The Direct Booking Movement Has a Discovery Problem, with Eric Goldreyer of Savvy

Eric Goldreyer 0:00

We're asking travelers in a huge market to change the way they shop. It's not gonna happen until we realize that and we give travelers an alternative that is book direct. We're gonna keep beating our heads against the wall.

Alex Husner 0:12

If you make a connection with somebody at a company and they've done a great job helping you plan your trip, those people are gonna call back year after year, even though it's easier for them to book online.

Annie Holcombe 0:21

So how do we get the people to join the force? I love the word of mouth. I mean, I think that that's great. Is that really gonna move the needle quick enough?

Eric Goldreyer 0:28

For property managers to think that they're gonna go out and build their own book direct and steal share from the OTAs, it would be foolish because it's way too expensive.

Alex Husner 0:38

Before we get back to today's episode, I want to share something that we believe matters for the future of this industry. Every property manager wants more direct bookings. You invest in your website, your brand, your guest experience, because owning that relationship matters. But travelers still need a trusted place to discover vacation rentals before they decide where to book. That's why Savvy exists. It's a direct booking marketplace built exclusively for professionally managed vacation rentals, and it's not just another OTA. When a traveler books through Savvy, you remain at the center of the relationship, so there's no platform standing between you and your guest. You communicate directly with the traveler, receive payment, set your terms and conditions, and nurture the ongoing relationship. Here's what really got our attention. Savvy's booking growth has been consistently climbing almost 40% month over month for over a year now. Travelers are finding this option and fast. We love what the team at Savvy is building for property managers and the direct booking movement. If you're looking for a distribution partner that's actually built for you, not around you, check out savvy at savvy.com slash Alex and Annie Welcome to Alex and Annie, the Real Woman Up Vacation Runnels. I'm Alex. And I'm Annie. And we are joined today for a repeat visit from Eric Goldryer, who is the CEO and founder of Savvy. Eric, it's so good to see you.

Eric Goldreyer 2:02

Thanks for having me back. Is this like Saturday Night Live? Do I get to say this is my second appearance? Yes. No, okay, good, good.

Annie Holcombe 2:09

We have joked about figuring out how we have the Five Timers Club. Like when people get to a certain like, do you get a coffee mug? Do you get a special hat? Like we haven't gotten there yet, but we have a couple people that are right on the cusp. So we'll just we'll keep thinking about that. Um before we get started, so we had you on two years ago, which cannot believe it. It like the time is just flying. And back then you were BNB Finder. And so you've gone through a rebrand and kind of rebooted. And why don't you take us back to that time and bring us up to today?

Eric Goldreyer 2:37

Sure, sure. So um, you know, it's it's funny. I think the rebrand was partially about the third or fourth time that I ran into a friend that said, Hey, how's that Airbnb Finder thing going? And I was like, oh my gosh. We're gonna have to change the brand. Right. Um, you know, initially we thought uh, I mean, B Finder had uh had been around. It was a company that a lady from my days at bedmerkus.com owned and she had some health issues and needed to sell it. And I I thought had always wanted to, you know, not always, but saw the opportunity, I guess, to bring a solution to the vacation rental space. And I thought that that was a good good brand at the time for a few reasons. One, Airbnb couldn't come after you, because I hear they go after a lot of people with BNB in their name. Uh and BNB Finder's been around since the late 90s. So we predate them. We could go right back to them and say, hey, actually, no. Um, but uh the other thing was just uh when we sort of were ready to make the pivot from moving the marketplace from just focusing on supply to actually focusing on demand, which as you know, a marketplace, you have to have both. But you can't go after demand until you have the supply. So for the first several years of the business, we really were just trying to tell people, you know, hey, here's what we're trying to create to give you a better way to get direct reservations. And uh, once we got to where we had enough properties, we're like, okay, it's time to start going after travelers and let them know that there's a savvier way to book vacation rentals, if you will. And so we thought, you know, hey, set you look at you look at brands, and obviously Virgo and Airbnb super entrenched now, and every not everyone, most people know what they are, but like my daughter doesn't know and doesn't care. But Virbo, what the hell is that? Vacation rentals by owner. I mean, doesn't matter today, but you look at the brands that we have today, and they're both like Arabet and Bright Airbnb. Okay, yes, it's a it's a a brand now that people get, but they're they're both acronyms. And uh we just I just think they're klue a bit. They work, but uh a little kluge. So we wanted something clean and something that spoke to our audience on the supply side and the demand side, and we thought savvy was the the brand that really sort of pulled it all together. And so we rebranded, relaunched the site February of last year, and uh started letting people know we exist and testing different things on social and Meta and uh Google. And uh we've seen 38% month over month growth uh for the last 12 months. And so, you know, people are finding us and people are saving almost $500 per stay. So they're telling their friends and they're coming back and uh to that word of mouth that we think is really going to be the biggest driver for us because as you know, we can't not charge 15 to 20 percent in fees and go spend the billions of dollars that the big guys do. We have to rely on a different way to scale, and that that way is uh word of mouth and friends and family telling people, wait, what do you mean you booked on Airbnb Verbo? Have you not heard of Savvy? Saves, you know, 16, 17%.

Alex Husner 5:40

Yeah.

Eric Goldreyer 5:41

So it's going well.

Alex Husner 5:42

Good. I I'm just curious, just from a marketing standpoint. So when you decided to rebrand, did you guys come up with Savvy and the brand internally, or did you work with an agency, or what did that process look like?

