VRWS Leadership Interview of the Day

Describe your career in the vacation rental industry and how you reached your current position in the company.

I am the author of the book My Property Payday, and over the past decade, I’ve been deeply involved in the fields of travel, hospitality, and Proptech. During this time, I served as the CEO of a 60-person team managing short-term rental properties, overseeing a collection of 300 villas in Portugal as well as flats in the Alps. I also took on the role of a commercial director at a real estate agency in Paris, and further extended my expertise as the head of expansion for a French investment firm and mortgage broker.

Currently, I am fully engaged in my endeavors. I manage my own concierge service located in Versailles, and I proudly hold the position of managing director for a tech platform (PMS). This platform plays a crucial role for property managers, allowing them to efficiently oversee extensive portfolios of vacation rentals within the EMEA region.

In your opinion, what are the main current challenges in the vacation rental industry, and how do you think your company can help overcome them?

The era of professionalization is upon us in STR. This is a real industry, with mature regulation, fierce competition from comparable properties and hotels, and an ever-more demanding rental clientele. True pros have no time for half-solutions which put their business at risk.

RentalReady has proprietary answers for all of these challenges, ensuring compliance, efficiency and profitability for vacation rental property managers. 

I would add that hundreds of vendors have rushed into the market with very cool tools to handle one of the operational aspects of running a vacation rental business. The issue is property managers don’t only have one aspect to cover – they have dozens! 

We’ve identified 10 functionalities which are essentials, must-haves. You cannot run a modern conciergerie without them. There are specialist vendors for each. So, up until now, property managers have pieced together a tech stack for these critical areas from disparate providers. What we see is that deck of cards collapsing in on itself. Sync issues, poor data feeds, bugs, errors, downtime and lost connections are rampant. These miscommunications between incompatible software lead to double-bookings, low/no conversion, cancellations, refunds and low ratings.

Fortune 500 businesses have armies of tech staff to deal with such complexities in big organizations. Conciergeries are for the most part small businesses with zero developers on the payroll. They are short-staffed with nobody available to handle these situations, or when they do, the person is ill-equipped with the tech know-how to solve them. They are totally reliant on the vendors, who often blame each other, leaving mission-critical issues unresolved for months.

At RentalReady, we believe all the essentials to run your property management business should be under one roof. A PMS should offer a true all-in-one suite where all core elements are native. The user experience should be seamless, the functionality advanced, the reliability bulletproof. You should be able to have all of your support requests handled by one company, who provide a single point-of-contact fully responsible for addressing not only your technical needs, but also providing insight and advice to improve your business. 

All those who agree are invited to examine RentalReady to determine if we have accomplished these goals.

What are your expectations for the 2023 edition of VRWS in Barcelona, and what makes you particularly interested in attending this specific edition?

I’m looking forward to Speed Dating at VRWS. Emerson said “It’s hard to be simple.” In a very crowded landscape, it’s essential to state your difference concisely. We’ve honed our message so folks immediately see the distinction. In just 3 questions, we can uncover enough data about a conciergerie to know if the unique solution they seek exists. We’re ready… RentalReady 😉

Could you provide a brief preview of what attendees can expect from your participation during the Vacation Rental World Summit?

RentalReady has so many recent announcements, it may be hard to keep track: a half-dozen product innovations, some up for awards, integrations with key partners, next-level status with top OTAs, new team members and more. These aspects are shown on our just-launched website with a completely new brand identity. Whatever you knew about RentalReady, there’s more to discover.

There’s really so much to talk about, and the best way to find out is to stop by our booth. Reserve some 1:1 time with RentalReady representatives at VRWS by clicking here!