Listing Isn’t Enough: How NextPax Powers Smarter Vacation Rental Distribution with Lennart Kok

Alex Husner  2:44  
Welcome to Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals. I'm Alex and 

Annie Holcombe  2:51  
I'm Annie, 

Alex Husner  2:52  
and we are joined by Lennart Kok, who is the VP of distribution and marketing for NextPax. Lennart, welcome to the show.

Lennart Kok  2:59  
Well, welcome. Thanks for having me. We're

Annie Holcombe  3:01  
so excited, and I work with you every day. So this is interesting for me to get to ask you questions outside of outside of the workplace, but there's a lot of people, because you are sitting in our corporate office in Elmer in the Netherlands. So a lot of people in the US market don't know you. We do have listeners in Europe, but why don't you tell us a little bit about your background in hospitality and travel and how you ended up at

Lennart Kok  3:23  
next thanks. Annie, yeah. White. Background in hospitality. I started off at the hotel management University here in the Netherlands, and from there, I enrolled in Hilton Worldwide, the most one of the most iconic hotel chains in the world, doing corporate sales for their five hotels at that time in the Netherlands. And after that, I went to booking.com and they liked the fact that I was working for global hotel chain. I entered their global hotel chains team, and at booking, I slowly enrolled in more and more technology. Started to do connectivity for booking.com so working with connectivity providers that supply accommodations into booking.com got to know Eric and Robert from next packs in that time. I managed them for over a year from from the booking.com side of things, and then I moved on to very exciting startup within booking.com at that time, and that was booking.com for business, where we tried to send the 23 million listings a day at that time towards the corporate travel space with with saber and with Amadeus and with Concur to get into the managed corporate travel program. So and then in 2019 Eric and I had a discussion on how we could potentially collaborate again, and that resulted in me joining next packs. And over the past five years, we've been trying to level up our channel connectivity, moving from one preferred partnership to four preferred partnerships. Also. So further diversifying our our channel mix, allowing for other websites to also benefit from the 650,000 vacation rentals that use our services today. And yeah, there are, there are immensely new things coming. And yeah, super excited about about short and immediate future.

Alex Husner  5:22  
Wow, that's super exciting. And I mean, next packs, you guys have kind of stood the test of time. I would say there's been a lot of different channel managers that have come through the ranks over the years, but you guys have been around for quite a while. And I just just saying, Before we hit play, we used to, I worked with you guys when, Andy, well, Andy, you weren't there at that point. But when I was at condo world, we used next packs and just had great success with them. But tell me a little bit about you. Said you have four preferred partnerships. So what are those? And what does that actually entail?

Lennart Kok  5:50  
Yeah, that's actually a good, good leaning question to what we're trying to achieve, right? So, so I think the philosophy of next box is to seek seamless connectivity with the most relevant channels for vacation rentals, and more recently, also hotels. But I will keep a little bit focused on vacation rentals. And so we have a preferred partnership with Airbnb booking.com, Expedia, and more recently, also homes and villas by Marriott bonvoy. And within these preferred partnerships, you run a test to certain criteria. So these OTAs say to you, hey, I want technical excellence. I want commercial growth, and I want you to engage with us on marketing activities. And if you sort of achieve that, and you do that in a more regular cadence, and you find also the balance in a partnership, then they say, Okay, this is actually preferred solution for accommodation partners to use. And what they are trying to do there all these OTAs is to steer accommodation partners to those software companies that are willing to commit innovate and grow alongside of these. Of the ambitions that these OTAs have, and I think it's super important for accommodation partners and property managers in the US to understand not only who's preferred or who's not, but also to understand the deeper level of the connectivity actually. And some of the OTAs, they're very open in like publishing the scorecards and so, for instance, with Airbnb, then we have an excellent score on booking delivery, and you can see all of the APIs we have integrated. And you can also compare providers with each other. And so that is showcasing sort of commercial excellence, technical excellence, and that helps property managers to really make profound decisions on where they actually need to partner with. So that's one of the cornerstones of like, how we do marketing, is to really excel and basically let others, let others define whether we are doing it right. I love that. I think