Eric Goldreyer 5:55

Great question. And it was way simpler. You're giving us way too much credit, Alex. I was on, I was on a flight back from speaking at the Skift New York thing September a couple of years ago. And I was literally, that's where I read all of my emails that you've like stacked and waited till you're on a plane. And I was I was reading one of the Skift articles, I think it was Skift, it may have been focused right, and it it was it mentioned savvy

How professional property managers can build stronger guest relationships

Eric Goldreyer 6:21

travelers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I I was reading, wait a minute, son of a gun. That's it. Savvy, savvy travelers. I mean, they're the ones that showroom on Airbnb or Verbo, and then they go spend all this time trying to find a way that they could book the REC because they can save a chunk of money. And so then then the the whole thing was, okay, well, is the domain available? And that was a long process as well. But once we got it all dialed in, uh, yeah, we were excited to rebrand.

Alex Husner 6:49

Yeah. Well, that's awesome. That's cool. Yeah, and people say that all the time, like savvy

Why repeat business starts with owning guest data

Alex Husner 6:53

travelers. I've never even thought of that connection. How obvious, yeah. Yeah, very obvious. Poof, whatever that.

Eric Goldreyer 7:00

Well, and even on the supply side, I mean, it's the savvy property managers that understand the value of direct reservations.

Alex Husner 7:05

Yeah.

Eric Goldreyer 7:05

And if they're not savvy, they don't mind renting customers from Airbnb and Verbo and just paying every time and really not getting the customers. So yeah.

Alex Husner 7:14

Yeah, interesting. So, and I mean, as far as where you guys said, I mean, pushing your it's direct bookings, but it's through the channel. So, I mean, like explain how that actually works. Like, how does that work if you're a property manager?

Eric Goldreyer 7:28

Yeah, so uh property managers, first of all, we only work with property managers, no furbows or for rent-by owners. And uh we basically are integrated with the the PMSs. And so a property manager takes literally 15 minutes and we can onboard all of their content, their rates, their availability, and then it all syncs automatically. So when someone comes to Savvy and they find a property that they want to book and they go to book, we capture all their information securely. We pass it through the PMS

Why direct booking has struggled to reach the consumer

Eric Goldreyer 7:56

and it's a direct reservation, just like it came from the property manager's own website. So it's their terms and conditions, it's their cash flow. We're not holding the money and banking on the float. They get all the contact information so they can build a book of business and try to build an LTV or lifetime value. It's hard to do as the property manager when you don't even know who your guest is because the OTA doesn't want you to have that relationship. And so you just know that someone's checking in at four o'clock on you know, Thursday, they're checking out Sunday, you don't have their email, you don't have their phone number. So, from our perspective, you know, a savvy property manager has to build their own customer base and customer relationship management database so they can remarket to folks. And if you don't have repeat guests, you don't have a LTV. You're a one and done, and you're paying every time you get a reservation. And the key to be, you know, I've got a batik hotel outside of Austin, and we deal with this. We've got two vacation rentals. I mean, to build a successful business, you've got to build a business where you own the relationships. And so that's what we've created.

Annie Holcombe 9:03

Very cool.

How traveler behavior has been shaped by OTAs

Annie Holcombe 9:04

So I think, you know, the the elephant in the room at this point is like we've been talking direct booking for uh forever. I mean, I feel like that's all you know, there's been the direct booking days, the direct booking movement, but the consumer hasn't been.

Eric Goldreyer 9:16

We internally in the industry.

Annie Holcombe 9:18

Yeah, yeah, well, right, right. But I mean, I mean, I think we I think we try to promote it. You know, I think that, you know, when I was in property management, you always put it on your website. You, you, that was part of your value proposition to your owners that you were gonna drive direct bookings and you spent a lot of money. And then it just became so cost prohibitive to compete against OTAs because they were pouring, you know, literally billions of dollars into that until like just buying keywords was just nonsensical. You just couldn't afford it. I don't think we've abandoned, we haven't abandoned it, um, but we haven't been able to persuade the consumer. And so why do you think that is? Do you think that they that the OTAs were just able to garnish so like garnish so much trust that that just became the easiest path to getting a book or you know, to to getting your reservation taken care of? Or that there's just too many operators out there for anybody to know how to book direct with somebody? I mean, it just feels like it's an insurmountable problem at this point.

Eric Goldreyer 10:10

It's it's a great question, and I think it's completely uh fixable, frankly. I I don't think it's it's I uh your question brings up sort of highlights the issue is that I think we're looking at it from the wrong perspective. No, we can't go spend as individual property managers uh equivalent amount of money as one property manager in a market than Airbnb and Verbo can when they're taking 15 to 20 percent of every stay and they're spending that on marketing. But the the bigger point is yes, it's expensive, uh, which makes it really hard. We're asking travelers to change the way that they search, right? And I'm not gonna go to 20 or 30 different property manager websites to look for a vacation. I'm just not. I'm gonna go to Airbnb or Verbo. So it's not who can spend the most money if as a property manager I only have 25 or 100 of the properties in a market. I air gold drive don't want to go to that website. I want to go to one that shows me everything and that has that has trust, that makes it easy to book, and that ideally is saving me money and is the best value, which is why we built what we built, is because I I mean, I think I could ask you guys when you go, you guys travel a lot and maybe it's different for for work, but for when you're traveling with family, are you spending you know an hour or two on Google looking for different property manager websites, or you go into an OTA?

Annie Holcombe 11:37

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think I I think we the benefit of us is we we can talk to like people in all markets. So but the consumer yeah, the consumer doesn't have that that ability. So your point is your point is spot on.

Eric Goldreyer 11:49

I think the show of hands would be that we're asking travelers in a huge market to change the way they shop. Yeah. And it's just not, it just doesn't, it's not gonna happen. So until until we realize that and we give travelers an alternative that is book direct, we're gonna keep beating our heads against the wall.

