What it means when holiday rental clients start building their own tools on top of Bookster's API, and how that's quietly shifting the team's product priorities

Simon Beattie is joined by Robin Morris, co-founder of Bookster, and Adam Aaron, support lead, to talk about something that's started showing up in their client conversations: vibe coding. That's the practice of building software using AI tools — Gemini, Claude, and others — by typing instructions in plain English rather than writing code directly. No programming background required.

The three discuss how Bookster clients are already doing this in practice — most commonly to build their own custom dashboards using data pulled from Bookster's API. Where Bookster's built-in views present data in a fixed, opinionated way, some technically-minded clients are now querying the API directly and building exactly what they need: custom arrivals reports, bespoke owner summaries, automated messaging tools. Robin recalls one client who built a fully custom booking-triggered messaging system over a weekend. Adam explains the support quirks this creates — including the occasional script that hammers the API every 30 seconds when it only needed to run once a day.

Robin and Adam are clear that this doesn't worry them — clients are still using Bookster, just in a different way. But it is nudging product priorities. Improving the API is now higher up the list than it would have been a year ago, and what clients build independently is becoming a source of genuine product inspiration. Simon also notes this is likely just the beginning: as vibe coding tools improve, it won't just be the technically-minded reaching for the API.

If you run a holiday rental business and have ever wanted to see your Bookster data presented your way, or if you're curious how a small SaaS team is thinking about AI-driven client behaviour right now, this is a straightforward and honest conversation worth your time.

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