Annie Holcombe  7:53  
that's good to good context. Because I think that people don't understand the amount of work that goes into keeping updated with the channels, the amount of you know, the amount of product development that has to be done, the amount of testing that has to be done. And one thing that I know we talk about internally at next packs all the time is, is the differences between the European market and the American market. And so the European market is very open to adopting new channels, and they're very much about kind of tests and learn they want to they want to try all the features. They want to try all the channels. And so it's educating the folks in the US. And I think that one thing that maybe you could, you could shed some light on is the relationships that we have to those channels, and how that actually is helpful to managers when they're using distribution. So like, we work really closely, as an example, with booking.com and they have kind of helped us in, you know, helped us make our system stronger and better and more adaptable for the managers. But the managers don't see that work, obviously, behind the scenes, and they're they haven't been able to access all the tools because maybe their PMS doesn't have it. So they're having to learn and navigate, you know, what the channels can offer. And so maybe you could dive in a little bit more about what the work that that we've done with booking.com and what that actually means to a property manager. Yeah,

Lennart Kok  9:07  
no, for sure. I think, in essence, what I alluded to earlier is the fact that we are seeking seamless connectivity with all these top line OTAs, and booking.com is one of those channels that really also embraced the need for seamless connectivity between traveler on one hand and the host on the other end. They want a seamless experience in every aspect of the travel journey, and they are heavily investing in in the provider ecosystem to make that happen. But that's a journey. So two years ago, we started off with a whole workshop identifying all the pain points in the software solution and the connectivity that we provide, and then we started to really address those foundational needs of property managers and hosts. Who service travelers in the entire journey. So I think the report came up with like 32 recommendations, really advanced recommendations. So we're not fixing the utterly basic stuff, but it all had to do with foundational solutions. But to really make that bridge from the booking.com extranet, where people were logging in to make all the changes to having all those functionalities and compatibility in the channel management software. And so we did that together with booking.com and that resulted in the fact that we are now a seamless experience. Product is a new concept, and they are handing out badges towards all kinds of providers and PMS systems and the seamless experience product says, okay, all the foundational solutions that you can do in the extranet next box supports and moreover, and within next box you can really try and make that seamless. Now there's a second journey to that, right? Because, as we know this industry, channel managers are in the middle of like the OTAs and the accommodation partners on the other end, which are also using PMS systems. So like the new journey, and that's why I'm saying it's a journey. And that's why I'm saying, like, maybe within between Europe and US, because the US is such pragmatic on using PMS systems that that there is still a journey to go ahead on. So So we still need to make sure that that all those functionalities, that we market those and that we tell all the PMs systems about, and that we continuously address these things with them to say, hey, we can also make you seamless. Join us on this ever. For instance, you know, booking.com you can report guest misconduct, like, like, if I look on LinkedIn or any social group in Facebook or Reddit, the constant complaint of like, oh, I had traveler demolish something, and we couldn't fix it in terms of reimbursement insurance, etc, but there is actually functionality available in Xbox to report gas misconduct to booking.com and make sure that that is handled very nicely, or Credit Card invalid. Credit card procedures can all be managed from next box with single click. But it would be even be nicer if we can bring that technology even further out in the field with PMS systems. So there's an open invitation for everyone within the PMs ecosystem to learn about. Hey, how can we actually get the seamless connectivity end to end and and that's the journey booking.com wants to be on in real particular, other OTAs also, but booking.com in particular, and that we have joined them on that journey and basically bringing that forward to the ecosystem. Yeah, that's that's this exciting but very hard and detailed work that we are bringing to the table. And yeah, one of the products where we are really putting all of the solutions that we have built with booking, Airbnb, VRBO and all the other relevant OTAs, unification, rental industry, is really the supply API. We are bringing all the innovations. And there's also a change in channel management today that the channel manager is sort of leading an API, an aggregated API, with promotions, reviews, messaging, also regulations is coming, but all aggregated so that you as a PMS or very large property manager, for instance, in the enterprise segment that has a technology team, you can just integrate one API, maintain one API, and benefit from a very rich API suite that we have developed over the years, because it was our only focus to do that. So, yeah, it's an open invitation look at our solutions to basically see what, what, what we can change for the travelers and for the hosts. Basically, I think the technology ecosystem has a has a tremendous how you call it responsibility to make the exchange between hosts and travelers far more seamless and easy?

Alex Husner  14:18  
Yeah, absolutely. What about messaging is there is a unified inbox for all the channels within next packs?