Alex Husner 12:11

Yeah. And I think, I mean, you can compare book direct to like the shop local movement, you know, which small businesses and shop local, I think people that's much more widely understood than book direct is to anybody walking down the street. It's like, how do we how do we apply how that became more of a movement and and people do feel better when they're going to you know a local store in town versus buying something from Amazon? And I know there's been a lot of initiatives from you know the National Tourism Associations and different VRMA and other organizations to try and push this, but like it still hasn't really gotten to that point. But I I think to your your earlier point about how you're building based on word of mouth, it makes a lot of sense. And I think there's there's two things there. There's the word of mouth um and the referral of people telling their friends I save money here. But the other part of that experience of how you get somebody to come back, it's one of two things. Either it's that you have a lot of inventory. I mean, that for sure works in the OTA's uh favor. But if you are a property manager and you have a lot of inventory, typically you're gonna have an easier time at getting booked direct because you can do wider marketing, that there's gonna always be something that's available versus if you only have a lot of people. Yeah, yeah. Versus if you have a small set of inventory, you can't go out and bid on you know Myrtle Beach condo rentals with 20 properties. It's it's just too hard. Um, but then the the other part of it is I think you know, people they want word of mouth works having a lot of inventory works. The third part is the connection that they make. So if it's a property management company and they call in and they a lot of people still do call in for reservations. Now it sounds crazy, but if you make a connection with somebody at a company and they've done a great job helping you plan your trip, you those people are gonna call back year after year, even though it's easier for them to book online.

Eric Goldreyer 14:05

And I mean that's you're talking about hospitality. If you actually have a relationship and you're not blocked by a third-party technological app, yeah, right.

Alex Husner 14:15

Yeah, yeah.

Eric Goldreyer 14:16

Direct hospitality is a direct connection between the host and the guest.

Annie Holcombe 14:19

So I had a thought uh going back to what we were just like uh so American Express, they sponsor the small business Saturday, like shop local. Like they they they do campaigns all about that. Like, how how can we get somebody of that caliber, not a you know, that's not an OTA, to maybe sponsor savvy to say, this is how you book direct. Like that's what we need. We need a national kind of go-between, somebody that's not representing the the traveler or the the destinations and somebody not representing maybe the management, but just like the the processor, the you know, the credit card company is a perfect company to do that. But I think that that's to your point, Alex. Like, that's how it became a thing is they had somebody that was kind of a neutral partner to it to like just keep beating the drum on that topic, right? Like that, I feel like that's I have an idea. Hold on.

Alex Husner 15:08

I I think I I think in my mind that makes sense that that is savvy that I was that to be honest. You're telling the story of it's essentially it you're you're booking directly with property managers, you're gonna have a direct connection with them, but it solves two runs of that, you know, kind of tripod right there of it's you have a lot of inventory, so they can search a lot of different property managers, but it is it it's uh you guys are a friendly OTA, right? I mean, like you're working directly with the property manager, so it's gonna be a nicer handoff for the guests. I I think you guys can own that, really.

Eric Goldreyer 15:42

Yeah, well, and and and and that's the plan. I mean, so a couple of things. You know, we also on our site, uh when a property manager joins every single one of their listings, we show their phone number, we show their email address, we link to their website. We're trying to connect travelers with property managers. If they book through us, great. If they don't, we don't care. We're trying to build a direct relationship for a property manager. So two things. One, I like the shop local analogy, except I think it falls apart a bit in that shop local is appealing to someone's altruistic support the locals, right? How many people go into the local store, look at something, pull it up on Amazon and go, oh my gosh, it's $13 cheaper, and they order it on Amazon. So the difference in what we're doing and what Book Direct is really about is it's it's not support property managers because they're building a livelihood and it's anti-corporate America and support the little guy and the mom and pop yeehaw, which it which the the movement does do. But it's really be smart. Don't spend more than you need to spend.

Alex Husner 16:53

Save your own money.

Eric Goldreyer 16:54

Be able to communicate, yes, be savvy.

Alex Husner 16:57

Yeah, be savvy.

Eric Goldreyer 16:58

Be be able to to communicate directly with the host. Don't be blocked by uh, you know, uh an app, right? I mean, you may let's say you're coming to Austin, a lot of we a lot of bachelor art parties in Austin, right? If you get to talk to the host, well, we want to really do this, we'd like to do this, and there's this many of us, and we man, we do this. They may tell you, oh my gosh, I've got the perfect property for you. It it's they just signed up, they'll be onboarded in a week, they'll be here long before your trip. Let me send you the link and let's get you there because you're gonna love it. I mean, hospitality can't exist when technology is in the middle of it. Technology can support it, but it's hard for hospitality to exist. Um, and the other thing is I think it's uh Annie, to what you said about, you know, the Amex, that's a great, a great example. I think it's two benefits. Property managers benefit from what we're doing. They own the guests, they own the relationship, they get their cash immediately, they build a book of business. We need property managers to promote, whether it's us or another marketplace, uh, and say, hey, we loved having you in Austin. Next time you come back, reach out. We're, you know, we're gonna take care of you. By the way, you're going anywhere else, because

Why property managers still need OTAs while building a stronger direct strategy

Eric Goldreyer 18:16

people don't all travel to the same place. You're going anywhere else, be sure to check out savvy because then you get to book direct with other professional property managers in the industry. And that, I mean, property managers are the ones that have all the business. Once they start telling their customers, quit going to Airbnb and Verbo because that's costing us a ton of money and it's less valuable for you, it's less valuable for us. And they start telling their guests there's a better way to book, then I think it's not the AMX, it's more of a collective. It's the it's the Star Wars analogy, right? Yeah. Join the force.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

