Introducing Revenue Reality Check Presented by Beyond, with CEO Julie Brinkman

Welcome And Series Kickoff

Alex Husner 0:01

Welcome to Alex Bananny, the real women of Vacation Rentals. With more than 35 years combined industry experience, Alex Eusker and Annie Holcomb have teamed up to connect the dots between inspiration and opportunity. Teaching to find the one story, idea, strategy, or decision that led to their guests to be a hard moment. Join them as they highlight the real stories behind the people and brands that have built vacation rentals into the$100 billion industry it is today. And now, it's time to get real and have some fun with your hosts, Alex and Annie. Today we're kicking off our new bi-monthly series, the first of the month revenue reality check, presented by Beyond. Because if there's one thing that vacation managers know, it's that your revenue strategy does not happen on autopilot. Markets change, booking windows shift, owners ask hard questions, and guests get more price sensitive. And suddenly, the rate strategy that looked great a month ago needs a second look. That's where Beyond comes in. Beyond gives property managers the tools, data, and dynamic pricing technology to make smarter revenue decisions across their portfolio, from protecting peak dates to filling need periods, understanding what's really happening in the market. And that's exactly what this series is all about. Each month we're going to take a look at the moves that matter most right now, what to stop doing, what to start paying attention to, and where managers may need to double down. Okay, let's get into it. Welcome to Alex and Annie, the Reloman of Vacation Ruttles. I'm Alex. And I'm Annie. And we are joined by Julie Brinkman, who is the CEO of Beyond. And Julie is here for the first of the month Revenue Reality Check. So excited to see you, Julie. So good to see you, Alex.

Beyond And Julie’s Background

Annie Holcombe 1:45

So good to see you, Annie. We're glad to have you back. And you're going to be presenting sponsor for this new first of the month episode called Revenue Reality Check, as Alex just said. But before we get started, why don't you give us a little bit of background about you and Beyond? Uh sure.

Practical AI Wins For Managers

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Yeah, happy to do so. So a little bit of background. I'm now six years officially in the industry. So celebrated my sixth year at Vyond last month. Um started in March of 2020, which is, you know, a time that will be forever people's minds. Um Beyond, formerly known as Beyond Pricing and sometimes still referred to as Vyond Pricing, as it's still our URL. What we are is we're a revenue management system that is focused exclusively on fueling the growth of short-term rental operators. Our flagship product is dynamic pricing, hence the beyond pricing. Um, and behind that, you have a whole host of analytics from comp sets to market dynamics to market pacing to market dashboards. We also have some profit and flexing tools like payment processing and direct booking engine, um, all focused on really helping short-term rental operators not only grow their revenue, but keep more of the revenue that they generate.

Alex Husner 3:01

Awesome. And we we had a chat last week about this series. And I said on the call, you know, Beyond has been doing and using AI for a very long time. Like that it's actually probably less new to you and your ecosystem and how the core product works than it is for you know the rest of the world that's just been adopting this in the last year or two years. But today we're gonna be talking about AI and the uh effects of how to properly use it, how to properly apply to revenue management strategy. But I think it's just kind of kind of cool to know you guys were were leading the forefront before it was the uh the trendy word there.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Yeah, when it was lowercase AI before it was uppercase AI. Exactly. We like to be the trendsetter, the like I saw nirvana, blind pig kind of people, you know.

Alex Husner 3:48

There you go. There you go. Yeah. So what what are you seeing? I mean, as far as like the most tangible, measurable value that property managers can use today, like not in theory, but real revenue outcomes from utilizing AI.