Lennart Kok  14:25  
Yeah, no. So, so, like, so, like, what you see, we tried first to go in with a unified inbox with all of our users, and then said, Okay, we have a unified inbox in our core system, which is the channel management operating system, where you log in and you can do all kinds of stuff, and then a lot of our hosts came in and said, Hey, I am actually using Zendesk. I'm actually using another customer service.

Alex Husner  14:51  
Okay, yeah, it wasn't really necessary or or I have

Lennart Kok  14:55  
actually other systems in use. Can you expose this in. In other ways. And so we developed two items. Is the messaging API, which is part of our supply API, and we we basically aggregate. This is a very nice example of aggregation of functionality. We aggregated the APIs of like verbo, Expedia and Airbnb and booking into one messaging API, where you can do this with all of these channels, and even more so, so, so there's an example of a product that we're delivering in an open environment, and API environment towards the ecosystem and and with that demonstrating it's not anymore only about content and pricing distribution. It's not only about making sure that all the bookings are synchronized back to the PMS. There is way more that we can automate, aggregate and provide in a better way towards the ecosystem. On the supply side, yes, people can to our inbox. Yes, people can use the API to plug it in the system what they like. Or we can also convert an messaging API into just an email, and when you just respond the email, we transfer it back via API. So for every customer, basically whatever their need is, there's sort of a solution depending on the capabilities and the needs. And I think that's a perfect example of how channel management has evolved, and why a role of a standalone channel management company is still there.

Alex Husner  16:30  
Yeah, no, that's super interesting and a huge benefit to have everything in one place. So that's good to hear.

Alex Husner  18:55  
another question I have too. I mean, just this year, and just seeing how bookings are, you know, down in a lot of areas. And we're, you know, continuous, continuously seeing that, you know, post, post the COVID Boom, that you know, bookings just aren't the same as they were a few years ago, even. But also with Airbnb and just the different, you know, regulations and restrictions that they've put on hosts, as far as what they can do off platform. Are you seeing a lot of hosts and property managers come to you that they're looking now to diversify onto more channels because of what's going on with that. Do you feel?

Lennart Kok  19:46  
Yeah, I completely agree that that's that post COVID, we are seeing some oversupply in some areas, and that makes the market more volatile. And then on top of that, if you focus on us specifically changing into. Travel Demand. So you see 1/3 decrease of Canadians doing self driving holidays into the US, and overseas travel is minus three, and these are inbound from Canada and overseas totals in total already, like 50% of the travel demand going into the US. These are macro economical trends, whether it's not, whether it's political or not political related or related to personal budget due to economic reasons, it's a fact. So so property managers need to compete with more properties for less travelers. So how that is to make your upper funnel as wide as possible. So just listing on Airbnb and Furbo and saying, okay, then I have my direct website, and then I'm okay, that time is over. So, so, so you need to widen your distribution efforts beyond the top three players in vacation rentals in the US. And also really seek niches. And you can seek niches in last minute channels that are really performing well. You can seek, if you have very exclusive listings, you can seek, yeah, diversification through partners like plum guide and homes affiliates by merit bonvoy to really address those luxury customers. And I think as you widen your distribution efforts, they will not come at the same volume all every channel, but you at least make two things happen. You make your listings advertise at far more places, because some of these niche websites also over distribute to other, other place. So your your your properties are out at way more places, and you can become less dependent on just one channel. And that's also, I think, very important to consider if, if the if the trend line of traveler demand is is at a peak and slowly decreasing, and there is more competition around. So then better be out there, everywhere.

Alex Husner  22:08  
Yeah, and I'm curious to what, what of the niche channels that are out there, which ones are performing really well this year?

