Navigating the Fragmented Technology in Hospitality VRMA 2023

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here for but I'm here to keep them on time and to  give you outle time if you want to ask questions   at the end it is an hour and 15 so it's it's  a good chunking session um but also time for   questions two important pieces of housekeeping  number one if you have a phone by music but   turn the sound off so you get interrupted and the  second which is the most important one and I know   because I've been on the stage here presenting  we really like to know whether or not you got   anything else with the end so fill in the review  please please please like you want your guests   to leave you a review these guys would like you  to leave them aw most importantly one I like to   know is the session you next year so we got four  excellent gentleman here we have n we have FR we   have John and we have I was attempt to pronounce  the but I would get a um at this stage I will say over all right thank you everyone for coming  out um really appreciate you after lunch in our   session uh so today we are going to talk about  the technology in the short-term mental space   and specifically um it's very fragmented it's  a very chaotic landscape and the interesting   thing is our industry the short-term rental  industry is about 80 billion industry in the   United States and about 172 billion globally  and yet we have a lot of Entrepreneurship uh   with people coming up with Solutions and  products that solve specific problems on a   consistent basis that's a good thing because  they're able to solve problems and make life   easier at the same time there are so many  tools uh overlapping feature sets um some   tools competing some tools doing one thing  in one way or another and so it creates uh a   chaotic landscape um and we have over 500  PMSs around the world at this moment and   other. So today we have some of the best minds  been thinking about Tech fragmentation in our   industry we have Luca from Jurny, Francois from  Enso Connect and Pierre-Camille from hospitable   and basically as a kind of a famous problem  there are lots of Technology you can see there   are lots of different categories and within each  category um you know there are multiple options   and solutions and how is a property manager  supposed to understand you know what tool will   work for them and what won't right so this is the  landscape that we're working in so I think I want   to start off by asking you guys um Luca, why  don't you start i' like each of you to kind of   explain what you think problem is in our industry  uh and a little bit on where you see that impacts operators and vendors. Nice to see everybody I'm   excited to be here for anybody that  doesn't know me I'm Luca Zambello, CEO and owner of Jurny. Why I'm excited to be here  is because I've been talking about fragmentation  

for a long time and uh I'm very excited that it  is recognized as a problem uh it was a problem   when I started being a property manager I'm not a  property manager anymore but that's how I started   and I grew companies to 300 units um across  five different cities. And Technology became   probably my number one problem and where I was  spending most of my time actually to manage these   different solution and making sure solution work  properly with one another and actually help me   scale my operation and so I decided to develop a  solution for myself at first and then turned that   into a product and we took a completely different  approach think that the rest of the industry um   I'm excited to be here and talking to this guys  about this problem. hi everyone uh my name is   Francois I'm the co-founder of Enso Connect we  are a guest experience platform for the vacation   rental industry um solving fragmentation in a  slightly different way uh than what you might see   on on this panel, but also in general in the in  the industry. We operate about 25,000 properties.   We still startup but we're excited to be here at  VRMA uh and meet everyone so thank you for having me. Hey everyone, I'm Pierre-Camille. Thank  you John for organizing this friendly talk   and making it very International because we  have two French people on this stage talking   about integrations. At Hospitable we have a very  interesting story when it comes to fragmentation,  

because we never wanted to become a PMS. Most  of you in the room will probably should not   be a PMs and in addition to on top of it it's  basically automation, that's what we're known   for. We have about 80,000 connected listings on  our platform and the best service that we offer   is the guest experience products that automate  inquiries, all communication with guest to the   end and direct bookings. We are mostly focused on  property owners and yeah talking about the matter   of fragmentation and thinking about the fact that  there's an overlap and product expand and you have   multiple problems of doing the same thing over and  over we really started as an automated decisions   product and still having PMS so it tells a  lot of things about the state of things in Industry. So I guess the question is you  know fragmentation is because there is   lots of different tools is tools on talking to  each other like what are some of the key things   that you guys are you know identify as a for  problem? Yeah I think you mentioned a few of   those problems I I think number one is there's so  many solutions. And so many solutions that would  

do the same thing with the just kind bit of  different flavor. uh that's one problem the   second problem that we especially saw when  we were property managers and started Jurny,   was that this solutions are not meant to be  working with one another and the reality is   you don't only need a pricing software you  don't only need a guest verification system,   you don't only need a channel manager and a PMS,  right? You need all the solutions together and   you need to be working with one another and  to communicate different information back and   forward. And the industry is not being built like  that, right? um and so I know that we all took   different approaches to this problem um but  the the approach we took was to go to these   partners and say: "hey number one - choose one  partner per category". Because we were thought:   what a property manager has to do is to  actually do that first you have to choose your   tech stack and you have to then start implementing  this different solution and trying to make them   work well with one another. So we did that for  the property manager. We took our 10 plus year  

experience in the industry to choose the partners  and then try to I don't want to say "force them"   but like to to really say if you want to work with  us you have to modify your API so that there is a   two-way Communications so that we can Implement  everything and put everything into a single   dashboard. So what I'm saying with this is that  the infrastructure for a non-fragmented ecosystem   did not exist up until probably now. And still  doesn't exist for many reasons from from for many   of uh software providers. The second problem is  that when industry started there wasn't this many  

