From Distribution Experience to Data Intelligence

1. You spent nearly two decades at Hoseasons and Awaze, distributing tens of thousands of vacation rental properties across OTA and partnership channels. Now you are on the data and analytics side with KeyData. What made you want to move from distribution to intelligence, and what does that shift tell you about where the real competitive advantage in this industry is heading?

I spent 19 years at one of the largest property management companies in the industry, which gave me a strong grounding in how the vacation rental space works at scale. That hands-on experience is exactly why I understand the relevance of data in this space: I’ve seen firsthand what the numbers mean on the ground, not just in a dashboard.

When my time at Awaze came to an end, I knew I wanted to stay in the industry. It’s one I genuinely love, and over 20+ years I’ve built up relationships across it that are a real draw in themselves. But I was less sure what “next” should look like. A bigger platform felt like more of the same, so I started looking at businesses that were at the heart of the industry and looking to grow.

That’s what drew me to KeyData, a newer, high-growth business focused on expansion. It was a chance to help shape their expansion across EMEA, rather than just operate within an existing structure, and that growth-stage energy has been exciting to be part of.

Data has always been important to me and lays the foundation for decision making. I have a degree in  economics, so I’m naturally drawn to numbers and the story the data tells. Combining that analytical grounding with real operational experience from a property manager felt like a genuine edge, and joining KeyData, where I could lean into both, while helping build out its expansion and staying close to the relationships I’ve built over the years, felt like the right next step.

2. KeyData is a well-established platform in the US market, trusted by property managers, investment funds, and destination organisations. You are leading its European expansion. Where is the gap in how European operators currently use data compared to their US counterparts, and what is the biggest barrier to closing it?

In the US vacation rental market, we see a mature, commercially-driven homogeneous market: with one language and one currency, and a high degree of professionalisation.

Europe doesn’t have that starting point. It’s not one market, it’s 27+, each with its own language, booking culture, and level of professionalisation. The range is vast. In some countries, like the UK, professional managers already dominate; in others, the market is still mostly small, family-run operators working off spreadsheets and instinct rather than integrated systems. On top of that, European operators are now being pulled toward data not for revenue optimisation but for regulatory purposes, with  the EU’s new Short-Term Rental Regulation which came into force in May 2026 and  requires platforms to report host activity to national governments. Add to that, a patchwork of local rules like Spain’s registration numbers, Barcelona’s license phase-out, and France’s tightening day caps and you have a complicated picture. So the gap isn’t that European operators don’t value data, it’s that some operators have been forced to think about data as a compliance obligation rather than a growth lever.

The biggest barrier to closing that gap is exactly that fragmentation. There’s no quick win or single playbook that works from Lisbon to Amsterdam to Athens. Different languages, different regulatory regimes, wildly different degrees of professionalism among operators, and different dominant booking channels market to market. Closing the gap means going in market by market rather than continent-wide, building trust with operators the way I’ve built relationships over 25 years in this industry, and showing them a data platform can do double duty: satisfy the compliance requirement they now face and become the same commercial growth engine it already is for US operators.

3. Key Data’s 2026 Industry Outlook found that 73% of property managers cite staffing and revenue pressure as their main barriers to growth this year. From your conversations with EMEA operators, does that picture reflect what you are hearing on the ground in Europe, or are the pressures here fundamentally different?

Yes and no! The staffing and revenue pressure absolutely shows up in what I hear from EMEA operators, but in Europe it doesn’t stand alone; it’s tangled up with a regulatory burden that’s much heavier here than in the US, and compounded by a real shift in guest behavior that’s adding pressure of its own.

On staffing, the pattern in our Outlook is real, but housekeeping and cleaning is the acute pain point, not headcount generally. Turnover windows are tight, so almost all the work is compressed into a few hours between guests, and finding dependable local cleaning staff is a real structural problem. A consistent problem I hear from many property managers across all geographies. 

Revenue pressure is real too, but what I’m hearing from operators on the ground there’s an additional layer: booking windows are getting shorter, with guests booking later and later rather than locking in months ahead. That means calendars sit visibly empty for longer, and empty calendars create a very direct, human pressure, with homeowners questioning the gap and wanting to know why. So operators are fielding more owner communications and having to explain and reassure in real time, on top of everything else. The guest is showing up differently too. Different channels, different lead times, different expectations, so operators are having to adapt their pricing and marketing weekly, rather than working off a plan set months in advance.

Then there’s the regulatory layer, which is the real structural difference from the US. In our survey, regulation was a real but secondary concern, behind staffing and revenue. In Europe, the EU’s new Short-Term Rental Regulation, plus national and city rules like Spain’s registration numbers, Barcelona’s license phase-out, France’s tightening day caps and Amsterdam’s night caps, mean operators are spending staff time and money on compliance.

So the picture isn’t fundamentally different, it’s the same staffing and revenue pressures, but in Europe it’s being squeezed from two extra directions: a shorter, less predictable booking curve that pushes owner-communication load onto already stretched teams, and a regulatory burden with no US equivalent. That combination is exactly why real-time data, with a live read on pacing, occupancy gaps, and owner-facing performance matters more than ever.

4. You have spent your entire career in the vacation rental market, working with operators ranging from small independent managers to large portfolio businesses. What is the one thing most operators still get wrong when it comes to using data to make decisions?

If I had to pick just one: most operators judge their performance against their own history instead of the market around them, eg, year on year, rather than asking how they’re doing relative to what’s actually happening in their comp set right now.

I’ve seen this at every scale, from small independents to large portfolio businesses. An operator sees a gap in the calendar and panics, because compared to this time last year, it looks soft. They then drop the rate, when actually the whole local market is booking later this year, occupancy across comparable properties is tracking the same way, and the “problem” isn’t the property, it’s a shift in guest behavior nobody’s property alone controls. Without that outside context, an empty calendar just feels like a crisis rather than a normal part of a market-wide pattern, and it can trigger reactive, panic discounting a week out which tends to erode value rather than protect it. 

I understand why it happens. You’re close to your own portfolio, you know your owners, and it’s natural to read your own calendar as the whole story. But the operators who get the most out of data are the ones who’ve made the shift from “how are we doing compared to last year” to “how are we doing compared to the market right now”. That reframe is really the difference data makes.