Booked Solid Show - Short Term Rental Podcast

"Anyone could be ranked number one. Just slash your prices."

That line from Bart-Jan Leyts sums up a trap many hosts fall into. Ranking first on Airbnb or Booking.com means nothing if your revenue goes backward. This episode of the Booked Solid Show is a little different. We usually talk about building your direct channel. This time, Gil sits across from someone who studies the other side of the table. Bart-Jan is the founder and CEO of Otamiser, an AI native revenue management service that handles OTA ranking optimization for over 25,000 units.

You'll hear how Airbnb's algorithm thinks differently from Booking.com and Expedia. Bart-Jan explains why a fully booked calendar can quietly hurt your ranking, and why owner stays and split calendars carry hidden costs. He also shares what conversational search means for your listings, and a simple fix for guests who copy your Airbnb title into Google and find nothing. Whether you run one cabin or a full portfolio, this one will change how you look at your listings. 🎧

🤝 Connect With Bart-Jan Leyts

🔗 LinkedIn: Bart-Jan Leyts

🌐 Website: Otamiser

🚀 Self serve tool: AutoRank

"You also need to just be a marketer." 🎙️

A beautiful website won't book itself. Rick van der Plas, Chief Technology Officer at Hostaway, sees direct booking sites go live across one of the largest PMS platforms in the industry, and he knows which ones actually get found. In this episode, Gil and Rick compare notes on building an AI native direct booking website.

They cover why load speed quietly decides your conversion rate, how guests now discover properties through ChatGPT and Gemini, and why some design choices are best left to data. Rick shares the three principles behind Hostaway's Booking Website Pro.

He also gives one simple exercise every operator should try this week: search for yourself the way your ideal guest would. Whether you're launching your first site or tuning one that already books, this conversation will change how you see the site you have today. 🎧

🤝 Connect with Rick van der Plas

Rick describes himself as "not a very social media person," but he welcomes connections and feedback.

• 💼 LinkedIn: Rick van der Plas
• 📧 Email: [email protected]
• 🌐 Hostaway: hostaway.com

"Direct bookings should be their steak, and Airbnb should be the icing." 🥩

Michelle Marquis has spent three decades in vacation rentals. She started out faxing inventory to Expedia and now advises Guesty and PriceLabs through The Marquis Effect. On this episode of the Booked Solid Show, she makes a case that almost sounds radical right now: slow down on AI and get your direct booking fundamentals right first.

You'll hear her three part framework of eyeballs, conversion, and revenue. She walks through a client she took from 0.25% to 0.85% conversion on stays worth about $17,000, explains why phone calls still close high consideration bookings, and names the one thing she'd have you evaluate today. 🎧

🤝 Connect with Michelle Marquis

💼 LinkedIn: Michelle Marquis
🌐 Website: The Marquis Effect
🧰 Project: Shortlistr

"The goal is actually deeper connection." 💛

Rachel Alday started Abode Luxury Rentals with her husband during the 2008 financial crisis. Eighteen years later, they manage around 200 luxury homes across Park City, Jackson Hole, and Sun Valley, and over 60% of their bookings come direct. In this episode of the Booked Solid Show, Rachel tells Gil what she wishes she had known sooner. She explains why she hires for the hospitality gene, and why she treats every guest issue as a chance to earn a lifelong client. You'll also hear about the property lore project that gives each home its own story, and the simple branding move you can set up this afternoon. 🏔️

🤝 Connect with Rachel Alday

💼 LinkedIn: Rachel Alday
📸 Instagram: @aldayrachel
📧 Email: [email protected]
🏔️ Website: Abode Luxury Rentals
📘 Book: Please Do Disturb, releasing November 10

"Direct booking is a commercial system, not a website project."

That's the line Kin Sio opens with on this episode, and it sets the tone for one of the most tactical conversations we've had on AI search visibility yet. Kin runs revenue and marketing operations for more than 40 independent and boutique hotels through his firm, Lights On Digital.

In this episode, he walks through how hotels define their booking funnel, why rate parity quietly kills more direct bookings than any marketing mistake, and what his AI search research is turning up across dozens of properties, including why TripAdvisor and OTA listings are outranking hotels' own websites inside ChatGPT and Perplexity answers right now.

If you manage anywhere from one property to a hundred, this conversation will change how you think about where your next guest is actually discovering you.

🔗 Connect with Kin Sio

Website: lightson.co
Podcast: The Lights On Podcast
LinkedIn (his most active channel): linkedin.com/in/kinsio
Email: [email protected]

"We are the local experts."