My name is Eli Stoughton. I am the owner-operator of Lahaina Studio. I have three vacation rentals in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii. And I've been using Hospitable for over seven years now. I would say I realized pretty early on in my hosting career that managing everything manually wasn't going to be sustainable over the long term. When I started using Hospitable, the primary tests that I was able to automate were the automated messaging and the AI messaging, where Hospitable will draft a response using my previous messages and my knowledge hub and everything that I've set up there. Oftentimes I find myself just getting a message from a guest, opening up Hospitable, seeing that they've already drafted a perfect reply for me and just hitting send. And it also saves me a lot of time when it comes to dynamic pricing. If I had to manage all of my pricing manually for multiple properties, that would take a long time to get that in sync. Hospitable has had a massive impact in how I run my business because I don't know if I would have scaled my business up over time had it not been for the fact that I had software that could help me do it. Having Hospitable save me a bunch of time per week, opens up a lot of possibilities, and it also opens up more time for me to spend with my family. And you can go on a trip and not have to worry about that your business is going to run into so many pitfalls because if everything is automated as much as possible, all you have to do is sort of oversee everything. My experience working with the hospitable team is great. They're very involved in the community forum that they've set up, and you can get direct responses from the founder and CEO or from the other team members. And I found that you don't often have that kind of level of communication from most companies. I highly recommend Hospitable to other hosts out there who are looking to grow their business, take their time back. I recommend that you drop in on one of the hospitable town halls, that you join the hospitable community and see what this team and this company is all about. It would really help your short-term rental business.

How destination content can support discovery and conversion

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Run your short-term rental business on autopilot with Hospitable. Alex and Annie listeners get a 14-day free trial, plus 25% off for the first six months. Click the link in the description to get started.

Annie Holcombe 21:08

So, how do we get the people to join the force? I think that that's that's that's the billion-dollar question. Because without being able to get your name in front of people regularly, you know, just again, beating the drum, like what do you think the solution is? I mean, I I I love the word of mouth. I mean, I think that that's great, but does that move the needle enough to really make an impact where people see that booking direct is is better? Like, is that really gonna move the needle quick enough? That they don't that that managers don't have to be all in with an OTA, you know?

Eric Goldreyer 21:41

I mean, I think we're always gonna tell a property manager, you've got to be on Airbnb and you've got to be on verbo. Right. I mean, it would be foolish as a PM not to do that to pick up the the the lead to sorry, the the reservations that you can get. But I think it goes it goes to it's not just word of mouth. Right. Word of mouth is on the traveler side, really. It's also on the supply side. But I mean, 38% month over month over month over month over month growth, I think is really good growth for uh, you know, a business that's new like ours. Um, I think the maybe you were asking on the supply side. And I feel that, you know, you look at any adoption curve, right? Uh at the beginning, you get the early adopters, the property managers that have joined savvy to this point, those truly are no pun intended savvy property managers because they were joining us because they understood what we were doing. We didn't have any reservations we could send them. We were just building the platform, the marketplace, and we were building inventory so that we could go out. I think what we're gonna see happen is with the growth that we're seeing month over month for our gross booking volume, that the biggest piece of that curve, that middle market, those PMs, that even though it only takes 10 or 15 minutes to sign up, they're maybe sitting on the sideline because they haven't heard that we've, you know, sent a reservation to a friend of theirs, that's gonna change pretty quickly because the growth rate is uh such that we're, you know, we'll start driving meaningful reservations. And it would be foolish for a property manager not to be on because it's free to sign up. It's automated, it's no additional work. And it's a bill, you know, the billboard effect of having a property manager's hundred listings on our site with their brand and their phone number and their email and their link. Even for backlinks alone, there's value. So we we think, and and then as we get more supply, we'll be a better back to Alex, what you were saying earlier, right? If you don't have enough supply, your conversion's not as high. Because, you know, I've had some friends personally reach out to me. Man, I was trying to use savvy to go to Chicago. It's like, well, yeah, we know we don't have a ton of inventory yet in Chicago. Uh it's a tough, that's a tough market. It's like, you know, it's not Manhattan, but it's it's more of a hotel market. But as you, you know, it's it's the uh it's the flywheel. You get more supply, you get more demand, which gets more supply, which gets more demand. So um we we started by focusing on supply. Now we're building demand at a at a good clip. And I think that'll help us get more supply, which will get more demand.

Alex Husner 24:22

Yeah, and I think one thing that you guys are doing really well. I just got I signed up to your emails last week and I got a guide on Destin yesterday that went to a really you know well-written piece of content about the area, about you know, when to visit, about events going on. It was it was an educational piece. And I think one thing that you know the OTAs is missing, and I and I hope you guys, if you're doing if that is part of the broader strategy, is you know, people when they go to Airbnb and Virgo, sometimes they don't know what destination they even want to go to. You know, and it's like I think a lot of property managers defer to, well, promoting the destination, that's the job of the CVB or the chamber or whatever the local tourism entity is. But at the end of the day, you know, the the the sites that do well and the companies that do well, they're promoting their properties and the destination. And it's like, you know, especially on these markets.

Eric Goldreyer 25:11

Give people a reason to travel, right? Michelin guides.

Alex Husner 25:14

Because you're not just going for the condo or the home. I mean, you're going for an experience of either the group of people you're traveling with or to see the destination, normally a blend of both, right? But it's like I I think where the marketplaces have kind of got it wrong, it's just like, here are all the properties. Which one do you want to book? You know, and it's like a little more of a sizzle of like why you would want to book that and why you would want to travel there. And and that was part of you know, our when I was at Condo World, we were 95% book direct, and we built that into an OTA for the region, but we did a ton of content about the destination. And I really believe that's what brought people back to our site, even when they were booking an OTA partner of ours, because they knew they it was a lot of inventory and they knew there was a lot of great information that it was kind of like a hub. Um, and and you really you do see in the in the property management companies that are strong book direct brands, that is a focus for them. So is that something that I just saw that one email? But is how how does content play into the broader strategy for Savvy?

