Alex and Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals

For today’s episode, we talk to Melanie Brown. Melanie is the Director of Data and Analytics at Key Data, the leading analytics and benchmarking company for the vacation rental industry. Melanie has a strong background in data-driven decision-making. She is excited to help property managers and destinations around the world better understand their data.

Key Data is the leading provider of trusted, real-time short-term rental market data around the world. Key Data Dashboard was created BY property managers FOR property managers. They offer an ensemble of business intelligence (BI) tools that tell the story of your company’s key metrics with easy-to-grasp dashboards of the 30-plus KPIs that are most important to you. Seamless PMS integrations provide trusted and anonymous data exchange with competitors in your local and regional markets.

Tune in to our latest episode to learn how Key Data tools can help you better understand your vacation rental data and stay ahead of the competition!

Highlights of the Episode:
01:45 - Guest Introduction: Melanie Brown
04:10 - Ahead of the hotel sector on the availability of data
11:41 - Key Data in relation to pricing tools
15:25 - Trends shown by the data
17:50 - Status of available units
19:30 - Comparing markets
22:45 - Why some destinations are not doing well
29:30 - Markets that are not on dynamic pricing
31:39 - One key tip for property managers
35:38 - Big things on the horizon (What’s next?)
37:18 - Companies that have properties in multiple markets
39:37 - How hotels are using Key Data

Connect with Melanie:

Website | LinkedIn (Key Data) | LinkedIn (Melanie Brown) | Youtube | Twitter

This episode is brought to you by Casago, Guest Ranger, and Good Neighbor Tech. 

Visit AlexAndAnniesList.com to view our top picks for the best suppliers in vacation rental technology and services. 

Special thanks to Rev & Research for being the presenting sponsor of Alex & Annie’s List.

Connect with Alex and Annie and get more real vacation rental goodness:

• Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe
• AlexAndAnniePodcast.com

If you enjoyed this episode of ALEX & ANNIE: The Real Women Of Vacation Rentals, make sure to visit our socials, leave us a like, a comment, or share our content with the crowd! Don’t forget to subscribe!

LinkedIn | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok

Send us a message!

In today’s episode, Alex and Annie feature two special guests, Jason Sprenkle, CEO of Key Data Dashboard, and Ben Coleman, President of Rev & Research. They unveil a new partnership between their two organizations to better service their co-customers. 

Key Data is great at helping customers visualize data, especially with the increasing use of purely automated pricing platforms, while Rev & Research excels at walking customers through the process. Ben shares how genuine care to help customers make more money and give them back their time became the driving force behind their partnership.  

Learn more about how the integration between Key Data and Rev & Research will deliver data that empowers property managers in this episode of Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals.

“REAL” TALK

Jason: Identifying a need to provide assistance to customers

"You've got a lot of customers increasingly using purely automated pricing platforms like Bluehouse, PriceHub, etc, and you got a lot of customers who are doing it the old-fashioned way on their own. But what we're increasingly finding is there's a lot of customers in the middle who they want to do it on their own, they want to use some pro tools, but what they really want is some help."

Ben: The partnership will provide accurate price forecasting 

"You can't be messing up rates these days. Owners are looking at them a lot more, guests are finding deals a lot easier, and the next thing you know, you've undersold a high season month real quick and you didn't really quite see what was coming." 

"And I think that we are going to be able to take all that data that they're going to give us and give it to us in a format that we can really start tracking and benchmarking markets and really start driving into true forecasting and into true budgeting for our clients.

Connect with our guests:

• Jason: LinkedIn | Email | Website
• Ben: LinkedIn | Email | Website

You can also email Rebecca and Key Data Sales.

This episode is brought to you by Casago, Guest Ranger, and Good Neighbor Tech. 

Visit AlexAndAnniesList.com to view our top picks for the best suppliers in vacation rental technology and services. 

Special thanks to Rev & Research for being the presenting sponsor of Alex & Annie’s List.