different solutions and so you have a lot of these  Legacy PMSs, most of the PMSs are out there are 10   plus year old and so they've been built that way  but the industry has evolved dramatically since   then. And so that's uh I think second biggest  reason why fragmentation exists. So I'm going   to go with something a bit more controversial  and I'm going to say the fragmentation problem   the biggest problem behind it in my opinion is  that we see it as a problem um it's a source of   I think for a lot of tech companies as John had  pointed out you've got companies ranging from   guest verification to upsells to experiences like  expanding within your business and Beyond and uh   it's only been happening from other Tech players  and all these interconnections that you're seeing   through your marketplaces and so on uh that being  said it is understandable that having multiple   logins and having different vendors to pay for  and understanding the dependencies between the   different tools becomes more and more complicated  uh as you scale. So I think the one of the issues   that I see with fragmentation is that a lot  of uh systems are going out there uh claiming   to be all-in-one or wanting to be all-in-one um  and this kind of blurs the lines of what they're   really good at and therefore deceives you as  the property manager when you're thinking of oh   I need an all-in-one solution I want everything  in one platform. You know, my Tech Team doesn't  

interact with the same tools that my sales team  does we don't build code on our CRM. You know,   as simple as that, every scaling business has  different departments and different systems for   those different departments. Now your objective  as a property manager is to figure out how to   centralize all this information in all these  different departments. And I think today's   conversation we're going to look at a few of these  Solutions um you know that you might not even   see in the audience today but for you to build uh  those data models and and store that information.  

Just as a commentary to what said a lot of it is  just kind of the fact that the different tools are   not talking to each other in a in a seemless  way and because of that information the same   information is is living in multiple places  and and then people are trying to make things   work right and I I talk as more as a property  manager that's where I come from but that's   where Solutions start to try to figure out how can  the various tools start talking to each other in a   workflow that makes sense for your your business  so for me the end result for property manager   is that all these tools you have in multiple  same data hubs in different platforms like you have to manually to be able to chat with. Talking  to one another is very important. I want to zoom   out but just a few things, for company like those,  bouncing what you were saying, Francois, we have   127 software contacts, we're a team of 57.  I was blown away by those numbers. But again   every company is facing the same problem about  having the customer data. Say that our Revenue   data are basically being exported by every team  to a certain degree. It's also what seems odd to   me is that the the original cardinal signals  of most of this industry which I've not seen   anywhere else is the fact that the OTAs have  basically created a system where the only   Integrations that were compatible with them as a  main source of customer data the only recipients   were the property management software whose  responsibility was specifically to integrate with   those third party adding value service providers  of which there is an overwhelming amount. And  we could have this thought two years ago maybe we  would have thought there was a clear winner there   is still no clear winner in this particular  industry and it creates to duplicate the work   multiple times over and over reinvent the wheel,  both for operators and for software providers   alike. I'm going to talk about that later but  it seems to me like there was nothing particular  

in the Industry to promote the communication of  data and free and open environment to actually   be able to mine this data and extract the most  value out of it. so that's something that I've   never seen in any other industry. I don't  think, maybe even healthcare or financial   services maybe have those very restricted buckets.  But this is vacation rental, this is not the same   level of Regulation. This is not a regulated  industry. Sometimes there is some tension, but   it's perfectly migratable in 2020 plus. I just  want to add a little context. It is so well   said especially with the OTAs um now I have  to be careful here what I say um but I just   want to give a little story for background um  when I started my company it was we wanted to   be a platform that would help digitize the guest  experience. And well the first thing I was asked  

was well do you partner with Airbnb for it. And  I was like no I don't and I probably do need to   cuz I need to get access to reservations  and so on and so we went together with my  cofounder, we went online try to figure out  how can we work with Airbnb how can we get   the reservation information so that we could do  whatever we wanted to do with it and while the   answer is we couldn't. uh the API is closed off  and you need to have an application and speak   with people so we reverse engineered it and  we found a way to work with it. And we ended   up going on Reddit and on Reddit we found an API  key that worked. So an API is like literally you   know the keys to the kingdom and it works and  yes and so the first like 2 months we had API   access and we're like yeah let's go raise some  money for this. um 2 months later stops working  

cyber team at Airbnb is like yeah you're not doing  this so I put on a fancy suit and I went across   the street to the Toronto Airbnb offices knock  on the door and I was like hi um I'm Francois,   I'm doing a startup and my API key is not  working. And they're like who are you um so   I explained to them and they were like great  yeah come back to us with more properties.   Chicken and egg - how am I supposed to get more  properties if I don't have Airbnb. So we went   out to Market and the only available systems that  would allow us to connect to these channels were   Property Management Systems because they were  the only source of Truth. Just to give you more  