Lennart Kok  22:15  
Well, I think what we're seeing is is a great demand from from APEC based channels that are massively growing, if you look at the investments that triples comm is making Agoda. But also make my trip from emerging countries where a lot of travelers are getting increased bridges and increased, let's say, needs to discover the world. I think that's truly incremental business. Then I think if you look to the American market, where predominantly has been built based around Airbnb and VRBO, you see really Bucha making an entry, and that's bringing a new type of travelers. And then an untapped demand really is still managed corporate travel and managed leisure travel. So without naming channels, is an entire segment that is untapped off within vacation rentals. And so that is really a segment that we are launching something new in to to offer this opportunity towards accommodation partners. So for hotels, they have been working for years with these corporate travel management companies like American Express, GBT, with BCD Travel and Carlson wagonleaf, for instance, to really tap into the managed corporate travel programs of an IBM over DHL, really these big fortune, 500 companies and yeah, recent data in the industry just shows that two of 10 employees, two out of 10 employees within these corporate companies, they are already booking vacation rentals for business travel. But in order to advertise there, you need to be in the GDS, and you need to be in those tools that that the corporates allow these travelers to book in. And that's why Xbox, we are launching in July, the our GDS connectivity and and I think, I think that's going to be big change in the market. We're

Annie Holcombe  24:24  
excited about that. I think people are really interested. And I think it's your point. People have been doing the bleisure, the blending of kind of leisure, you know, vacation stuff, bringing their families and so obviously, you know, booking separate hotel rooms is not economical when you can just book a vacation rental, but beyond the channels kind of to dovetail off of what Alex was saying, you know, during times when things are slower and, you know, economic worries and those kind of things, I mean, channels is really important and really diversifying and making sure you're not only on one kind of one path of sale. What do you think are like some underutilized tools within the channels? And it. We talk a lot about rate plans and promotions, but what do you think people can be doing more specifically in the US market, but overall, to utilize the channels better for their benefit? Yeah,

Lennart Kok  25:10  
yeah. Funny thing, like, like, I always try to relate to the brand Nike that has this slogan, just do it and and there is this perception within the market of accommodation partners, is that okay? Let's just list it. Just list it, and it encompasses my cancelation policy has already worked for 30 years. I am only using one, and this is it. Promotions are for my Direct Website No. Need to do it on a channel. Or, yeah, I only have to respond very quickly my own Direct Website travelers. Or, yeah, all these kind of perceptions, or doing great markups because I don't want to pay the commission of an OTA. And I think that perception needs to change for a couple of reasons. Slower demand, more competition and hotels that are fighting back and also knowing how to create this vacation rental experience in more room types with private swimming pools and private Jacuzzis and whatsoever. So if you look at at one of the underutilized topics, big underutilized topics still out there in the market is like free cancelation. And a lot of the cancelation policies of a lot of property managers are still 42 days before arrival. You need to pay 75% of the of the rental amount. And there are two installments hardly you see, hey, seven days or two days before you can cancel free of charge. And I think a lot of the channels are trying to diversify their channels are launching seasonal cancelation posts so that outside of high season, you can flex your policy more to get more bookings. But the most I think working concept is the concept of launch managing multiple policies at the same time. This is supported by channels like booking, Expedia, Agoda, triple.com who are saying, Hey, you can run your non refundable and, by the way, free cancelation, you can run a side of that, and there's interesting traveler research saying that 50% of travelers are willing to pay more for flexibility, and 19% of these travelers are even willing to pay 50 US dollars more than for a non refundable rate. So this becomes extremely interesting, right? So you can create your base with your non refundable policies, but at the same time, you can utilize a very lean policy that is attracting a lot of demand, because a lot of people are searching for free cancelation on these OTAs, and then then capture that with a with a premium. Of course, there's a risk of cancelation, but on the other hand, there's an increased opportunity of making more, while there is always this last minute demand that if cancelation comes through, you can make up for it. So that's, I think, a very exciting element that's underutilized. And then I would, I would really vouch for if you have promotions and you use them on a Direct Website, also distribute these promotions on your key OTAs. And the reason that, why I'm saying this is you can turn OTA customers in people that experience your product and that you can do remarketing with, you can form a direct relationship with. There are even channels that are offering geo promotion. So you can say, okay, us to us, or Canada to us, are my main markets. But aside from that, I want to develop the inbound of Chinese travelers using my accommodations, or I want to have more French speaking customers into my accommodations, yeah, you can, you can, you