SPEAKER_03 4:02

Yeah, I mean, you know, I I do want to preface this by saying I think things change very, very quickly. And so even by the time that, you know, I say this, things, things will have evolved, right? When I think about the the most impactful use cases of AI outside of where we got our start, which was really machine learning. And that is just the act of taking large swaths of data and building predictable outcomes as a result of that data. Now, AI has taken like a transformational leap in the last 18 months with generative AI that we all know and interact with, um, whether that be Chat GPT or Claude or Gemini, whatever your LLM is of uh of choice. Where we're seeing the real proven outcomes of property managers are where not just value delivery is is given, but also where it meets the level of trust and comfort of the property manager. So what I mean by that is arguably you could turn over a significant portion of your operations as a property manager to um artificial intelligence. Like take guest communications, for example. You could probably automate that and have agents talking to your guests. However, there's going to be a significant loss of control when you do that, right? As a as an operator. And so what we at Beyond, what we're really trying to evolve and meet is where are operators most comfortable letting AI deliver value. And so in our platform, you know, we have the ability for you to have sort of a pricing assistant right at your fingertips, where the pricing assistant will pull together a bunch of pieces of disparate information, things you'd have to open up like 12 dashboards for to answer one question from an owner, um, things that keep you behind your desk. We want to help reduce the amount of time you're behind your desk, get a concise, clear, English-sounding answer so you can give it to your owner and get back to doing what you were doing, which was growing your business.

Reducing Dashboard Chaos With Assistants

Annie Holcombe 6:20

I think, I think the the challenge is right now, there is so much noise within this conversation. It's just it's coming at you from all directions. And we've joked with other people about like every week there's a new group of experts, there's a new website, there's a new business, like everybody's touting their knowledge. So, from like your perspective, how do you take and coach a property manager to say, like, here's the the foundational pieces that you need to adopt and then build upon it? Because I think that's what it is is everybody wants to grab all of it and then they're just overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

Yeah, I mean, it is overwhelming, right? You know, I think for property managers in particular, which is such a human-driven business, how how can we use AI to really augment their day-to-day and get them back to what they love to do, what brings them energy, why they got into the business from the first place. And so that's what I really want to hear more about is what do you love? You love giving back to your community, you love, you know, meeting new owners, showing them your inventory, you love the guest experience. Okay, let's talk about that. Let's talk about what you don't love. You don't love the fact that you have interrupt-driven work when it comes to missing an event, right? Well, guess what's really good at tracking events and making sure events are in your pricing and that are explicable with AI, right? Um, what don't you love? You don't love the fact that you have to open, like I mentioned, 12 tabs to answer a single question. You don't have to do that anymore. You don't love having to predict what will happen in six months because we already are already across that with our ability to learn, watch pacing, and react in real time. And so all of that, all of those things that you don't love can really be solved. All of those pains can be solved with not just automation, but sort of like human assistant odd imagination. These are words I'm making up, right?

Alex Husner 8:10

Umagination. That's good.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

We want to meet people where they're comfortable. And so, you know, um, I'm not personally comfortable with handing my business over to a bots, right? And so I want to be um in the loop. And so how do we make sure you, as a property manager, host, revenue manager are in the loop of the decisions that are getting made within within you know the most important part of your PL, and that's the and that's the revenue line item.

Alex Husner 8:39

Right, right. Yeah, and I think, you know, but if you go back in the the history books of when you know tools like Beyond Pricing came out, I think you have a lot of the legacy managers, and they weren't legacy at that time, but you know, they were just kind of the standard that there was hesitation about letting a system do your pricing for you. And do you you really need to have someone that's still watching it? And I think you guys have done a really great job of building something that you can have all the proper guardrails so that it's like, you know, nothing's falling through the cracks here. But at the end of the day, now with you know additional AI behind it, it's really allowing, even if you have a revenue manager in-house, which I'm sure most of your clients still do, they're they're able to just work on higher value type tasks. So maybe tell us a little bit about like how you've seen revenue managers be able to grow the business when they're not having to just you know do all this manual work.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

I know, right? I mean, like you think about all of the repetitive tasks that you have to undertake as a revenue manager, things that happen every year. Most PMSs, most calendars are operated on a 365 basis, right? And so you have all these settings that you have to like manually click and put into the next year. Like, talk about eye-bleeding work. That is like so what we did and what we've done is just sit down with revenue managers and watch and say, like, okay, what are the things that are repetitive and um broke and you know, need doing, but are important that we can automate for you so that you can focus on the strategic parts of your job, whether that's being collaborating with marketing on promotions, how we're merchandising, you know, the listing, uh, we're giving you tools to analyze the listing using our listing lens product, for example, and then working with the owners who like, you know, take those uh suggested actions and put them into play. How can you, you know, make strategic bets? So I think I'm going to, you know, tune up this part of uh of the seasonality curve for this one listing because I think they can handle it. I think revenue managers, you know, what we really want to do is put them in the driver's seat or the conductor's chair, not so that they're playing every instrument, right? They're they're literally just conducting an orchestra. And then what you'll find is that as a revenue manager, you're able to do more and more and you're able to manage more and more listings because you have all of this tooling at your disposal to take the mundane off your off your desk.