Connect with Alex and Annie and get more real vacation rental goodness:

• Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe
• AlexAndAnniePodcast.com

If you enjoyed this episode of ALEX & ANNIE: The Real Women Of Vacation Rentals, make sure to visit our socials, leave us a like, a comment, or share our content with the crowd! Don’t forg

Send us a message!

In today’s episode, Alex and Annie feature Salar Tanzif, the VP of Sales at Guest Ranger. Security has become a primary concern for both property managers and homeowners. As a result, screening guests is essential to ensure that bad actors are detected and prevented from causing harm or damage.

Guest Ranger, a risk management company, offers screening services that help to detect shady backgrounds, fraudulent activities, and other red flags that could indicate a problematic guest. Salar discusses patterns of fraudulent activity, as well as the measures in place to detect and defeat them.

Salar breaks down the different security levels property managers can employ and how Guest Ranger's "frictionless checks" operate behind the scenes. Learn about the cat-and-mouse game behind vacation rental security in this episode of Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals.

“REAL” TALK

Salar: The most common red flags for fraudulent bookings

"One of the common patterns is local guests, another common pattern are last minute reservations of someone booking a day, two days before reservation. That's a common pattern. Or even the amounts of the units, so the dollar value of that reservation, if it's over $10,000, $20,000 these are things that are not red flags but things that you should look into more."

Salar: Verification of multiple security checks takes only 12 seconds

"The process of the guests going through it should take no more than 10, 12 seconds because all they're doing is they're taking a picture of their ID and a selfie and a credit card if needed. And then right after, immediately after the guest does that, we notify the PM and say, hey, here are the results. Either it failed or passed."

Connect with Salar:

Linkedin | Website | Email 

This episode is brought to you by Casago, Guest Ranger, and Good Neighbor Tech. 

Visit AlexAndAnniesList.com to view our top picks for the best suppliers in vacation rental technology and services. 

Special thanks to Rev & Research for being the presenting sponsor of Alex & Annie’s List.

Connect with Alex and Annie and get more real vacation rental goodness:

• Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe
• AlexAndAnniePodcast.com

If you enjoyed this episode of ALEX & ANNIE: The Real Women Of Vacation Rentals, make sure to visit our socials, leave us a like, a comment, or share our content with the crowd! Don’t forget to subscribe!

LinkedIn | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok

Send us a message!

In today’s episode, Alex and Annie feature Suneel Goud, the CEO and Co-Founder of GuestView Guide, a SHARP NEC company. Suneel discusses their in-unit digital concierge designed for property managers and operators to enhance the guest's experience. 

GuestView Guide provides guests with everything they need to know about the property and the local area while saving time through the automation of tasks and facilitating communication. The device is customizable and comes with a management console that controls the devices centrally through cloud-based software. 

Aside from GuestView Guide's connection with numerous property management systems and its easy integration with other systems through an API, Suneel shares their 90% engagement rate and his observations on current trends: using tech to fill in the gaps of the labor shortage and an increased focus around cybersecurity. 

Learn about the changing reality of tech in the hospitality industry in this episode of Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals.

“REAL” TALK

Suneel: Tech fills in the gaps of the labor shortage

"Maybe someone calls you about how to operate the AV equipment, and that's a regular thing that people call you about within your units. Just create a video and put that in the device and that will allow you to kind of head off those calls. So I think there are ways to take technology and help fill some of the gaps that you'd have because of the labor shortage."

Suneel: Use a guest's own preferences to customize their experience

"As a hospitality operator, whether you're in vacation rentals or in a hotel, the goal is to really customize and provide a very personalized experience to the guests. And the more information you know and have about them, the better you can tailor that experience to the guest."

Connect with Suneel:

Linkedin | Website | Email

This episode is brought to you by Casago, Guest Ranger, and Good Neighbor Tech. 