of the technical understanding behind it these  APIs. Only one system can connect to your OTAs,   so if you have a really cool platform for counting  or if you have a really cool system for whatever   it is that's going to help your business it  cannot happen right now, because the OTAs only   have one single uh source of integration. I we  announced Airbnb integration 4 days ago or a week   ago that's because Airbnb finally changed this I  think all three of us actually have gotten it um   but there's still a lot of work to be done from  a data perspective in order to unfragment this   industry all the way from the booking channels  down to your third party market place integration   so just thought i' add a little flavor. to yeah  know I think you're bringing up a really good   point and that's the job in my opinion of the PMSs  that they have not done. As a property manager in  

the years that I've been a property manager switch  five PMS and if you talk to anybody that has like   scale operation from a handful of units to like  400-500 units, they have switched PMS at least   three times at least and they're still not happy  with the solution that they have right now. Cause   in my opinion PMS stoped doing their job. And  I'm not generalizing every PMS, but I'm saying   most of them have and especially the Legacy  one that have been around for a long time they   stopped innovating in my opinion and like you  said the need of having a centralized database   that collects all the information and demands  this information from their Partners that's the   PMS responsibility and that's what I think the  winners of the future are going to be. Otherwise   solutions like yours either you go directly  to Airbnb, which means then you lose all the   opportunities with all other partners, or you have  to work with somebody who understand this problem. I just wanted to add something because here  you have exactly the case of Enso Connect   that basically had to go to Property Management  Software as API get access to the data owned by   the OTA. They licensed uh in some way to the  property management software. For a company   like Enso Connect, for someone like Francois,  that was the go to market. So the point is to  

read access data so that their service can deliver  value but obviously being a small seller eager to   deliver value to their customers first, the  focus has never been on pushing the data back   so that they consolidate the experience for the  end user of this property management software,   so that those users would then have that  Holy source of truth that is supposed to   be the PMS and has been lagging behind in  my view for a little bit too long um and   that basically is the I think the the kind of  Wheel of the industry has been for the past   maybe five years with PMS that are starting to  innovate because they have a lot of connections,   Integrations that they want to maintain internally  therefore it's very difficult for them to catch up   new technologies most reasons of which being  you know you could have an example for smart   locks could have an example for OpenAI's ChatGPT  implementation. And there is still nothing from   those added value service providers that have  great incentive for them to do so saying that   that's fashion for a product company to deliver  value to another service while they still want to   charge their customers on another product. Just to  bring it back to the original thing because you as   property manager is probably think okay great  that sounds like a "You problem" when it comes   to Tech doesn't sound "Me" but actually affects  you directly right because when you're looking   at these different vendors and these different  solutions uh we're limited by the data that we   synchronize from other the channels the pays the  OTAs and so on and I think what we're seeing more   and more and and you might not see the um results  of this just yet is API first companies that are   going to drive that kind of interconnectivity  between the tools that you love and use or new   tools that you're interested in. But one  thing that I always ask property managers is: "Where is all   this information? Where do  you centralize it and for the most part it's "in   my mind". No one seems to use a you know Google Drive  although we going to get there soon or Notion  

or some sort of Excel sheet to really centralize  and use that as their database. This is the source   of Truth for my business and then I push it to  the PMS and I push it this and that uh so I urge   property managers to really start thinking about  their business as a tech company uh as well as   of course a hospitality company uh because things  are going to start getting messier I think before   they get cleaner when it comes to technology.  Unless somebody fixes it for them. The way I see it is part   of this conversation is that fixed is kind of a  distributed solution as opposed to like an entity   creating a singular API for our industry. Just because if  you do that Innovation gets locked down that one   API you know created right so I want to kind of  move on some things that uh we've been thinking about to move forward. So this is by all means not absolute in terms of all the solutions but these four   options that we have on the screen right now  kind of ways that we see as five aspects of   how the industry starts to defragment. So first  you have consolidation via acquisition right   so these are bigger companies uh you be private  companies or larger companies buying up smaller   players basically consolidating the tech with the  you know usually it's to say we're bringing that   technology in house but sometimes it could  be to kill competitor sometimes to buy you   know buy um you know buy their customers  or that and so the consolidation part is   interesting because it puts it you know  it can get to this like one platform that   does everything at the same time if you do  wish for that you may start having limited   options in terms of the Technology Solutions  that that is available for you to run operational business. Integration via Marketplace and I  think right now there's a lot of activity  

within our industry right now on marketplaces  where different companies are partnering and   creating a Marketplace and then the property  managers go in and they can choose from three pricing    software and five accounting software and  whatnot and it's it gives you a lot of options.   But one of the cons of that is again the  PMS becomes the gatekeeper of who gets to be on   that Marketplace and it doesn't right so the PMS  is essentially deciding for you the options that   you have available. White label is similar except that  it's internal decision by the company   and they choose who they want to partner with and  right with their product that was along the   lines of what Luca was saying. Actually let me I would  say no one on this panel is on the acquisition   side but on the Integration via Marketplace here I  would say Hospitable right now they're doing   a lot of marketplace um that there or I'm asking.  I'm not saying. No? Okay that's fine um the fourth option   right now and this is not a longterm option is  essentially semi-custom builds so that you have   multiple tools that don't necessarily talk to  each other but creating workflows and links so   that they actually start working together so you  get your option of the you know of the tools that   you want to use um without the PMS as a gatekeeper. Now  the reason why I I brought this up is I'd like  