Annie Holcombe 11:12

Yeah. I um in my consultancy at Any ⁇ Co., um, one of the areas that I focus on is business development for like owner acquisition, owner retention. And the consistent question that comes up all the time is well, what do you think are the most important metrics to report to an owner? And I feel like that's one of those things that it could vary so widely because some owners could care less and some owners want to get in the weeds, and then you try to settle them somewhere in between. How are you seeing the ability to utilize AI for a revenue manager to maybe do more customization for those owners that are kind of one off and really, you know, I think the problem is you get you get down a rabbit hole trying to help one owner just really understand what's going on and you and you're you're missing out on the other tasks that you have to do. So can you kind of walk us through some of the tools and and reporting capabilities that you have through Beyond?

SPEAKER_03 11:57

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's always funny how like, you know, what 5% of our owners take up like 80% of our time or something like that. Um, but I think it's really smart to think about your owners sort of in certain buckets. And what's really great about tools within you know, tools like Beyond is that they can really start to understand the tone with which you're communicating with certain owners. So if a if a if an owner is, you know, all about the numbers and they they understand ref pen and ADR and occupancy and they can read charts, great. And we can just you know learn from that. And that's how the you know owner communications will be curated. If an owner is more about uh wants to know about highest booking, some sort of celebratory type of communications, then absolutely let's let's you know focus more that way. And I think that's where generative, um, generative AI can be really, really supportive is learning the personal communication tones on a micro level. So it's not at the property manager level, which is you know, basically a combination of hundreds of different personalities on the owner side and get really specific about how they're talking to their owners, um, not just in language, but like over what channel do they like phone calls, do they like PDFs, do they like videos, do they like WhatsApps? So getting really flexible with communications there, because we do find that you have to be proactive with your owner communications. Otherwise, if you're reactive, you're on your heels and that owner is already starting to make decisions that you don't want them to make.

Annie Holcombe 13:34

Yeah, yeah, you're you're behind the eight ball at that point for sure.

Automating Repetitive Revenue Work

Alex Husner 13:38

Exactly. That's such a good point. And I think I'd imagine you guys probably fall into this uh bucket sometimes where you know your your tool is the pricing, but it's a little bit of consultative on their business as a whole, too, right? Of like, you know, the bigger picture here is that if you keep your owners in the loop and in the know, they're not going to be coming back to you when they realize like, you know, June is down or something's going on. If they if they know what's going on, a lot of people feel just more comfortable and will allow for if things don't go as as they wanted because they feel like you're doing the best that you can. And you know, that creates a good relationship there. But talk us through. So if a company has not been good about continuously commuting to the owner and the owner comes back and says, Oh my God, June is is terribly down. What the heck's going on over there? What does the revenue manager or the property manager manager do and beyond to generate that report? Like is beyond actually suggesting what they should say back to the owner, or like where does that work?

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Yeah, so there's a couple of ways you can go about it. We do have um what we call owner insights. So we have reports that are specifically geared toward talking to owners, and those will surface all of the core, you know, key performance metrics that an owner might care about. And you can keep or kill some of them, depending on what your owner really likes. We also have our um our pricing assistant, which is named Naoba, which will effectively generate the communication to contextualize not just the numbers on the page, but also the market. Because I think what what an owner has is their own history. An owner isn't necessarily, doesn't have their finger on the pulse of the panhandle, isn't reading short-term rentals every week, right? So you have to give them the what's going on in the market, is the market up or down? And if the market is down, let's say occupancy is down 10% and this owner is also down in occupancy, but they're only down 3%. Well, that's a win. But we have to be able to contextualize that. And then we also have to be able to show some of the wins, you know, where there were larger bookings year over year or where there were more days booked. I think those are the things that can really help create and build and maintain that confidence owners have with their property managers because owners' expectations, they just don't seem to be getting smaller year after year after year. I mean, COVID just 21, 22, it's just it's just gone up from there, despite the market.