Visit AlexAndAnniesList.com to view our top picks for the best suppliers in vacation rental technology and services. 

Special thanks to Rev & Research for being the presenting sponsor of Alex & Annie’s List.

Connect with Alex and Annie and get more real vacation rental goodness:

• Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe
• AlexAndAnniePodcast.com

If you enjoyed this episode of ALEX & ANNIE: The Real Women Of Vacation Rentals, make sure to visit our socials, leave us a like, a comment, or share our content with the crowd! Don’t forget to subscribe!

LinkedIn | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok

Send us a message!

In today’s episode, Alex and Annie are joined by Michelle Marquis and Vanessa Moore, the Chief Innovation Officer and Director of Distribution respectively at TravelNet Solutions. Michelle talks about their Hospitality Hub which aims to consolidate the efforts of property managers and streamline operations.

Vanessa's expertise is in strategic distribution and she highlights that while they maintain direct connections with channels, they focus on the 20% that serves the 80%. The idea is to be where customers are searching and to have access to the right channels that fit a property manager's current customer base.

There is a proliferation of channels so property managers need to think about their channel mix and how this affects their revenue. Learn about distribution and channel business in this episode of Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals.

“REAL” TALK

Michelle: Hospitality Hub consolidates tech that works better together

"Our vision is as a hospitality hub you can have a choice. The property manager could still say I want to do business with all of these different vendors. Still, our thought is that anywhere we don't partner, we can buy or build and put these technologies and these features into the product so that when it's either natively built or it is complementary to what we do, you put them into one product and that's the hospitality hub."

Vanessa: Be where your customers are searching

"The approach we're taking is that we are direct connecting to the channels that our customers want to be on and where is the biggest ROI, so we might not have the biggest reach, but our connections to those channels are going to be impeccable."

Michelle: Turning the nozzles of channel business for direct business

"I would say that, yes, everybody wants more direct business. Right now, you need to be looking at, and I'm going to call it channel business, but I look at channel businesses online, offline, and distribution. All of those three things, and then making a plan to turn up the nozzles of each one of those things."

Connect with Michelle:

LinkedIn | Email

Connect with Vanessa:

LinkedIn | Email

This episode is brought to you by Casago, Guest Ranger, and Good Neighbor Tech. 

Visit AlexAndAnniesList.com to view our top picks for the best suppliers in vacation rental technology and services. 

Special thanks to Rev & Research for being the presenting sponsor of Alex & Annie’s List.

Connect with Alex and Annie and get more real vacation rental goodness:

• Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe
• AlexAndAnniePodcast.com

If you enjoyed this episode of ALEX & ANNIE: The Real Women Of Vacation Rentals, make sure to visit our socials, leave us a like, a comment, or share our content with the crowd! Don’t forget to subscribe!

LinkedIn |

Send us a message!

In today’s episode, Alex and Annie are joined by Christina Thoreson, who with her husband Thor, built Chattanooga Vacation Rentals into a sizable and well-run outfit in Tennessee prior to selling in 2022. 

Christina recalls their early struggles including not knowing how to run housekeeping and maintenance, and struggling to figure out the legal and operational aspects of the business. Christina and Thor were early adopters of technology, and although they went through a series of software changes, they had finally found the perfect tech and operational recipe in 2021 - and that’s exactly when the doors started knocking with offers to acquire the business.

Christina shares her and Thor’s plans for the future, which she says may include getting back into the industry…perhaps through a franchise. :) 

Learn more about building and selling a successful vacation rental company and shifting careers as a sommelier in this episode of Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals.

“REAL” TALK

Christina: Seizing a golden opportunity at the best terms  

"In a three week, first in a 24-hour period, and then about a three-week period, we had four interested parties. And I said, Thor, what? We weren't gonna sell. What do we do? And he said, I think it's a sign You know, to get two offers in this period of time, this just doesn't happen. We just need to move forward."