Eric Goldreyer 26:15

I mean, I think it's important for sure. I wish I could say that we had those for every destination. We don't. Those uh, you know, we we have a list of those that we're creating uh that content for. I think that's one of the areas that you'll see AI can be really good, right? I mean, eventually what I what I envision, and I know I'm not unique in this, but when someone books, and it, you know, going back to the discovery process, it's it's the algorithm, making sure that your linear-weighted algorithm shows properties you think people are gonna be more interested in over other properties, right? But then once someone books in their confirmation email, I mean, that's where AI could say, hey, what's the date? Where's the location? Great. Here are the top restaurants, here are the events going on in that area. And that all can be created on the fly by AI and a customized one-off email for each reservation that happens. And it's just getting

Why property managers cannot rely on direct booking websites alone

Eric Goldreyer 27:05

to the point where we we get to that prioritization. That's we've identified that. It's pretty far down on our list with all the things that we're building right now.

Annie Holcombe 27:14

There is a lot to address, and AI is like a whole other animal. And before we get into that, because I know that that's that we can go down a rabbit hole with that, I wanted to ask you. So, one of the things you said was that savvy only works with the professional property manager. So, like, is there a minimum on that? Is part of the question. But the other part of the question is so in my consultancy at Annie and Co., I work with smaller hosts, and I'm trying to help them understand that one channel dependence is never a good place to be. You know, you need to have a brand that can stand on its own. You need to build that brand alongside of your OTAs. But you want to have, once you get to a certain depth of inventory, you want to have multiple OTAs. So you're diversifying where that's coming from. But what I guess my question would be is depending where your benchmark for being able to enter working with Savvy is like the unit count, there is a very large segment of the 1.7 million listings in this country that sit under 25 properties, you know. And so those people are very much being educated and coached and taught, and God knows how many masterminds are out there to build the Airbnb empire. And it like is something that just grates on my soul to hear people say that. But they're do, they're doing it and they're they're pouring everything into it, and then all of a sudden they're finding themselves, crap, like what am I supposed to do with it? But how can you convince like the reason they're doing it is because the consumer is going and booking on the platforms that that is the vast majority of the inventory sitting on? Yeah, you know, one in particular, the you know, the the gorilla. Um, we'll call it. How do you how do you convince those people to when they get to the size to work with you? One, and then what do we do to help them diversify and educate? Because at the end of the day, we all have to be in the same boat getting the consumer to come along. But you have such a large segment of the industry that is just all in on one way because it's, you know, it's either they think it's passive, it's easy. They're, you know, my biggest thing right lately is this co-hosting where these co-hosts don't even live in the states, but they're managing properties. Like, there's just so many pieces of it that's fragmented. Like, how do you see attacking that?

Eric Goldreyer 29:23

Yeah, it's funny. Um my previous life, bedandbreakfast.com, right? We worked with innkeepers, and it would be one property with one professional, you know, innkeeper. But it was a ton of education. And I mistakenly thought that across the board, property managers would be like just a whole higher, higher level of uh professionalism. And it's not the case. And it's not for a bad reason. It's a lot of people became property managers because they happened to live in Vail and their friend had a vacation rental that they asked them, hey, could you take care of this? And then they got a friend of a friend, and then five more. Next thing you know, they're a property manager, but they don't have any formal experience. And they're just passionate about hospitality, which God love them. That's great. I think education's a huge part of it. I I think helping property managers to understand that, you know, a great website and a great booking engine and great photos are table stakes, but they're really for repeat and word of mouth business. If you look at sort of the the math, you got to get the customer first. And then your website's great for them to book a second time and a third time. Uh, and the if they they're they tell their friends there's this great spot, here's the domain name, here's the brand, here's the URL, whatever. They can come there. But for property managers to think that they're gonna go out and build their own book direct and steal share from the OTAs, it it we're back to where the conversation started, which is it would be foolish because it's way too expensive to spend the money on Google and be buying terms and all the money you need to do on content and structuring all your content. So it's, you know, gets picked up in AI and doing collabs with influencers and then putting money behind it, uh, white labeling specific posts because they did well and spend the money on Meta. They don't one have the team to do it, and two, have the money to do it. So understanding that how we move share off of the big guys slowly at first, right? But then it just, if it keeps growing 40% month over month, you're not gonna displace Airbnb or Verbo. They're they're very big, but can you move a meaningful share off of those guys to direct? Pretty sure you can. I mean, think about airlines, right? For the last 10 years or so, if I'm gonna book a flight, maybe a car rental is a better example. If I'm gonna book a car, I go to Expedia and I do, I look for cars. When I find the one I want, I dip and I go over to that actual car rental company side and I book direct, and often I get a better rate. So travelers understand, and those are car rental companies. Those aren't mom and pop property managers. Yeah, but but I mean, we're talking, we're talking to Avis Hertz. They have money to spend to build book direct, yet still as a traveler, that's not how I'm shopping. And that's the point that people need to understand is we're wasting our time if we're trying to, we don't have the money to shift it, right? It's we've got to get, we've got to create a platform that is book direct. Because if it doesn't work with airlines that have bucos of money, and it doesn't work with uh car rental companies and and to a degree, even hotels, same thing, right? You go onto Google Maps, you go on to XP, you find the hotel, then you go to the website and book direct. Yes, we've got to, we've got to give travelers uh an alternative. And I think, you know, back to your back to your question, Eddie, to to be on savvy, you know, they have to have an EIN. We want to know that they're this isn't some gig economy side hustle thing. We want professionals that this is what they do for a living, that when you show up at 11 o'clock at night with your family in tow and the Bluetooth lock doesn't work. They can call a phone number and someone's gonna get their butt over there and get them into the vacation rental. They're not, you know, stuck outside because this professional property manager has one property and they're surfing down in Costa Rica type thing. So um, yeah, they've they've they've just got to be in business to be a full-time property manager.

