed for I don't want to say two years, but at least more than a year. It's crazy. The border between the US and Canada, we forget it. Think about it. It's just can't believe this. So people were traveling northern North America, same thing in Europe, people traveled there, you know, in UK within UK and things, France within France. Then started to go across Europe, but still not too far in case something was happening. They could still drive back to that country before the border shut down. It was a crazy, crazy thing. In the U.S. sorry. In Europe, we were reading newspaper to see which country is opening up, closing, and you had Brits stuck in Spain. It was crazy thing. So we were like, you know what? I'm going to be very careful what we see now. And that's. We hope that travel is going to globalize again, right? Already last summer, way more Americans in the street of Europe. Way more Americans could hear the Americans in the streets in Paris or Milan, where I was clear, even though the dollar is high, it's a bit lower. It does mean that Europeans also want to go to the US and when you look at data, for example, around the Orlando markets, Disneyland, Disney World in California and Florida, it's up right. Europeans are back, which is good. Now China has reopened. So what's interesting as well as China is that it does drive a lot of bookings. And people still think that Chinese people are training as groups on US book, which is not true. And since that it's not all of them, right. You have a sliver of the market. People from Shanghai, they will book villas in Bali, for example. I know Bali a bit. And they, they do book villas in Bali. They're not going to book villas like mine far away from the cities. What they're going to book is a nice villa with service close to restaurants and shopping areas. But they do book vacation rentals. We should not forget that. Anyway, so what we hope is that it's going to start re globalizing it, which just mean there's a risk. Is that something we forgot? If you had a business before that currencies fluctuates and again it talks about euro and dollar. I mean evaluate up plus 13% and minus 20% in just one year. Crazy. So it means that if somebody's booking with you right now for the summer and then cancels, you can, you may have to pay back, you know, to give back the money in their currency with a currency that has changed. And that's the kind of risk that we used to think about, especially for a bigger company. But we used to think more before COVID and now we kind of forgot that we're going to get people who don't bid on currency. That's not the thing to have in mind. So it's a good, it's a good thing to have in mind. Again, think about what you're going to do and if you have to pay back again, things like consensus prices, make sure that you're clear about the currency in which you have to pay back the cancellation or make sure as well on which state the amount you're considering. Are you considering the amount taken on the day of your booking or the state? I mean, lots of things to have in mind, but just make your life easier. Another thing to have in.

Mind. Go ahead, just, just jump in. That's such a good point because we get bookings from all over, over the world and certainly now things are open again. I was one of those people you mentioned, you know, sort of staying in the UK and now I'm one of those people who have traveled abroad last year and I'm certainly considering going across to the States either this year or certainly early next year. But so I match the trend and I guess this is how people listening feel and how our guests feel as well. And that's such a good point about the currency conversion because I've seen the rate drop, you know, certainly working with Boostly, seeing the websites. A lot of our sales are based in us, Canada, Mexico and I've seen the price change wildly and I hadn't thought about obviously based on a cancellation policy. I mean a lot of our bookings are now direct within my hospitality company. That's something which I hadn't had in mind which is why I love speaking with Yetibo about this stuff which both myself and other hosts out there can be, can be thinking about. But yeah, you were going to carry on with a point and I'd love to dive into what you think the opportunities are, especially if I was a new host diving into the short term rental industry because there's a lot of worry over the last two years have been very good. Are there still opportunities to be found and if so, what are they? How can I capitalize on.