"We probably spent six weeks negotiating that. Well, the first offer we spent about three, two, or three weeks on and just couldn't figure out a way to do it. That second offer, we spent about six weeks really hammering out terms, wanting a lot of assurances about how things were gonna move forward."

Christina: Getting guarantees for their people was a top priority

"One of the things we negotiated, we spent about three weeks negotiating, is a clause in the contract that said you have to keep our people for at least six months. You absolutely cannot change their pay, you can only increase it, and you have to give them these benefits you're promising them. If you don't do that, we have a contract, we'll sue you."

Connect with Christina:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinahthoreson/
• Email: [email protected]
• Phone: 423-4630770

This episode is brought to you by Casago, Guest Ranger, and Good Neighbor Tech. 

Visit AlexAndAnniesList.com to view our top picks for the best suppliers in vacation rental technology and services. 

Special thanks to Rev & Research for being the presenting sponsor of Alex & Annie’s List.

Connect with Alex and Annie and get more real vacation rental goodness:

• Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe
• AlexAndAnniePodcast.com

If you enjoyed this episode of ALEX & ANNIE: The Real Women Of Vacation Rentals, make sure to visit our socials, leave us a like, a comment, or share our content with the crowd! Don’t forget to subscribe!

LinkedIn |

Send us a message!

In today’s episode, Alex and Annie sit down with Graham Donoghue, the CEO of Sykes Holidays Cottages Group. When Graham was brought on Sykes, the brand was lacking a narrative and a story. They were large and profitable but departments were siloed with no real rallying cry to drive the company forward.

Today, Sykes has 25 brands in its portfolio and 24,000 properties under management in the UK and New Zealand, making the brand a major player in the vacation rental industry. One interesting thing about Sykes is its approach to acquiring businesses. 

They intentionally retain the brand of the businesses they acquire to maintain continuity and protect the legacy of the local brand. This strategy helped Sykes grow while maintaining the values that made the local brands successful in the first place.

Graham shares the technologies they developed during the pandemic, from their switchboard that optimizes cost per acquisition and push notifications on their app, to pulling insights from the data to provide value to end users. 

Learn more about accelerating growth and leveraging technology in this episode of Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals.

“REAL” TALK

Graham: COVID presented a unique challenge and opportunity 

"During that 18-month period, we offered a hundred and 54 million sterling of refunds back to consumers. But when the government said that people could travel in the UK, and every week it was a different message, but as soon as they did say they could travel, then there were 10,000 people calling for their money back, but there were also 10,000 people calling or going onto the website trying to book a holiday. So it was like famine to feast in a heartbeat."

Graham: Technology frees up your best people to deliver excellent service

"The reason why we have 2000 people is we're a technology-driven company but we use people, we use our human capital to hopefully deliver exceptional service. What I'm always looking at is I don't want the really clever, smart people I have a doing tasks that could be done by technology, that don't have a lot of value to the end stakeholder. But actually being there, you know, 10 o'clock at night on the phone when there's a problem with your boiler and be able to service that and deal with it, that has value."

Connect with Graham:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamdonoghue/
• Website: https://www.sykescottages.co.uk/ 

This episode is brought to you by Casago, Guest Ranger, and Good Neighbor Tech. 

Visit AlexAndAnniesList.com to view our top picks for the best suppliers in vacation rental technology and services. 

Special thanks to Rev & Research for being the presenting sponsor of Alex & Annie’s List.

Connect with Alex and Annie and get more real vacation rental goodness:

• Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe
• AlexAndAnniePodcast.com

If you enjoyed this episode of ALEX & ANNIE: The Real Women Of Vacation Rentals, make sure to visit our socials, leave us

Send us a message!

Send us a message!

In today’s episode, Alex and Annie chat with David Weiss, the CEO of Whimstay. He shares his background in vacation rentals and the global payments space and his journey to becoming Whimstay's CEO.