you guys to kind of discuss the various aspects  of what you see the proposed on um both for you   as technology provider and what it means for  property managers. I'm biased cuz I think we are   probably I guess full white label. I mean  and again for us it was a need as a   property manager myself to just simplify. I think  anything that becomes scalable needs to be first   simplified and to simplify things is actually very  complicated it goes a lot of work into it but you   know I always like to use our company (Jurny) as an example as a  company has simplified things from a user experience   more products than one but what's behind  extremely complex they focus in the end of the   day on the user experience and in my opinion 80% of the market  is eventually going to go there. That's obviously  

my opinion. Some people here have a different  opinion but I I believe because at the end of   the day property management  is about the guest. Focusing on creating guest   experience. Focusing on getting the best assets and  not spending wasting your time every day on making   sure your technology work and be on top of what's  the latest piece of technology we should be using   I think that's someone else job. If you look in  every other industry, where consolidation already   happened, look into into the sales side and marketing  side, with system like Hotpot it's a one system   that does all. Do they do everything in house? No,  they integrate other solutions within their system.   But that's their job to make sure that they run a great system and the system works properly and   it is as updated as possible for their users right?  Obviously I think the the solution that is   going to still exist um I think you called it  as a kind like customized build custom-build I   think large property managers probably are always  going to have a custom-built because and want say   large is thousands of units, cuz they're going to  have very specific needs that they're not going to   be met by other players. The other two I think  especially on the marketplace I think it's going  

to be hard it's going to be tough I'm not saying  it's impossible but the way it's been done today   it wasn't working for me as a property  manager and I don't hear a lot of people being   happy about that. So that's my view. what  I say is okay so Acquisitions let's break down   there's two I mean there's multiple reasons why companies get acquired. Running out of money or they aren't doing   really well and they want to sell out. There's so many different reasons. When I see the   private equity moves by vacation rental companies or  uh systems is squeezing the juice. They don't care   about building functionality uh they just care  about charging you as much as they can. When I   look at companies working together and buying each  other out um then there's opportunities there of   collaboration and companies being embedded within  one another um but we haven't seen that yet. I  

mean can you guys name a company that bought  another company and then actually embedded the   systems within it? I wouldn't say "embedded" but I think  the closest I see is Guesty bought MyVR, and there's two separate   systems but they're not sunset the progam,  not yet, right? So are they not sunsetting   because there's a lot of customers or are they not  sunsetting because the technology? so I'm not going   to go in there because Guesty is one of our partners.  Anyway, but when I look at marketplaces white   labels and semi-custom builds I think this is  where uh you as a property manager need to start   thinking about what is most important and what  is the problem that you're trying to solve. So   when you're bringing on technology sometimes I see  operators kind of just sign out a bunch of tech   because it solves a bunch of problems but they  don't think of it as the infrastructure of their   business, right? again I go back to this idea data  and so long like how does this information share   from one place to the next? So I do think  marketplaces are going to continue to exist.   It's in every industry, whether it's your  accounting systems - they integrate to every other   tool. Whether it's what you mentioned Hubspot - they  have marketplace with thousands of Integrations.   but I think for operators in the vacation rental  industry it's going to be these sort of Zapier- like functionalities Because every single  property management company that I speak with is different, every owner is different, every guest is  different, everything is different and that is the   biggest problem with a one size fits all, One-Stop-shop system is that it just won't work for YOUR   business. On paper it works for most businesses  but does it really work for YOUR business? And so   the idea of bringing on best-in-class white labeling  some of this technology, providing a Marketplace.  

As much as you go back to this idea of a whole, but it's  fragmented. It's fragmented because your operations   are fragmented um you're not running a hotel where  you have one building and everything's in the same   place you have a fragmented business in a way and  so the tech stack reflects that as well to meet   your unique Hospitality needs. So again I don't  have a specific view as whether or not the white   label or Marketplace or custom is the way. I think it's a combination of all three of   them, that's going to propel you into the  next sort of digital age of hospitality. I just want   to address one you obviously you mentioned lab  um I think if you do manage and you not manage   properties yourself you'll understand there s  CL their tool for everybody and there's other   tools that are not tool for everybody right it  has to be customized and I think a prop system   actually needs to be able to be adaptable based  on different needs where you want managing like   multi families or like Boutique like uh style  places or your single funding homes your system   is built well enough it needs to be customizable  that way but single Solutions like a prising   software you cannot say that pring software is  better for for different operators yes maybe the   UI but theend of the day right how many of you  guys price Labs raise your hand how many of you   guys have wheelhouse raise your hand how many of  you guys have Beyond pricing raise your hand you   know what I mean it's like everyone has different  systems for their how much time provider have you   been on the other side of the table cuz I have I  spend hundreds of hours researching who the best   providers you have to work with and then at the  end of the day maybe you don't even like any swap   it the end of the day the main thing that you  really need is to make sure that it works for   what you're doing it need to make sure you need  you need pricing you don't need any confident   without pricing you need pricing you pricing works  you need that works you need a system that is   reliable you need someone who's actually going to  raise a hand and take responsibility over the the   technology and nobody does that in this industry  it's a finger pointed industry when I was on the   other side I was so frustrated how much these  providers nobody took something wouldn't work   finger point you you never is is everybody's f is  no one's fa at the same time you're like okay but   I'm the one who's pay the price for it nobody's  taking responsibility over and to me that's not   sustainable I think the industry just build them  up in a way so that they can Shield themselves   and I think that's the problem the biggest problem  in my opinion with the marketplace is nobody takes   responsibility and with the PMS the way they've  been built. Yeah so here I accused you to have a market place. So that's that's actually true we have little bit  of everything and we have two and a half out of   four. So integration via Market places you have white label. You think about it but I want to go back and think  