Annie Holcombe 16:07

Yeah. Moving away from like all the great things that AI can do. I think we all recognize that, and still with some, you know, I'll say like I've got a little bit of trepidation about it because some days I'm like, I'm all in, and other days I'm like, oh, I'm a little afraid to let this go. Um, but from your perspective, you know, do you see, do you see any threats for an independent owner versus, you know, a property manager or like what do you what do you think is the landscape? And I and I think it's probably a loaded question because it's just it's evolving literally every day. But from your perspective, what do you what do you see as far as like any threats that might be coming or maybe they're being overblown?

SPEAKER_03 16:41

It's really tough. I mean, there's so much noise out there, like you mentioned, Annie. Like if you're if you spend a half a minute on Twitter, you see any everyone blowing it up, right? Like at the moment, AI could be everything or nothing at the same time. And so there's there's this sort of trep trepidation and stalling of of what can and should be true. You know, when I think about what's what could be potentially under threat as you as you characterize it, is with AI, with cloud code or things like that, co pilot, for example, it's a lot easier to potentially market your own property and build your own website and hook into the PMS APIs, right? And so you could, as we have a shift of you know, the generational wealth from uh Gen X and Boomers down to millennials and Gen Z who are much more adept at using technology, you might see a little bit more penchant for those folks to self-manage. Um, and so you as a professional property manager, you definitely want to be in your game when it comes to being able to talk about how you're using technology to further the growth of the business in a much more advanced way than somebody could like Vive code on their own, for example. I also just think, but I think there's a really also so that's sort of like in the threat bucket, but I think there's this whole this this really incredible bucket of what's possible for property managers to really just get back to their love. I mean, when I talk to property managers, it's been it's been a really tired, like they're tired. It's it's this is the market ups and downs, the geopolitical fluctuations, the macroeconomic climate, you know, travel's dead, travel's back. Nobody can really, it's so and now you have private equity money coming in. Should I keep sell? Should I keep running? There's there's so much change happening, and they're so far away from why they got into the business, which was you know, hospitality, community building, and um and doing what they love. And and now there's you're bogged down in spreadsheets and regulations and managing a huge team and all that comes with that, like HR issues and payroll and duh da-du-du-da. And I think what we have this really key cool opportunity to do is just really like cut through all that noise and help them get back to that love through smart automation, through smart scaling technology, really empowering their team to shine so they don't have to grow their team as they themselves continue to grow.

Alex Husner 19:21

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think, you know, AI and guest experience, they really do go hand in hand. And yes, I mean, things can go wrong if you don't have things set up properly, but um it can really enhance the guest experience, you know, if anything, because I mean the AI, once you teach it something, it's it's learned it forever and it doesn't forget versus if you teach a reservation agent or a guest service agent something, you know, everybody has a bad day. You could forget the check-in time and say the wrong time tomorrow, but you were just told the right time today. Um but I think as far as you know creating more of a consistent communication and like communications at the right time with guests, I think that's where the operators are really leaning in into AI, are seeing you know, probably the biggest benefit right now. Um, but I wanted to also get your thoughts on how, you know, what does this do for the OTAs? Obviously, we know that the OTAs have far more budget to spend on investing in in AI. And granted, it's leveled the playing field a little bit that, as you mentioned, an independent operator can build their own direct booking site now and connect it to their PMS. But how how do how do we look at the OTAs now in this world? And like have they become more of a friend or a foe, would you say? To the property managers? Yeah.

Owner Reporting And Personalization

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Look, I probably get in trouble for this. But uh I think while the OTAs are a massive revenue source for property managers and are clearly a channel that have benefited the industry as a whole and done so much good. Um I would not be wanting to run an OTA at the moment. Um, so I I think marketplaces in and of themselves are are more ripe for disruption at the moment than than certain software. So, you know, there's the folks think, okay, no one's gonna build software anymore, it's everyone's gonna vibe code their way into building their own software. I think that's way overblown. But when you think about what's possible from a marketplace standpoint, if one of the big, you know, foundational AI, like anthropic or um OpenAI or Google decide to really pivot into letting that inventory get surfaced and have bookings actually happen on those platforms, that really disrupts the OTA business model. So I think if I were property manager, I'd probably be like eating some popcorn at the moment and making sure I have a direct booking engine connected to the to the foundational models as soon as they they're ready for that. Yeah.