Annie Holcombe 33:23

So really it's just about the connectivity. I mean, they just have to be gotta be on a PMS. They gotta

How trust, reviews, verification, and clear pricing influence conversion

Annie Holcombe 33:28

be, yeah. Because I mean, if somebody's if somebody's on a PMS, then they're professionalized to some degree. I just didn't know if it was like a minimum of 25 properties or something along those lines. Okay, that's that's good because I think that that helps address that larger bucket because I mean, you know, there's still, I think, what is the number? 63% of the globe is still not on connectivity, you know, and that's that's scary to think that there was that much inventory sitting out there, but it's still it's still addressable.

Eric Goldreyer 33:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and and you know, when we started, we didn't require that actually. And it's just it's it's a poor UX. I mean, the user experience when you can't actually get real-time availability and rates. That's why kept talking about okay, you guys, it's sort of it's table six now. People aren't we're not gonna move anybody off Airbnb and Verbo, even if it's to save $500, if the site stinks.

Why saving money is not always enough to win the booking

Eric Goldreyer 34:18

So for sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Alex Husner 34:20

No, it's true. And I think, you know, I've been on several webinars over the years, and a lot of them have been more about like smaller host focused, I'd say, about like trying to get direct bookings and how do you get direct bookings? And yes, I've often share the unpopular opinion that you know, for these smaller hosts, it's real, it's it's really hard to your point of like there, you know, it doesn't make sense for them to allocate thousands of dollars and hiring a team of people to manage a you know a true book direct type of a business. Enterprise vacation all companies, yes. I mean, there they there's certainly have more of a chance there, and many do succeed. But you know, I think it's for the smaller hosts, it's more about you know setting up a mousetrap so that when when guests do book with you on one of the channels, you want to get them to come back, right? I mean, and that's more of like the the referral kind of model of like how do you make it as so that they remember it was you and it wasn't just the channel. But as far as you know, uh other tips maybe that you could share, because I'm sure you guys have done a ton of testing on your site and like what actually has moved the needle. I know you said 30% month over month growth, but like what first part of the question is is that in in traffic or bookings or inventory?

Eric Goldreyer 35:32

38% month over month for the last 12 months is in gross booking value.

Alex Husner 35:36

Okay, okay. So both of you, so to that point then, what have you guys seen that has has moved the needle as far as what you've tested from a conversion rate and an UX standpoint on the site?

Eric Goldreyer 35:46

Yeah, great question. You know, I think a lot for us, it's been awareness. It's just trust, it's been trust. So a few of the key things that we've leaned into, you know, used to when you'd come to any destination, we just blah, here's everything we have, right? Now we have a linear-weighted algorithmic search. So we can we can show you things we think you'll like based on what other people are clicking on, what you've looked at, price ratings, et cetera. So we do a better job now of surfacing properties. Um, we've added a ton of ratings and reviews to the site um since we uh this time last year. Um on the uh trust and security side, right? We're we're putting all of our property managers through third-party verification. So through, you know, we're making sure that all of our supply is legit and we don't have fraudulent uh listings on the site, right? Um trust pilot, our trust pilot score, you know, we're 4.4. I think we should be 4.5 by next month or so it says. But showing people that, right? Because what happens a lot of times, if if you look at some of the posts on social that you know, collaborations that we do, the comments will be like, wait, is this like for real? Say $500? It it sounds too good to be true. People have this like, well, well, I'm not gonna be the chump, right? So showing people that, hey, look, we're doing thousands of reservations. Uh we're remember the Better Business Bureau, we're we got a 4.4 trust pilot rating. We're real. And the more reservations we process and the more people tell other people and say, Yeah, I've used it. I mean, that that just built over time. So um just leaning into the things that help people understand that we're, you know, we're launching a how it works. So people are like, wait, how can I save $500 for the same property for the same dates over Airbnb? Well, we explain it, right? We didn't used to explain it. So people would think there's a gimmick. Because we've all been on Google and we've searched, you know, JW Marriott Orlando and found some site you've never heard of that's hundreds of dollars less than JW Marriott, you have to call them. And then right before you, you know, go to pay the, oh, and there's a fee of $400. You're like, wait, wait, wait, what? And it and it's actually more than the rate. So they sort of bait and switch the rate. They show you a rate lower than the hotel, but then it ends up being higher. So people are like, okay, is that what's going on here? So I think the more people, as our volume continues to grow and grow and grow, our trust will grow and grow and grow. Uh, we'll continue to make the site simple and easier to use uh and add uh additional value through other things. And I think it'll just allow us to grow reservations, which will allow us to get more properties, which we get more reservations.

Alex Husner 38:37

If you own a vacation rental management company, this one is for you. A lot of owners have thought about selling someday. Maybe not today, maybe not even this year, but eventually. And when that thought comes up, two questions usually stop people in their tracks. What is my business actually worth? And what happens to the people, the homeowners, the reputation, and the brand that I spent years building? That's exactly why we want you to know about Monarch Collective. Monarch is built for local vacation rental brands that want to grow without losing what made them special in the first place. When Monarch comes into a new market, the local brand stays. And not just the name on the website. The team stays, the homeowner relationships stay, the reputation you earned in your own backyard stays. But now there's a much bigger platform behind it. You get paid for what you built and the parts of the business that drain so many owners. Finance, accounting, HR, legal, backend operations, they come off your plate. And instead of doing everything alone, you get the support and horsepower to keep growing. You can keep running the business as long as you want. You can step back when you're ready. There's not one version of what this has to look like. And here's the best part: you don't have to be ready to sell to have the conversation. Even if you're just curious, Monarch will sit down with you, free and no strings attached, to help you understand what your business could be worth. No pressure to sell, no pressure to sell to them, just a real conversation with people who understand this industry and respect what local operators have built. So if you've ever wondered what your company could be worth, go find out. Visit Gomonarch.com/slash partnerships.