Them? Talk about something bittersweet that as a transition, layoffs, layoffs is never a great topic. But you know, there's been, there's been lots of layoffs in tech recently. Right. And even layoffs in our industry. Right. There's a very, I think the, the biggest property management company in the US which is called Picassa, also laid off a lot of people and had changes. So how do you think about layoffs here? I mean you, in a way layoffs in tech are worrying for some of us. Right. If you have high end properties or if you were trying to think to attract remote workers, maybe you may think that it's the end of attracting remote workers because all these companies that were super remote work friendly, maybe some of these employees are like, maybe I should show face at the office more often so that I don't get fired. So I think companies like Meta and the rest, these big companies get, you know, get it's again it's, it's like Airbnb Bus. It's. They are, they attract news in the sense that people want to know what's happening with them but it's not the majority of the market. Right. You're still going to get remote workers, you're still going to get digital nomads, you should still go after them. That's still an opportunity wherever you are. Right. There's probably people like me, like tomorrow I'm driving back to France, see my family and I'd be working from there. Right? Because that's how it is nowadays. You're like, no, I'm going to be working and getting two days off and work a bit more. So wherever you are, even as you new host, you have to think that attracting people who are not just like no digital nomads, but people who happen to, you know, they just have a job and they will be expecting to be able to work from your place two days a week, something you want to do. So still being able to show that there's a desk, there's a. There's a good Internet connection, more than ever. It's very important. Right? So that's, that's. These things are again, that's my message. Like yes, there's like some, some gloom and doom in the news. But think as well that in the end it does mean that's all remote working and still. No matter that's still happening. And it's again, it can touch any corner of. Of the world really. Right. Because it may just be somebody who lived in your city, was coming back to visit their family and also needed a place where to stay and where to work and you could be that. So speaking of Vacasa, Vacasa again is interesting case because remember where I talked about how I started, right. I was in Bali, had a property. I wanted to give it to a property managed company and they could not because it was too far away for the company. As an employee that also talks about how it is. It is very. Our job is very operational. In the end, they couldn't do it because sending somebody to help or to visit a client, they couldn't. A customer traveler, they couldn't do that. That's the limit of a casa, right? You can. It's so big at some points, it's hard to be relevant in every market and to be good in every market. There's a limit to that. And again, that's. And what I used to work@booking.com, right. And I can tell you the reviews on average for large companies, the guest reviews, the score was lower than the average score of a small host like you. Right? Small hosts have a higher review score. Again, it's very easy because it's, it's. You have a few properties, you care about them. It's your money, it's your own money. You want to make sure it's successful. You do everything to be successful. You care, you know, if you Have a large company with, I think, like I said, 40, I want to say 60,000 properties. Sorry, it's kind of hard that on the ground everybody cares as much as an owner would. It's kind of again, to make sure that the guest experience is just as good across so many properties. Right. So again, if you hit this kind of layoffs in industry, does that mean that the industry is doomed? It means that it's just very hard to replicate the kind of experience you provide on a bigger scale. Right. So, you know, you host, making sure you make clear what you stand for, how different your property is. Your own story is important. The other thing I would say for a new host, I talked about Airbnb at the beginning, right? When I work at Airbnb in booking.com, sorry, I worked at booking.com, we were introducing new features on a website, like new filters, for example, work friendly. Make sure your place is work friendly, which means you have a desk, there's a good connection. And the rest really look at websites like Airbnb and Booking. If you see them introduce a new filter, a new option, they make tests for that. It's getting dumb bookings, it's getting them money. So it does mean that whatever the surface say you know about, you know, being sustainable work friendly, that's something you should point out. If it's fixed. True, you should put on your website because it means it's attracting demand. Right? So be smart. You don't want to join them, great. But look at what they're doing and how can you take inspiration from them? Again, what they do on their website, the signals showing you, okay, there's demand for that, there's demand for that. So it's very important again for new host to look maybe at properties that are similar like yours. And look how Airbnb book.com is presenting them. For example, in their property page listing page, how are they presented? What features are put forward among all the features, what amenities are put forward in this similar property? Because if this is put forward, for example, the great Internet connection, the kitchen or the the area, all these details, they've been studied by these big companies. It means they're very important. That's what you should also make sure you pushing forward, make it very obvious in your own listings. Learn from.

Them. You know, I think the opportunity there is massive and there's so much to digest and thank you TiVo for, for that. Because the opportunity is to be different. You know, most of our hosts are management companies or single hosts who manage their own sort of properties. And the benefit is there they can really niche down. They really understand, like you say, they care for their, the guests experience, and they're experts in their own niche in their own area. Many of them, you know, have lived in the properties or have stayed in the properties and have, you know, experienced what their guests are going to experience, which is why they're able to achieve these, these awesome reviews. And I guess that is the opportunity to really understand the market of what, what you're going into or what you've got at the moment and to really deep dive into some of those amenities and amenities which will allow you to attract the guests that you're after. I was lucky enough to go on booking.com this week, actually, and I listed a new place. We were recording training videos for some of my staff and I thought, hey, who better than I'll dive in and do it? And I was surprised by the number of additional options that wasn't there before. And all of the changes and that is now encouraged me to go back through all of the listings and think, well, if there's people listening to this and you've been listed on booking.com Airbnb for a little while now, like you say, they're constantly introducing these new features. Go on there and either take yes or no to everything. So booking.com know that you're, you're interested and what you actually provide in your guest, and particularly the sustainability options on there. You know, like, there's many that I could tick yes to, that I just didn't know that I could tick yes to. So things like we've never used straws in our places, you know, that really basic stuff. But you'd be surprised that it's not all, you know, have you got solar panels, have you got a heat pump? All of the things which would cost thousands. A lot of these things can just go through and you can tick these boxes because you're already ready doing some of them, which is really cool. So one of the things which I'd like to, to come on to would be, and we spoke about this briefly a little while ago, was the pricing side of things. At the moment, I see hosts, especially those newer hosts who've just entered the market, who are dropping down their rates massively to just attract those bookings. And also from my point of view, I'm, I'm trying to keep prices high to keep the income good and keep it worthwhile for our clients. And also for every price that you, you know, every pound that you drop Your costs are still the same. So at the end of the day, you're losing margin massively on a massive scale. What would your advice be drawing on your experience from price labs? What should people be considering around their pricing at this sort of time? When we're currently, as we record this, we're off season, the market conditions in some places are a little bit tougher. What would your advice be around.