about the consolidation acquisition and there  is nothing more exciting as software providers   to talk about how we can consolidate the marketing  further for good reason. So just to give you   a few numbers about the concentration especially in  the United States the number of contractors   went from 175 in a scope of 20 years I don't  think that's necessarily winning for everyone.   And Amazon sells 75% of all books 64% of old  books the thing is at what point is consolidation   becoming concentration becomes actually completely  detrimental to providing customer value. Because   then software providers have buy or compete.  And then what did your defence actually what if  

you load as an operator because you're all  running on the same platform on the same product.   One Outage can have a critical impact on the  entire vacation industry and I think that that's will   be completely on we're not the market vacation  management software that is basically the winner takes it all.   I would have said a few years ago that the winner takes  the most but there reality is that one this is   really a narrow segmentation they are three different  markets. You have an Enterprise you have mid-market,   you have self property self managers and they  have absolutely different needs, different thesis   onto the product that we're building. And going  back there was an example of Slack versus Discord um   some of you using slack for your business in your  company and you may be a gamer and using Discord. You  

realize this is the same product, it has the same  features, they just package in a slightly different way   and more importantly positions to a different user.  So going back consolidation and acquisition is a   shame in our industry for hundreds billion dollar  industry with so many capital that's been injected   over so long that you still actually don't have  mergers that are based on the expansion of product.   It's all about acquisition of the number of listings and never about elevating the user experience.  

Because it's still too likely capitalized to  really get one of those numbers to get risk aversity. Even   companies that have raised 170-75 million dollars have  still not broken the ceiling. that is really not good. SE any what the case and again. So based on  all customer verus your customer profile which   is really property owners and self-managers, which  are really 85% of the market 85% of the listings   there are times when we want to integrate these unique  bespoke products, that are really going really   fascinated, but it's a gross margin killer. The more  Integrations we have, the more we have to maintain   those Integrations to keep our satisfaction high, and  that really limits our capacity to develop new   features or to expand the scope of integration  because some customers are going to be more   interested into that type of thing. There's always  a customer that type of thing. And that's   very difficult to commit on that for the next  20 years. I believe we are going to be successful  

because we're going to have 100 Engineers working  on maintaining accounting integration. Very hard to  propose. We also went into the white label, space. To us  about building a direct premium frame.   So we thought that every property owner should have  an opportunity to list their property directly. But   it's very difficult you can anything to do so in a  way that going to be sustainable. First charge back,   the first cancellation, the first email from your  payment processing the first guest that's not going   to be respecting house rules, without any threat  or without any insurance that create if   anything that direct is fantastic but it creates  a boom in the number of issues that you need   yourself directly. So we decided that we would  be bundling those integrations together. We maintain  

it and we provide one package which is close  to a private OTA doesn't offer tax compliance   going out to permitting taxes for your business, that is going to be doing the payment   processing you don't have to do any of the writing.  that's going to do the insurance with $5 million   that's going to do with the gas betting and all  those customer services that you need to be running a   successful direct booking business without having  to go through the hassle of it. And that's anything   that's one case of bundling 30y offering into  one and that's what everybody in industry is   doing those are all integrators and that I think  is delivering significant more value you gain   speed you able to negotiate terms and basically  get that back to the customers because going to   get something that's probably three times more  expensive for them to buy but because we're able   to negotiate that as provider they that 30% of the  cost in most cases. So that that's basically   my thought I find again just like what Francois said, what is the goal of about having an all-in-one? That's about not   fragmenting your guest experience and that's about  gaining efficiency in your operations. And as long   as those two items are there you can be happy  with your tech stack. You can decide to be happy with   your tech stack absolutely you can also decide to be  happy about either if you guest have one flow,   unified and can reinforce your ground and you are  still running business efficiently in full.  