Annie Holcombe 40:08

So, how to question, I think speaking of the fees and just thinking about things going viral and how that's I think I feel like we're in an in a world that if you can't get viral, you can't get traction. And so you you guys have done some really creative things over the years. And you did a campaign last year that when I first saw it, I was like, okay, I'm not really sure how to take this. And it was the whole death or you know, the death to the fees. Death to the middleman. And you had a you had a hearse and you had a uh you had a coffin and you had a like a New Orleans stuff, you know, like the whole thing. Tell tell me about how that came to be. Because again, at first I was like, uh, but then I was like, it's really smart, like it's catchy. People were sharing it, people were talking about it, good, bad, or indifferent. You got some traction with it.

Eric Goldreyer 40:53

Yeah, thanks. You know, first of all, it was uh Chiara's idea, uh our head of marketing at the time. And uh we we just all sort of loved it and glommed on. I think, I think it was my wife's idea to get the second line, like the jazz band, but it was the middleman is where all the fees are going. We're trying to stand out with a stunt at South by in Austin. I mean, that's not easy. There is a ton of noise. People spend millions of dollars doing stunts in Austin. So we came up, she came up with the idea of a hearse and, you know, death to the middleman and bury the middleman. And so we went with it. We wrapped a hearse, we got uh, I came up with the idea for the the police escorts on the front and back, the motorcycle cops, and and we uh drove into downtown and parked and got the the casket out and it was wrapped, you know, death to the middleman, no fees, et cetera. And we paraded around downtown Austin with uh the second line of mourners with, you know, the the boas and the the umbrellas and all bright colors and stuff and the jazz band playing. And uh it was a lot

What AI and structured data could mean for the future of travel search

Eric Goldreyer 42:00

of fun. And yeah, it it uh it it did real well. It did real well. And I think it I think it hit the message, right? That's what we're about is you don't have a middleman fee. And so it's still I I still see it getting people engaged.

Alex Husner 42:14

Yeah, it it was, and it's like, I mean, that's that's a whole form of marketing. There's like stunt-related marketing. And um was just listening to a podcast recently, it's a B2B podcast, but it was about the company Ramp that does account basically. Yeah, and they they did a stunt in New York City that they had a uh a viral like marketing initiative. They had this glass box and they had Kevin from the office in there, and he was processing invoices manually, like on paper. And they had thousands of people that saw it. And I was listening to their CMO on this podcast talk about it, and you know, the guy was asking, he's like, What was the ROI on that? And he was like, You're kidding, right? I mean, like you that's one of those things that you do that you know you're not gonna be able to see a direct you know ROI. But when you start to see brand lift and you start to see, okay, we're getting more, you know, traffic or whatever it is, like you know, it you have to kind of put two and two together. So I think it's crazy.

Eric Goldreyer 43:11

And that's like most social, right? You don't see it because people don't people don't have travel intent to Austin, Texas when they're on, you know, uh whatever social channel they're on. They just, oh wow, that's a cool, that's a cool property. That's a neat thing. I'm gonna save that. Then they come back later as direct traffic. So yeah, it's hard to that's hard to track. But that was like South uh the Star Wars thing, right? In Vegas. A little bit of a let's let's make the booth a little bit of a stunt about the message of it's the rebellion against the evil empire and blah blah blah. Those are those are just those things are fun. I think you know, you have to have fun while you're working there. We'll we'll see. Maybe we'll have something it uh in Nashville.

Alex Husner 43:55

Oh, I'm sure you will. But my next question was gonna be would you go to other markets and do a stunt like that.

Eric Goldreyer 44:02

Oh, of course. Of course. I think it's uh, you know, we're lucky here in Austin that we have big events that we can do stunts less expensive here because we're here. So South by is here and it's a week long. ACL brings 80,000 people in over you know two back-to-back weekends. So uh yeah I love I love the stunts. The team loves the stunts. I think it's a great way to build buzz. Um and yeah we'll we'll definitely be doing more of those. We've been certain we've frankly been capped on the amount of them we've done so far just because they're they're not free.

Alex Husner 44:37

I mean yeah the cost and the logistics are a lot you did something like that in a a big vacation rental market like a Destin or a Myrtle Beach I mean like you get a lot of people that'd be like what is that and they and they would get it because I mean those are vacation rental travelers in those markets.

Eric Goldreyer 44:53

So we're trying to do the stunts where there's press and there's people looking for content not just in a not just in a market where people would be traveling but it's about being the buzz where there's buzz.

Annie Holcombe 45:06

Yeah makes sense because then you get sort of a an amplification of whatever you're doing because there's people there going okay what's the cool who's doing so and each stunt oh oh wow look at that you know and so uh that's you need to you need to team up with uh Mark Simpson in Nashville because you know he always does something and he's I've been talking to him about what he's doing in Nashville and it's like he's you know he's always doing something that's gonna keep people yeah so I feel like there's there there there's a natural there's a natural like uh opportunity for you guys there because he does focus on direct booking so much and then he's just he's crazy he'll do anything so it's a lot we unfortunately we're already we already have our concept for Nashville so that one's sort of locked and loaded but maybe next year. Yeah. So where do we where do we go from here? Um I wanted to ask you AI um and actually Alex and I did an I did an interview with uh Richard Vaughton and Mark Simpson a couple weeks ago and we talked about direct booking we talked about actually it was more about AI than it was direct booking but while we were on it we we actually did shops like so Alex went onto her tool and I went into my tool and it was interesting because Alex did chat GPT and it was OTAs and I went into Claude and Claude gave me direct booking sites. And so the LLMs are obviously operating differently so how does savvy make sure that you're in both of them all of them like how how how do you how are you navigating that conversation?