Pricing? The first things is try to have an idea of your market. How do people book new markets? For example, maybe right now it's off season, but maybe right now people are booking for Easter and summer. So booking wise, maybe big at the moment, right? But or not, I don't know. I don't know where you are. You could be in Australia, it could be in the uk, right? So you have, you need to use tools like you have companies, price labs and other competitors, right? They provide market reports, right? For example, price tag, you go to something called market dashboards. You enter any address in the world, any address in the world and you can the radius around it, like 2 miles or 50 miles or kilometers if you want. And then you're going to see patterns in that market around your listing, around your house, right? How side events are people booking? How is booking right now? What's the average, what are the average daily rates we're booking for all these kind of things. You need this information because I'll give an answer just like this, because as you just said, it's like your pricing will depend obviously how high, low your market is, how your market is pacing, which means how fast people are booking right now or booking for the future. That's the kind of things you're getting from a report. The thing I would still say here, Liam, you took back new hosts. It is something we all know that new hosts have to buy their reviews, let's say, subsidize the reviews. What I mean here is that. Let's talk first about the platforms. On a platform like Airbnb, you need at least three reviews, my guests, to get a review score. And you know what people sometimes when you're looking for a place on Airbnb as a guest, you say add the note on your places that whose score is above 4.8 and you should, because 80% of properties are above 4.8. So anything below 4.8 on Airbnb or 8 on booking.com I'm like, not even going to book. Not even going to book. So but to get to be, if you have a new property and somebody says filters out any properties that's below 4.8. Even if you have one review that's like a 5, you won't show up because you need three reviews to get awarded a review score that will then be put on your listing page. And that will also make you start appearing in the filters. So it can be chicken and egg because you need to show up in these filters to get some bookings. And when you get the bookings, get the reviews and you get the reviews, enough reviews, you get review score. Same thing on any platform. So to kickstart, you have usually to lower your prices, let's say by 20% down from what you think should be your price at that moment for that season, right? And don't you know, again here you have to be smart. That's why if you have tools like, you know, you have tools like price labs, it's easier to say I'm going to lower prices only for next, next three months or next two months. The rest I'll be on, on the market price. Right On Airbnb. You can do this. Airbnb, you will. Airbnb is more like there's something automatic you can do with them. And you lower your prices until you've got three bookings for the first three bookings you get, if that booking is in summer, sadly your prices will be a bit low. So again, you have my advice. Lower your, you need these reviews. Even on your own direct website, you need reviews, right? So you need to attract reviews. So you do need to lower your price, but be strategic about it. Maybe get reviews in a, in a, in a, in a off season months where you below anyway. And whenever you set prices, obviously you have exactly as the app said, you have to make sure you above your cost plus some margin, right? The margin being like something bad happens, you have to replace something. You never know. B, you know, cost plus some kind of margin in the buffer, right? What's interesting, in price tabs, you can set a minimum in your for your prices, but usually the tool will never go to your minimum. It's more like a fail safe, right. So you make sure you have this whenever you use direct pricing or regular pricing. When you make your own prices, you have a grid, you know how low you want to be and it's okay sometimes to go low. As an example, I just gave to get the first three views and then increase your.