That works I just think that it's difficult  to do so because there are so many obligations   and requirements built-in this all-in-one that  distracts software providers that you're using   every day from achieving those two things that  I call Mission critical. There are too many instruction   as so we want to contribute to an integration piece,  I'm not going to say that right now, andar p as   well but it's it's problem that is going to be  Sol by new operators because those currently   in the market are already I think stuck on that  gross margin problem having to maintain so many   things with digital capitalization in any cases thank  you um so I have a very I think it's very simple   question: do we want all-in-one or do we You have to Define all in one because it means   like right now it's like it's it means everything and nothing. I think we are all doing one thing but   at the end of the day you need to fix the problem  for the host and and you have to solve for the um I   don't think there's going to be one solution that fits all. I think that  it's about Bing true to a problem and   really go deep into that problem and I think the  bigger players in the industry stop doing that I   think that's where the problem is really mly but I  think the newer generation software I think at the   end of the day we can all disagree on many points  we one which we understand there is a problem in   industry but it's only recognized by a few and  I think that's the reason why we're encountering   a lot of these problems and um yeah for us like  I don't know when we talk about a black label I   don't know if there's really a category to Define  us specifically because we do go one partner in   specific categories but we have many partners for  other categories depends in a way we do have   a market we try to simplify things uh really for  the hosts we have today because me personally I'm   trying to build the software that I wish  existed when I was a property manager because   really I couldn't be a property manager because I  was focused on everything asked beside the guest.   everything else beside like finding good inventory  because I didn't have the time my time was spent   to trying to negotiate things with the software  providers and making them work well with one   another connecting to different channels. Connection  didn't work, pricing didn't sync, guest verification  