Eric Goldreyer 46:28

Yeah so I think it starts with um trust and structured content right so uh for for you to be visible in the AI world it's all about making sure that all of your content is structured and accessible almost like you used to do it in SEO for crawling you'd have the site maps so you know Google and Bing and everybody could come in and follow your site map. So similarly so thankfully we're in a position where as the as the the the newest OTA if you will even though I don't say we're an OTA we're a book direct marketplace but we've got the the most recent tech stat uh out there and we've built it so that everything is structured from day one uh really well so uh we've been not leaning into AI fully yet just because of resources and we've been putting everything in place but you'll see us I mean you know you stand up an MCP server so everything can be uh accessed on top of that building trust I mean ultimately right AI is going to go out and look at everything and they're gonna say okay well I've got for that property I've got their rate uh here on Airbnb here's their verbo rate here's the property's direct rate and here's the here's the savvy rate I think to the degree that uh we're in a better position to build trust and build the structured data out and get that out into the AI so that it ends up being a direct reservation for the property. As a traveler, booking as I mentioned earlier Hertz or Avis, I know those guys booking JW Marriott, you know, once I go to Expedia, booking Holiday Inn directly I know those guys. Booking a property manager in a new destination I'm going to that I have no idea who they are and I know ratings, no reviews, uh you know, no trust pilot scores, et cetera I think I would want and I think a lot of savvy travelers would want to get that book direct rate from a trusted entity. And so I think that's where when when we can stand up a brand in the industry that travelers trust that gives them the book direct rate, that's when we start moving people off of Airbnb and verbo. Because I don't think travelers at wholesale level are going to book those two unit, 20 unit, you know, maybe Cossago, Casago, Vicasa, uh but you know, these little mom and pop property managers that no one's ever heard of. I mean I think there's going to be a trust issue there.

Alex Husner 49:02

Yeah no it's it's gonna be it's gonna be interesting to see where where things go. And you know we've been saying that for years but it's like this year things are just moving so much faster. And I think everybody's trying to solve the the question that Annie asked about you know how do you actually get your sites to show up in the LLMs. And I think a lot of the website providers that we've talked to are are doing some different things as far as their tech so that that can be something that is is achievable. But um you know who knows? I mean right now when I'm booking a vacation the only reason I'm going to the LLMs is if I'm really doing research first about like what types of things can I do in the destination or like what you know more like research based but it's like you know once I'm ready to pick where I'm gonna stay, you know, I'm going either if it's a market that I know, I'm going to the local property management company if it's something I know there, or I'm going to the OTAs. But you know I think that's where kind of looking back to talking about the content, I think where that that comes into play that if the LLMs are grabbing the content that you're writing about a destination now you can show up there, you know, just the same as traditional SEO and now once that person's ready to book they're like oh this is great content but now I can also see the this company has great properties and you know as long as that that language is is clear on everybody's website hopefully you should be able to get some conversions there.

Eric Goldreyer 50:22

Agreed. If you if you look at why people go to Airbnb verbo right they've got comprehensive inventory they've built trust and it's a simple easy to use website. If you can give them those things with the direct pricing you're gonna you're gonna win and that will show up whether it's SEO or GEO where people shop.

Alex Husner 50:44

Yeah. What about loyalty? How does that play into all this like does savvy have any sort of a loyalty program we do.

Eric Goldreyer 50:50

It's use us and save $500 every single time it's the simplest loyalty program there is is we're on average since we launched last February of 2025 we're saving people between 16 and 17% per reservation almost $500 that's loyalty.

Alex Husner 51:10

You don't need gimmicks kind of like the the Geico gecko you need to have somewhat yeah we need lizard you need to have the geico gecko you need you need savvy needs a yeah savvy salam yeah exactly we've got some more opportunities this year Eric where we're gonna have you involved and we're gonna have Michelle involved on a round table and I think we've actually got another episode that Michelle's going to join us later this year. But we're we're excited to continue and it's really it's it's super exciting to hear the growth that you're seeing month over month. And I know that's not easy you know so you guys have really hung in there and you you've done the right things I think you've taken the right position as far as how you work with property managers and and what you're trying to stick up for and you know it it's a movement. I mean it's it's a marketplace but it's also a a movement that you're trying to work towards so we wish you the best of luck for the rest of this year and into the future. But I guess the next time we'll probably see you would would be Nashville I assume yeah that's probably right.

Eric Goldreyer 52:05

Yeah yeah yeah we'll see you on Broadway. Yeah oh goodness goodness gracious yeah it'll be fun can't wait to see your booth yeah well uh thanks for having me on and it's good seeing you guys uh it's definitely exciting times I mean I think we're in the best position as an industry that we've ever been in to really take back some of the reservations and move them to direct. Take the narrative yeah but I think if you're you know if you're a property manager out there listening you got to have a great website with great photos and a great booking engine. That's really uh that's how you're gonna get your your repeat in your word of mouth and you got to be on Airbnb verbo. Um but just you know have once they get to your place have QR code I mean Airbnb Verbo they don't let you you know have a a lock where you have to download an app and they don't let you get the Wi-Fi logins and stuff but do something to get the the person's content information so you can build a book of business.

Alex Husner 53:02

You can do that at the branding yeah well Eric if anybody wants to get in touch with you in the meantime what's the best way for them to reach out either on LinkedIn Eric Goldrar or Eric at savvy.com and we'll include that in the show notes and if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I you can go to alexandannie podcast dot com. And until the next time thanks for tuning in everybody