Prices. That makes sense. And you certainly got my mind working around all the things that I can do as a property manager. And I'm sure people listening to this will also feel the same about all the things they can relook at, their pricing strategies and particularly it's so much easier to manage with a pricing tool. I mean, I use price labs within my hospitality business and it just makes things so much easier, like you say, to be able to set minimums, to really strategically look at that. And also for any property managers listening to this, it also means that you've really got a good idea of the seasonality, obviously you've got market dashboard and that side of things. So it's really worth looking at as well as there's other, you know, pricing software out there as well. So, yeah, as we reach the end of these t bow, I really feel that, I mean, first of all, I feel from the basis of what we've discussed, discussed that there's not as much doom and gloom as there needs to be, that there's still ways to create good income and not only that, grow in this period. And especially one thing that I was talking to other hospitality managers about is that actually this is a great time to grow. If you've got expertise, if you've got a direct book and website, if you've got, if you've got access to pricing tools and if you can be the expert in your chosen area, as we've just said that smaller entities, it's easier to become that expert to really cater for your target guest, then you could actually grow during this time and take some of these opportunities from some of these great big entities, you know, some of these big companies who have got these 60,000 employees and things like that, who may not be doing the best job. So, yeah, as we come to the end, we love to just do a couple of quick fire fun questions just before we bring it to a close. Thibaut. So what is your favorite karaoke song to sing when you go to a.

Bar? Oh, my God. I guess it's Living on a Prayer. Bon.

Jolie. Love it. Living on a Prayer. That is a classic. What time period would you travel to? If you could with a time machine, would you go past future and if so, what sort of time period would you visit and.

Why? Let me pick. The early 20th century. I would love to see New York at the earliest 20th century when it was full of promises. That would be interesting period to.

See. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. And then we all, we, we tend to ask as we close. This is what mantra do you live by? But I know we've had you on before and you've shared your mantra. So instead, what I'D love to ask is what resources should everybody listening to go and check out whether it be a book, a podcast, a movie, anything you like at.

All. Wow. Okay. It's a book has nothing to do with the industry or could be. It's called Indestructible. Indestructible. It's about avoiding destruction and it was written I forgot the name of the author. I should know. Basically there's a guy who 10 years ago wrote a book about how to make sure people are addicted to any app on any service. So a great book, but evil in a way. And 10 years later he wrote a book about how not to get distracted. And I love that book. I read it and I used it. You know, it's from you know how to you know, make sure you're not slave or your phone notifications. Make sure you have time for family. Make sure you time box your calendar to find time for your rental business from your other job. You have another job making sure you have time for your family in your calendar. I think it's really important, especially for entrepreneurs. I like the book. It's not it uses data. It studies and it is very concrete into ways you can regain your own time and I must say to be happy. So that's my.

Advice. Amazing. I did just check out and that's definitely one that's going to go on my audible list and that's by Nai. I think his name is N I R E E Y A L Indestructible. How to control your attention and choose your life. Which sounds amazing. So thank you for that share. That is definitely going on my my list so I'll throw it open to you now. Tebo, you shared so much value with us today. How can people come and get in touch with you and where should they go and check.

Out? Well, it's been a pleasure and if you want to know more, just go to rentalscale up.com rentalscaleup.com and you can sign up for their free newsletter and you get every week stories like I shared today in your inbox. Of course you can also send me a connection over on LinkedIn. Thibault Masson, if you could. It's I know it's hard to find sometimes, but it's I'm sure the show notes you find my name, I'm most very happy to Talk there again rentalscale.com or over.

LinkedIn. Awesome. We will definitely be adding that to the show notes and thank you so much. That is one which as we said before we started recording this one, which I do listen to every time or read every week when it comes in. It's one of the ones which I get a lot of emails which instantly gets unsubscribed to, but that is one which I look forward to each week and shares a lot of interesting news and gets me thinking, which is exactly what this, this podcast has done. So thank you so much, Sibo. I think that brings us to a close. Thank you so much. If you're listening to the Bodies Boostly podcast or if you're watching on the YouTube channel, we know there's a lot of places you can put your attention and we really appreciate you putting your attention with us. I hope this has inspired your hospitality journey and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. Was there any last thing to share at all, Thibaut? Any. Any last moment shares? Did I miss any.

Questions? That's it. That's it. Thank you all for listening. Very happy. Hope there's value. Any questions? If you don't agree with me again, write to me. Let me, let me know. Liam, thank you for being such a great host. It's a pleasure talking with you. Thank you for having.

Me. Thank you, buddy. We'll see you on the next one. Bye for now.