didn't work, Access Control wasn't working  properly and and centralizing automated messages   wasn't working properly wasn't customized to  my life so that's why I started building I said   I wanted to be honest with myself and really build  what the ultimate tool that I wanted to have when   I was in the books. And I think consolidation is something  that we're is we're heading to consolidation   whether we want it or not because has to happen  because that's what the consumer in the end of the   day wants and I don't think anybody's providing  as of today besides two companies that have started.   um I'm going to go back on consolidation though  from what your in I on like it's it has nothing   to I don't don't think it has to do with the  the one system I think it just has to do with   the operational efficiencies that's it um if if  different systems spoke together in a way where   uh when one thing happens on one it updates on the  other and send the information to do whatever you   need to do um we wouldn't be having this yeah but  it won happen if you have not a centralized system   that allows for all that like Z for instance that  has done that for many other applications because   there's it's it's an existing problem in many  other industry but nobody has done that for for   Hospitality you have to have MW if you don't have  MDW is not going to work fair I mean I would say   zavier is more the connector than the centralized  absolutely a and this is where I think looking at   some of the tools that we're going to be looking  at this uh after connect the tools that are out   there rather than have one centered system that  feeds all this information I think you need to   have it's not work otherwise I think there's too  much uh tency in having one system that governs   your entire business so ym are worth sometimes  hundreds of billions of dollars that's what they   do and they centralize everything it's true if  you don't have a system to it happens in every   single industry I'm not just making this up  any industry you have a centralized system to   centralized app your PC works the same exact way  whether you have a Mac or Windows that's what a   operating system does Windows like you can have  a Windows system or you can have OS that's an   operating system that's centralized everything for  you and that's where you all those programs can   talk to one another otherwise if you don't have  a centralized system it won't work I I completely   agree let's look at the verticals of managing a  Hospitality business that's what I mean is when   you look at the different vertical of managing  a property business there's the the operations   there's the distribution there's the financials  there's all of these different vertical now   whether it's one system that governs all three  or five or one system for each let's put that   aside for a second I think the main debate is  finding ways to connect the tools that are out   there already that are doing a great job at  a specific vertical that you might already be using let's have another hand no somebody need  somebody needs to be responsible is it the uh   property manager responsibility to do that spends  what we spend at the time like literally hundreds   of thousands of dollars in developing our own  technology for what somebody else should do   that I think it's a kind of a balance right  like if you have property management company   and you have your specific needs then it's  up to you you know to make the connection so   that it works for right that's the I absolutely  disagree I think a level customization should   should exist but what's the property manager  job I mean I'm asking you guys you guys join   this industry because you want to be involved  in technology on or because you want to host guests to build a business no fine but to build  a business you need to build systems right any   business looks at the prop they and creates  a system so that it doesn't happen again comp   work with CRM that already by billions of  dollars companies and and and they're not   developing themselves all right let's look  to your comment and then I actually have a wa to love this it's a very tough job um I I just  wanted propell you to be forward because I think   both of you are going to be right and I think  of course have to way but I think the risk   development especially on the side of Earth  which is just one of L but still the prime is   the the fact that they recently went on a wave of  opening up the API to more added Valu providers   is basically step one onto a fundamental evolution  of the industry that I think every man of company   has been has been calling for the past few years  we went on that integration from a paradigm of   Monopoly of the connection with the property  manual software putting all the responsibility   on that realizing that actually most of the  value for the that's found from the PMS pretty   muchal you think about it but actually from all  those added value service providers priceing   experiences all the things that that that you  need to have on the future for future future   of per fure business and on the T of breed rather  than holding one kind of best product for his the   best product for pres not the best overall nobody  knows what it is but the best for you and I think   because of the the investment from that to that  Technologies actually will probably unlock step   two which is fragmentation not based on property  of software providers but really on based of you   have your own connection you can you can add more  with a p con but you can basically still retrieve   and um gain extract more efficiency if you would  like from those OTAs that allow you as a property   man have to own to connection I think they still a  talk of town for 10 years but you Tech en property   manag companies you have operators that become  software providers because they have experience   they wish they would have not know that's the case  Journey but absolutely not very this industry at   all and I think that's that's now made technically  possible be transparent about it at hospitable we   have customers that have thousands of distincts  those are the one that CH cancel the services   from hospitable not because they want to switch to  another chance but because they are building their   home you have a case in Europe of Gest ready which  are not already because they have enough critical   mass to be able to negotiate not directly they  build their own fragmentation is not having more   funders that not talking to one another it's the  catching up changing the p and allowing the actual   people that give them money give them the supp  to have that direct connection so that you can   have that take enable business without having to  deal with the PMS but building your own customer   processes I think we're talking before about the  modes I think that is closer to what is a mode   for property management companies because those  companies that will be able to invest into their   Tech will be able as return to yeah get more  efficiency seduce more customers or clients   to bring them more properties that's what I wish  for in this industry in particular so for me more   fragmentation not less comes from a PMS too more  on the industry level not for you as an operator   read your own PMS good luck but that's the point  who should take responsibility of that like I'm   hope for to have a Marketplace but you need to  be able to manage it nobody takes responsibility   over disc configuration to be working properly  that's the bottom line problem so I love you   and I I the only reason I say this because I  fundamentally disagree with it even though we   have different views on it we're both solving the  same problem at the end of the day right we're in   the same uh we're headed in the same direction  for the property manager I think as a property   manager you know what your problems are maybe  one day it's Revenue maybe the different day it's   operations maybe a different there is no software  out there that's going to dictate what a property   manager means I think a property manager comes  in and says you know what I'm I know so you have   a problem you're like you know what I'm having a  lot of messages with yes we can't seem to answer   them okay I'm going to go hire a vehle I'm going  to go use a tool or I'm going to go do this I'm   saying you're missing the whole part I'm I'm  saying the problem is not the fact that you   have to have multiple Solutions is the fact that  those Solutions don't work with one another and   there needs to be someone responsible to fix that  so this is sustainable I have been on the outou   side I've managed properties and there's no one  that takes responsibility actually a question or   thought around this why not just create the MU  saw for the SDR industry why not do that like   an API connector exactly so this is where we're at  with this slide I'll give you an example actually   see so we were we were trying to partner with a  company for smart locks in the industry and uh   this was a year and a half ago and they basically  this industry company I won't any names came up   to me and said yeah we could certainly do  a partnership we'll be here and you'll be   here and I was just that's a great start to any  partnership um and so she was research I'm like   man this is going to be really hard to connect  all these different devices CU one person is a   the next person is yeah the next person is that  and so we found some people seen um I wish I know   I wish I had kept it as a secret I wish I kept  it as SEC uh these two now use SE guest uses   seam host way us the seam it's basically just  an API connector for smart devices right that's   exactly what you're saying and I think this is  what we're going to see across the board with   different vertical whether it's payment gateways  um I have to go out and integrate strip I have to   integrate L I have to integrate this that it's  so many different resources when really all I'm   trying to do is solve payment piece or whatever  the other vertical of your business might be so   completely agree I think the the future sure and  we see about 20% of Y combinator companies in the   latest cow are apis of something so I think what  that gets at is one second what that gets at is   companies to start building out some fundamental  infrastructure within our space so that