Annie Holcombe 21:54

Yeah. I'm interested to see because Google's been trying to do this for so long. Like I'm interested to I feel like we've been talking about this since way before COVID. So it's like this is something that's like, oh yeah, everybody's like, Google, go, like, okay, when they do it, we'll do it. But I feel like this is the moment when it's like, if they can't make this happen, then they just they need to just go like try something, just stick with just being the internet, you know, like not try to do this. But um, I think your your point is is well stated. Like property managers have an opportunity now. But I think that that's where it goes back to the beginning of the conversation is like, what tools can they adopt for the, you know, for now that can take them down the road? And I think that's the challenge, is understanding like automating something for today, is it gonna solve your problem down the road, you know, specifically with the OTAs? Like, how are you gonna make sure that you're getting surfaced to these LLMs and all of that? I mean, that's just a lot to consider. And I think that that's where people, um, at least with the people that I'm talking to, is they're just struggling with it's like, do I automate this piece? Do I automate that piece? Do, you know, what do I do? I but I do think that the OTA conversation is something that people are not maybe paying enough attention to that they should be.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, you'd ultimately, if you're looking at your distribution channels, you want to make sure your direct distribution channel has a plan for LLMs and and will, you know, to the extent that booking will can either direct back to your direct booking engine or or the booking can happen. I'm sure the LLMs are just trying to figure out how to monetize that. And I I have a sense you're gonna do a little bit better than Google vacation rentals, but um, you know, I I'm not I'm not quite uh a psychic. Um and yeah, I think OTAs also are changing the way that they're surfacing results. You know, I saw today listing titles are now forget about it. It's it's the content in your listing that's actually getting serviced because they're moving more toward um sort of an LLM type search. I want a you know heated pool on the beach. I mean, as a as a guest, I've wanted to search like that, but you don't return results. But now Airbnb is starting to figure out that and so the quality of your listing has to be is is even more important. And the the the words that you're using to describe what's going, you know, the the amenities of your listing, even more important. So you have to make sure you're you're on top of that.

Alex Husner 24:23

Yeah, and you know what? I actually I I think that one of the benefits here too is that it really is removing the subjectivity of I like my listing titles written in one format, but you know, Annie likes hers written in a different format. Well, whose is best, right? I mean, it let the data show us. And I think that it takes it takes some stress off property managers in a way, because it's like, these are the pictures, this is the description. Like, what is going to get the most amount of value, you know, to the property manager and of the OTA? What's what's actually gonna book? Um, I think that's that's a powerful part of it. But I one question I'm curious about with your AI, say a property manager does like a major home renovation, and you know, that's now in their listing description. Like, does Beyond know how to change the pricing based on renovations?

AI Threats And Self-Management Shift

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Yeah. So the way that we would definitely handle that is one, you'd probably start with running what uh our product or feature called listing lens. And so we're able to understand all of the enhancements that have happened, the new bedrooms, new photos. Um, if you've taken new bookings and reviews have gone up, um, there will likely be a change in the suggested starting price. Um, and then what we'll look at is um we always look at how a listing is pacing. Um, so should a home get renovated, the the pacing will likely pick up pretty quickly and Beyond's algorithm will also um react accordingly. And so said in different terms is we want to make sure we're either pacing to the market or just behind it. We don't want to pace too fast, that means we're underselling. And we don't want to, we definitely don't want to pace far too slow because that means we're we're holding prices too high. So you'd see that reflected in what we call our dynamic occupancy-based pacing. We have all of these internal acronyms. I call that one Adobe, like um the house love from uh from Harry Potter. I named it.

Annie Holcombe 26:29

What did you um I wanted to ask you again? What did you say your your AI tool is called? What was the name? Uh Naoba. Naoba, does it stand for something? It's kind of DMed backwards. Um, okay. Oh cool. I would not have guessed that.