David discusses how last-minute bookings are their niche and that their goal is to increase incremental bookings while offering the best deals to travelers. He talks about the initiatives they have for this year like partnering with a technology company, intelligent pricing, and expanding into Europe.

Whimstay believes in flexibility and offers broad payment options, including their patented Split Pay option, to create superior experiences. Find out more about how David and Whimstay serve the needs of property owners and travelers in this episode of Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals.

“REAL” TALK

David: Superior experiences for both property owners and travelers 

"Our mission really is to offer exclusive and unique discounts to travelers with a superior experience, but really just the property owners and managers attract incremental guests and generate incremental bookings. The core of that mission is the last-minute window."

David: Offer travelers the flexibility to pay how they want

"The aspect of flexibility, which for us which would also be inclusive of making it easier to cancel and book and change and extend even with the type of value proposition that we have, in addition to saying let's give the traveler however they want to pay for their vacation. Let's give them the flexibility to pay how they want."

Connect with David:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-weiss-aa39ba22/
• Website: https://www.whimstay.com/
• Email: [email protected]

This episode is brought to you by Casago, Guest Ranger, and Good Neighbor Tech. 

Visit AlexAndAnniesList.com to view our top picks for the best suppliers in vacation rental technology and services. 

Special thanks to Rev & Research for being the presenting sponsor of Alex & Annie’s List.

Connect with Alex and Annie and get more real vacation rental goodness:

• Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe
• AlexAndAnniePodcast.com

If you enjoyed this episode of ALEX & ANNIE: The Real Women Of Vacation Rentals, make sure to visit our socials, leave us a like, a comment, or share our content with the crowd! Don’t forget to subscribe!

LinkedIn | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok

In today’s episode, Alex and Annie sit down with Steve Trover, the Founder, and CEO of Better Talent. Knowing a person makes connecting their talents with the right jobs easier. Interestingly, Steve is also the one who brought together Annie and her current role today at Homes & Villas by Marriott International. 

Steve talks about the people stack and how optimizing human capital has a profound effect because it is most companies' single biggest cost. He shares how a company's integrator works with its visionary to execute the vision, as well as the difficulty in hiring for this role. 

Find out more about the best practices for acquiring your human capital, from full-time employees to consultants to virtual assistants, in this episode of Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals.

“REAL” TALK

Steve: Optimize the people stack because it is the biggest cost 

"The people stack though, really lends itself and speaks to the fact that most companies today, if they're running optimally, don't just have full-time employees with big salaries. They might have full-time, part-time, independent contractors, consultants, global talent, you know, virtual assistance, that type of thing." 

"And what we do with our clients is really look at their overall cost structure, which by the way, if you look at a VRMs P&L, I've looked at hundreds, if not a thousand of them, the number one cost by far on every P&L of every VRM I've ever looked at is people."

Steve: Integrators work with the team to execute the vision

"If they don't have somebody to execute that vision or a group of individuals that again, are rowing in the right direction, that vision is not going to happen. And you know, I ran a really great company, I believe for a lot of years. I waited way too long to get my integrator. And so the integrator in EOS speak is really the person that takes that vision, works with the individuals on the team, the different departmental leads the leadership team to execute on the vision."

Connect with Steve:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/bettertalent/
• Website: https://bettertalent.com/
• Email: [email protected]

This episode is brought to you by Casago, Guest Ranger, and Good Neighbor Tech. 

Visit AlexAndAnniesList.com to view our top picks for the best suppliers in vacation rental technology and services. 

Special thanks to Rev & Research for being the presenting sponsor of Alex & Annie’s List.

Connect with Alex and Annie and get more real vacation rental goodness:

• Alex Husner | Annie Holcombe
• AlexAndAnniePodcast.com

If you enjoyed this episode of ALEX & ANNIE: The Real Women Of Vacation Rentals, make sure to visit our socials, leave us a like, a comment, or share our content with the crowd! Don’t forget to subscribe!

LinkedIn |

Send us a message!