peers   are Reinventing the wheel with ls and uh's not  doing it but now guess is going see to do the   loot information few day a few weeks of uh you  know development time I have some of the other   cies up there that's not directly related to the  short-term rental industry but play or PL that's   how all the financial institutions are just  connecting without everyone having to rebuild   that API connection right rling is one on HR and  merge is another kind of an API company right so   it seems like it's not like we need V to create  an API for the industry but it's more that we   need companies we need companies that identify  the problem and then to your point theyve Tak   responsibility for the fact that that works and  then we as software providers and usend users   just expect it to work right so I think that's  why I forwarded I think we making the same point   get me up for something that I understand yet  but um I I just want to point something out   like we're seeing two different things like  I'm not saying that a the IND shoot the for   this connections and yes there's going to be  some property managers they want to be tax and   they want to go the but just like the computer  industry there's the high customization side   of things there's also companies that come iniz  things and I think the majority of you who want   to have a product that works and reliable and put  together all this different API for natur because   we're talking about API but if you're talking  about 90% of Po don't know how to work with an   API so yeah you're seeing your point of view but  only from Tech side of stuff from being a tech   person not being aost of manag 3 years that's  I was in university before this I have zero   experience in Property Management so completely  agree um but my only I think we're saying the same   thing here and I'm not asking anyone to build any  AP I think the argument is just that the movement   for defragmenting this industry is companies that  are focusing on API first to create collaboration   that that is that is now whether we wrap it under  one system whether we let you choose the different   systems that's a whole debate bit of itself but  I think the overall solution to fragmentation is   collaboration over competition it's collaboration  over all centralization of this information and   data as we've seen with as we've seen with  pms's and as we've seen with other systems   you seen one small component which is which is  the probably the biggest technology Revolution   that we are ever going to encounter as Humanity  which is AI and not having a centralized system   with all the data you basically have a power bu  AI we are probably the most best best company in   the industry working with AI we're the only one  actually as real life products with AI um I'm   sure there's a lot of products out there but you  guys can see it for yourself what we are doing and   we can actually substitute already what a lot of  movie parts are made by needs today and that can   only work because we have a centralized system  if you don't have a centralized system that work   just just so um we have one question that then  we I believe that one thing that makes this one   thing that makes this fragmentation very painful  is the lack of standardization because one of the   difficulties with integrating with so many apis  is that there are different languages what is a   booking what is a reservation a multiple a hold  a tentative thing Etc uh why do we need to have   dozens of cancellation policies different for  each Channel H PMS etc etc and that's where I   believe in a way we wouldn't need calization of  ownership Etc but we need a Common Language so   that these have together and it's a work that  we all have to do together I think the r is a   great place for it to start we'll need the OTAs  to work but if we find a Common Language then   fragmentation will not be so so painful and  it's the work that we could all do together I you know me standard for reservations you have  in this we want soing everything always there   um so you have implementations of those stards  that's actually the biggest prr because you're   forcing CH managers software Chann distributions  hey have a nice product something happen to it otherwise come on make money I want make money I'm  going to integr every that's what my customers are   paying for but Google is using the same closing  OPI as booking.com so for software it's basically   very easy I should say that full little words on  that software very easy never nothing is never   easy but it's basically a little bit better  a little bit easier to now is that a good API   it's a very different question I love earing this  API because it's really modern involv it standards   are frozen on the Ice Age whereas another AP  mobile can actually react changes something   happened to us two three years ago that basally I  got everything and we need to react strongly about   conation polies and all I reproted a every every  time over basically having something unified but   it's true that it needs to be very easy to develop  with prop software um with um with other channels   Rec I believe I believe we towards at is PMS L  definitely you won't need a connectivity partner   it just means you will add more to direct access  to proprietary data bucket that your OTA is only   about your guest so we have uh a few months ago  released a product iOS connect I'm sorry I will   do a spech it's for software providers that don't  have the integration that would like to add it um   and we basically releasing it with I think a  dozen companies that have implemented in that   production which basically means that API where  their customers can connect their accounts and be   able to manipulate their without having to deal  with the burden of managing the own integration   and it's a point AB zero we are developing it  it's free for the B2B as others it's free to the   end user as well because we believe the biggest  opportunity that's being Miss in this industry the   fact that these things are not API connected which  cause a problem for the OT in terms of because for   The Operators any size because they're lacking  efficiency and therefore they they're going to   stop their business Al together and it creates  fragmented Tech expence all over the place really   really turn toer industry when dies all over  the place and has need to move between several   differents that's all but I I really there were  talks for the past five years about as th API I   remember that very distinctly the people that  were in this tunnel were the people that were   enterprising 1,000 plus properties and they wanted  to set terms to property management software um I   don't think I don't think anything come of it it  just basically spe were really more about what   features we are coming impl so that was really a  big gap between what I was expecting from those   conversations and and what actually is that  it was again on the PMS side Integra with the   PMS side and I think you're going to have what we  doing with those people connecting into the works   and service providers is basically going to happen  at the same time especially with that phase two on   opening up a to more proper management companies  directly with a very low lowers get lower and   lower is that you're going to need connectors  to integrate prop management software as well well that's so much question to your point I  feel like that is something for that to actually   lead on a vocabulary for the industry that's  some standardization that everybody could appeal   towards that is international that is something  I think could do and would be really helpful do   you agree or do you not think they should be I  think there be very difficult for an organization   to force the tech road map of and and also just  general like we all use different languages uh   program our back end front end whatever uh we all  have different data models based on structuring   information and what we need it for um I think one  of the basics is going to be just the commonality   around uh naming some of the variables that would  be amazing if you could not like have your API in   Spanish get it if you're in Spain but like do your  API in English that' be great um things like that   would be awesome but um standardizing apis to that  level is going to be very difficult I have yet to   see a connector of of PMS I think there was a  there was a company we seen a year ago or That   was supposed to connect all the PMs and provide  it as access to to to operators so again we're   not going to see I think it's very difficult to  see what you suggested um but there's some work   that can be done by the RMA for sure uh to  help technology companies at least share the   key variables that we can all use to promote  Innovation Absolut and I think if was if it's   kind of a top down approach I think the amount  of future inovation actually gets cycled at a   certain point because that's all that's kind  problem like what already that innovation in right okay so I have a cou questions um and they  kind of go in two different directions so one is   how does right maybe this is a topic for another  day but Bic I've heard in the past it's spoken   that when you're talking about valuing valuation  of a property management company that white   labeling is the way to go that you do not want  to be selling a management company having just   you know a test St that's 15 de because your your  company is is really has no value really at that   point you might sell based on contract if you're  property management company because you don't have   anything is a value that's an asset other the ACT  contracts so I'd like to get on that um another   one is what is it that is the biggest road block  to open API right now is it money is it time what   is the number one road block for open apis and  the last one is fr does the interview meet off   this across the street now um I can answer  that second and third one third one yes now   we been working with the know they're an amazing  um um I don't have say they actually are but the   second part about why don't we have an open API  and why companies there's two two parts to it I   think you look at it first is do they even have  an API um have they bu the documentation um have   they gone through

2023-10-30

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