Damian Sheridan spent eight years doing SEO for property managers before he built one of the biggest education brands in short term rentals. He knows the technical side cold. So it says something that his best story about local content direct bookings is a 600 word page about which bars in his Spanish village show football. Nobody would call that a booking strategy. It brought him a guest who stayed 16 months. In this episode of the Booked Solid Show, Gil sits down with the co founder and CEO of Scale to unpack what actually gets properties found now. Gil shares fresh research from roughly 24,000 AI search queries and a finding that surprised him: the sites getting cited had fewer backlinks than the ones that did not. Damian explains why that feels fairer. You will hear how pre arrival guest questions become a content calendar, why the lowest hanging fruit in your business is the email list you already own, and the 30 second video almost nobody records that quietly converts browsers into bookers. Whether you are running two units or two hundred, this one gets specific fast.

🌐 Connect with Damian Sheridan

LinkedIn is his platform of choice, and Scale has migrated to a new home.

Damian Sheridan on LinkedIn
Scale

"Use OTAs as billboards." That single line from Mridul Bansal reframes the whole direct versus OTA argument.

Mridul is a Product Marketing Manager at PriceLabs, and he spends his days between the product team and the hosts who actually use the tool. In this episode he opens up the box most operators treat as magic. He walks through the three inputs that decide what your property gets priced at tonight, why market data on its own will steer you wrong, and how a hyperlocal read on your competition matters more than a radius on a map.

Gil and Mridul also get into the new PriceLabs mobile app, what the MCP connector unlocks when you point Claude at your own revenue data, and the tier of revenue management maturity most operators have not stepped into yet. There is also a candid moment about what you should and should not try to vibe code yourself.

If you have ever looked at a rate recommendation and wondered where the number came from, this one is for you. 🎧

🔗 Connect With Mridul Bansal

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/bansal-mridul
🌐 PriceLabs: hello.pricelabs.co (30 day free trial, no card required)

Mridul shares revenue management and pricing insights regularly on LinkedIn, including the MCP prompts he mentioned in this episode.

Jeff Iloulian spent five years building a 150 property portfolio in Los Angeles, and set up close to 300 units along the way. He also once checked out of IKEA with 48 shopping carts and a $40,000 bill, then watched most of it break, chip and peel inside a year.

In this episode of the Booked Solid Show, Gil sits down with Jeff, cofounder and CEO of HostGPO, to talk about what that portfolio actually taught him. Not just about furniture, but about where bookings really come from. Jeff's direct booking strategy had nothing to do with paid ads or email funnels. It came from reading guest messages closely enough to notice who kept showing up, then walking across town and building the relationship himself. That instinct led to Netflix, Warner Brothers, UCLA faculty housing, Lakers players, and one film shoot that covered nine months of annual revenue.

If you have ever wondered why the same guests keep booking your place, this conversation gives you a way to turn that pattern into a channel.

🤝 Connect With Jeff Iloulian

💼 LinkedIn: Jeff Iloulian
📸 Instagram: @hostgpo
🌐 Web: HostGPO

🏓 Jeff also runs the HostGPOpen, an annual pickleball tournament at VRMA with proceeds going to short term rental advocacy through the VRMA advocacy fund and Rent Responsibly. It is expanding beyond VRMA in 2026 with events planned in Palm Springs, Austin, and Atlanta.

"Pay your peers, not the platforms."

That one line explains most of what Na'ím Anís Paymán has built. He scaled a UK portfolio past 500 units across serviced apartments, guesthouses, and hotels. When the software could not keep up, he gave two developers six months and a hard deadline, then migrated 150 units onto a system he owned. Today he has made that PMS free and launched a host to host direct bookings network where operators refer guests to each other and keep the commission inside the community.

This conversation covers why a free PMS makes commercial sense, how smaller hosts can market a portfolio they do not own, and why Na'ím believes the biggest gap in direct bookings is mindset rather than tooling. Gil and Na'ím also get into paid ads discipline, guest data, voucher tracking, and the quiet risks hiding inside a vibe coded booking website. 🎧

🔗 Connect With Na'ím Anís Paymán

Personal site and free consultation booking: naimanispayman.com
ZeeLink host network: zee.link
Zeevou: zeevou.com
Communitise: communitise.com
LinkedIn: Na'ím Anís Paymán
Facebook: Na'ím Anís Paymán

"Real fraud that's aware of your loopholes will not come in looking sketchy."

That's the moment this episode shifts from guest screening 101 into something a lot more unsettling — and a lot more useful. On this episode of the Booked Solid Show, Gil sits down with Ela Mezhiborsky, Co-Founder and President of Autohost, to talk about guest fraud prevention in an age where AI can fabricate a convincing, sympathetic, entirely fake guest from scratch. Ela walks through how fraud has evolved from fake IDs to synthetic identities, why "gut feeling" is a liability instead of a filter, and why screening guests properly is what actually lets you say yes to direct bookings with confidence instead of fear.

Whether you're just getting your first direct booking site off the ground or you're managing a growing portfolio, this conversation reframes guest screening as the thing that protects your hospitality — not the thing that gets in its way.

🤝 Connect with Ela Mezhiborsky

Ela is most active on LinkedIn, where she shares insights on guest fraud prevention, identity verification, and the occasional parenting story.