Alex Husner 26:47

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

You had to come up with something first of all, so like Oracle Sage, those were all gone and trademarked. Yeah. You did have to come up with something different, and that also you could didn't need anything in any language, which is really hard to do. Um, and so we just started playing around with beyond forwards and backwards, and then you know, starting with the D didn't make sense. And we're like, okay. Okay.

Annie Holcombe 27:11

Yeah, that's that's cool. Uh now I'll remember it. I'll I'll actually know what it is. That's good.

Alex Husner 27:16

Totally random, off-topic um here. But my dad was telling me the other day, I had never heard this, but all the names that they come up with for prescription drugs, that's they there's like a word generator that that's exactly what they're doing, that they're coming up with these words that mean nothing in any in any kind of language, but like there's a whole there's a whole philosophy behind how they generate those names. It's like, gosh, never knew that. It's really interesting. That's how they come up with the names.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Um I would be terrible at that. Everything I've ever named is just like what it is, plus. So, like even before like HBO Plus or Paramount Plus, I used to our my old company, our career sites were called Career Site Plus. Um, I don't I don't have a punch for naming. I was looking at my kids have names.

Annie Holcombe 28:01

I want to work for the the fingernail polish company OPI and like name oh my gosh. That would be a fun like you know, cosmetic companies. Yeah, those that would be fun. I've always thought that would be a cool job.

SPEAKER_03 28:10

Like a park after dark.

Annie Holcombe 28:12

Yeah, yeah.

unknown 28:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 28:14

Is that your favorite color? Uh it used to be. You know, I'm a little ballet slipper these days. Oh, yeah, spring.

Alex Husner 28:22

Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll have to start adding that to our list of questions, not for the guys. Yeah, yeah. What's your favorite up here? What's your favorite up and black color? Okay, well, we're gonna transition now into our next segment that we're gonna be doing this uh each month of the revenue reality check. And it's called stop, start, and scale. And so related to today, Julie, what is one thing that people should stop doing related to the AI?

SPEAKER_03 28:45

I think you should stop doing nothing. I think, I think testing, you have to play around, test what works. Oh man, now everything's flooding my head. I also stop believing that. Um, I would say stop believing the hype that you can go from a tech stack to vibe coding your own tech stack, right? That everything's gonna go away and you can run this all yourself. We all saw what happened, and I won't name the largest property manager that undertook a huge endeavor to like build their own tech stack. Obviously, that was before AI, but you know, you are a property manager, your job is and your love is hospitality. So automate what you don't love and kind of stop there. Sure. Yeah.

Annie Holcombe 29:33

So the start is the start after the stop would be you said testing. Is there anything else they should start doing?

OTAs And LLM Search Disruption

SPEAKER_03 29:40

Um, yeah, I'd say like start building trust with AI. So there's gonna be some core parts of your business that you hold near and dear. And owner communications, I think, is is one of those. I would start by having AI giraffe, for example, you know, your owner newsletter. Now we have a notion at Beyond where nothing goes out the door. We use AI internally, but nothing goes out the door without human review. So you have to have a process by which you you put it through like, is it the right tone? Does it have the right facts? You know, LLMs are really terrible in math, for example. Um, are the figures uh plausible? But I would say start, you know, start pushing yourself a little bit when it comes to testing some of these core function areas uh and adopting AI.

Alex Husner 30:30

Yeah, great. And scale.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

If things are working well, what do you scale? It's so funny. You know, you see there's a lot of private equity money coming into the space with the notion that you can scale these property management companies very quickly. And I think that's a nuanced approach because we do see that without local presence, without local service, without that local feel, you lose a lot of the je ne sais quoi of what made that property management company so special. So I would say always keep that local touch and you know, whether that's the owner, the operator, or whatever that it is. Um, but there are things you can scale, like that you can empower your team to shine by using, and revenue management is a great, is a great use case for that. So instead of managing dozens of listings per revenue manager, start to think in the hundreds and pretty soon even the thousands per revenue manager. I think we're we're quickly approaching the stage where the a revenue manager is going to be able to be as effective across hundreds or thousands of listings as they were, you know, across dozens just a short 18 months ago.

Annie Holcombe 31:43

So much to consider. It's just it's a lot. Yeah. Um, one other thing that we wanted to have a little segment that we're gonna do is a little recurring data conversation. So thinking data bytes for today. And we talked about the World Cup. That's I've been on three or four webinars in the last couple of months to talk about it, really talking with property managers that are in these specific markets, working with OTAs that are you know promoting these markets. So there's a lot of noise about the World Cup and a lot of hype, and some of the numbers aren't coming through. But I think what I am, what I am seeing, and I'm I'm curious if you're seeing this, is that it's really turning out to be good business for vacation rentals and short-term rentals, where the hotels, I think, thought they were gonna have a lock on it because they were urban markets. The World Cup organization came in, FIFA came in and blocked a bunch of rooms, but then ultimately these people were gonna be in a market for three, four weeks. They needed a, you know, they needed a rental. So why don't you give us kind of like, you know, Beyond's vantage point on the World Cup and maybe some things that people should be thinking about?

SPEAKER_03 32:41

Yeah, I mean, we're super excited. I mean, just as a like, I'm a fan, right? So super excited at Beyond for the World Cup. And we're seeing it really come through. You know, I think we shared some data with you on some of those major markets, and even on the second, the major markets being like San Francisco, New York, so the world and the secondary markets like Philly or or Kansas City are also starting to see occupancy pick up. Prices are still super high. So I think, you know, one of the things as a as a host is to just to keep a pulse on this, world events are are still unfolding, which could potentially dampen um the demand internationally to come to the US. And so I think, especially within Mexico and Canada, if you're a host or a property manager, there there might be shifting demand to those locations. But I think staying on top of pacing and demand as we get closer and closer to kickoff will be key to making sure you make the most out of this like eight week. Is it eight weeks? It's about eight weeks, right? So you seven Olympics. Yeah.

Renovations And Pacing-Based Pricing

Annie Holcombe 33:43

Yeah. Once you yeah, yeah, because it's a holiday in the middle. So yeah. Are you guys watching any games? No, but what's interesting is so in the panhandle, um, when the Olympics were in Atlanta last, so many people rented their houses out in Atlanta and came down to the coast for like weeks at a time. So I've told people like that's an opportunity that I don't think anybody was necessarily thinking about. So if you're within three or four hours of one of these markets, Orlando should do great because you can take the train from Miami-Fort Lauderdale up to Orlando back and forth. So, like the people that are staying in Miami and Orlando or Fort Lauderdale for the you know, stuff down there, they're gonna probably come up to Orlando for a couple of days and go to Disney and Universal. And so I think like some of these markets that maybe aren't hosting, but they're drivable from the destinations, absolutely. I mean, I see that as a huge opportunity that nobody was really talking about. But I the more I brought it up, people were like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. And I was like, just watch your numbers. But I think in talking with um Tyane Marcinc Hammond, she's been really integral in on the stuff that they've been doing with the Kansas City market. And they were forecasting that they were gonna need accommodations four hours outside of Kansas City because there wasn't enough within the drive within the drivable, you know, like hour range. So there, you know, it there there are places like that, especially New York is a great example. You can't rent in New York. So New Jersey is benefiting from that. And I mean, it's all the way down to the Poconos. So it's like, it's I just think that there's some there's some areas that people weren't paying attention to that are are popping up now. So it's gonna be, I don't know, it's gonna be interesting to see how it all plays out.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Oh yeah, super smart. I'm sure, yeah. Uh, that makes a ton of sense to think about um not only like as an adjacent market, but potentially, you know, I've seen these also these courses that if you've never hosted, right, a short-term rental how to post your the World Cup. Um, yeah, which is which is super neat.

Annie Holcombe 35:30

We're ready for the Olympics, though. That's a good thing, is he? When the Olympics come, everybody's gonna be a pro out in LA. So it would be great.

Alex Husner 35:37

Well, it makes me think back to the Super Bowl a few years ago when it was in Phoenix, and you know, had you had all these people that they had never rented their property before, and they'd, you know, put put their property on Airbnb and they had never hosted, they didn't know anything about it. And you know, they it was just like a gold mine that they put crazy rates. But I I think where things really got off the rails there is like they didn't have anything set up as far as how to actually I mean make it a great guest experience. And so it's like you end up having people that they paid an arm and a leg for this property, but then everything went wrong and the host didn't have any idea how to solve the problems. So I think that that's the that's the risk. But I'm glad that Diane and her group are trying to attack it.

SPEAKER_03 36:17

Yeah, yeah. When you the more you pay, the higher the expectations go. We had a customer one time tell us that they got this insane rate when they first started using Beyond, and they felt just like this overwhelming sense of, oh my goodness, like I the they it was the highest rate by like two or three X. And so we're like, well, just put a bottle of wine and buy a new couch. And you know, it ended up they ended up, you know, it it was a five-star review, but it, you know, it's it was you have to make sure, obviously, that the guest experience matches the rates.

Annie Holcombe 36:51

That's good to know that there are people out there that have guilt along with those high rates because I think we went through a phase where too many people, I know like we always joked about the panhandling. Some people had contests to see like what they could get the highest rate because there was just they couldn't, they couldn't raise the ceiling high enough, you know, like it was just that. And but I think it it developed some people into this like, oh, I'm just gonna put out there and it doesn't matter what I charge, but then they weren't backing it up with the service. And I think that that's kind of bit the industry in the behind a tad in some places, but that's a whole nother topic.

Alex Husner 37:20

Yeah. Awesome. Well, let's see. So and anything that operators should be thinking of of or about right now as far as the things that they need to make sure that they do after they hear this episode to prepare for a World Cup.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

I mean, I think the the point about the adjacent markets is really, you know, a really important one. I think um, you know, there are certain folks that aren't going to be able to the I don't know if you've seen the ticket prices, but they are in crazy. Crazy. But, you know, with that being said, okay, so you don't want to go to the World Cup. What's what's better? Watching the World Cup from a beachfront house while you're so you know, thinking about how you can position that marketing, um, showing, you know, the outdoor kitchen, TVs outside, next to I think um, you know, next to some water could could win you some points. Um, I for one would love to watch the World Cup with a bunch of people next to a beach.

Annie Holcombe 38:20

Yeah.

Stop Start Scale With AI

SPEAKER_03 38:21

In the pool. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then I think, you know, just um also making sure your distribution channel matches up with potentially where these travelers are coming from. So booking.com being, I think, a big, a big one. A lot of folks aren't on booking.com for a lot of reasons, but making sure that you are present where people are looking to book.

Annie Holcombe 38:44

Yeah, I think that's been a big conversation and trying to get people to understand that it's like their channels, you know, if their demographic doesn't fit what you're trying to accomplish, you need, you know, you really need to think have that internal conversation with yourself. Like, is my distribution exactly where it needs to be? And the World Cup is a great example of that of people that are just on the big two US channels, like they're missing this entire ecosystem of international travelers that they don't, they just don't have access to. So that's a that's a good point.

Alex Husner 39:10

Yeah. Awesome. Well, this was a great kickoff to the revenue reality check that we've got coming over the next several months. And I we hope that everybody tunes in to get the latest on what's going on across the world and the different markets and the trends. And I know Beyond is certainly at the forefront of noticing those things. So we're excited to have you guys part of this and can't wait for the next one.

SPEAKER_03 39:31

Yeah, same. It's great to see you all and have a great rest of your day. Yeah, absolutely.

Annie Holcombe 39:35

Yeah, and if anybody wants to get in touch with you, Julie, what's the best way?

SPEAKER_03 39:38

Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn. You can always email me, Julie at beyondpricing.com. Um, you can also find me at any playground in Chicago and especially on the west side. I'll be there, especially there with a child. Uh but um yeah, LinkedIn or email is a great way to get perfect.

Alex Husner 39:57

Yeah. And if anybody wants to get a demo, go to beyondpricing.com. And I'm sure there's probably a big scheduled demo button.

SPEAKER_03 40:03

That's right. Yeah. I'll even I love giving demos for oh, there you go.

Annie Holcombe 40:07

Yeah, or even love it.

Alex Husner 40:10

Um, and if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to alexandanypodcast.com. Until next time, thanks for tuning in, everybody.