Alex Husner  29:13  
can kind of steer the ship, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's an interesting way of looking at it, too. Of like you're trying to, specifically, if you're trying to just broaden your customer base of like this, we were trying to reach these different types of travelers where they're from, or not, not just the booking windows, but maybe where they're from to, you know, geographically, get a different spread of people. I think that's interesting strategy to look at, too, but I'm interested, if so, for some of the, you know, the the OTAs that are also primarily, I would say most consumers look at them more as like hotel OTAs, like Expedia or booking. Obviously, a lot of vacation rental companies use them, and I know you connect with tons of vacation rentals to them, but what area are you seeing that those channels are performing the best like is it mostly in. In, you know, more urban areas, or is it in the true vacation destinations, or, like any sort of trends that you're seeing with those in particular,

Lennart Kok  30:07  
I think both of these channels are really trying to gain supply in every every area. So where booking.com in the US primarily, has been focusing on hotels. In the past, you really see, with the help and the feedback of of the entire ecosystem, that are changing. And the same goes for Expedia, that they are changing the way they look at the industry. And for launch of payments products, both from Expedia and booking.com towards the vacation rental market, to really drive the necessary change and onboard accommodation partners towards these payment products opens up for the way they are trying to attract travelers, and the fact that if you join payments by booking or Expedia collect Expedia traveler preference right? Then you also open up to all kind of alternative payment methods, and you also open up for the more easy redistribution that these top line OTAs also have within their strategic partnerships. Right, the introduction of your cards, or the fact that booking or Expedia tax payment, because they have a B to B relationship at the back that is providing tons of travelers. Yeah, you open up to that by joining those programs. So that's another thing that I would advise accommodation partners, is to really be on board of those programs. And it's not only about that booking is then taking charge of the payment, or Expedia is taking charge of the payment, and you lose sort of that direct payment relationship. No, you also open and this, again, coming to the story of like opening up a funnel, if you open up to all the B to B relationships, because they need that sort of payment product to be in place in order to to do that with all of these B to B distributors. And, yeah, that's that's sometimes under utilized in the in the communications. And I think it's very important to emphasize that the payments is, is almost a vital filter. And when you're not on payment products, then, then you're missing out on demand. Yeah,

Annie Holcombe  32:23  
and I think it's a challenge in the US, because there are some states that are going to regulate how that actually plays out. So some states are saying that OTAs can't be merchant of record. But I always counter that with, you know, your frustration and your friction with a lot of these channels has been, you know, the failed credit cards was always a high problem with booking.com So, yeah, so they can take care of it for you. Doesn't that ultimately ease your day? So there's, there's two schools of thought, and there's certainly, I think, unfortunately, during COVID, we saw some, some bad taste left in people's, you know, proverbial mouth about channels, because they took all the money back, and everybody was in a in a bad spot. But I think overall, I mean, one of the things that's really fun about what we do at next packs is that we have such a diverse list of channels that people really can kind of create the menu of offerings that they want for their owners, you know, to be able to promote their properties and and so it's, it's really a larger conversation that we try to have on a on a strategy level within the US, for sure, and I know they do it in Europe. It's just, you know, the conversations are a little different. Leonard, one of the things I wanted to ask you, you have the relationship with the channel, so you're kind of seeing the trends from them before, say, the markets are actually seeing the trends, maybe identifying them. Are there any trends that you're seeing that are going on. Because what I've noticed over time is that that sometimes the trends that are happening in Europe will follow suit in the in the US, maybe six months to a year down the road. Are there any changes that have happened in Europe that you've noticed that you think will be ultimately coming to the US in terms of maybe traveler behavior, maybe it's operations within a property manager, as you know, how they utilize channels. Is there anything that's come up that you think is interesting?

Lennart Kok  34:07  
Yeah, I think, I think there are. There are a couple of things. So there are, there are three trends that you see evolving. One is a very serious trend, is the needs, or what governments are doing with more regulations and the need for the ecosystem to really rapidly adapt and build a solution for property managers the tech ecosystem. And the second one is definitely event based travel. So with the launch of Airbnb experiences and with the launch of various attraction companies that people are first booking their Taylor Swift concert and then thinking about accommodation and how to get there and and stuff. So, so there's, there's a lot happening and but the biggest trend, and I hate to break and say it, but still, ai, ai is transforming search, and as it is transforming search, OTAs start to get to know when. More about travelers than before, because instead of filtering a few filters that are already available and given by OTAs, you are now giving all your wishes, all your search needs, all your specifics in a prompt. And that leads to OTAs learning faster about traveler needs, designing new amenities, designing new filters, or designing a totally new way of showcasing and Publishing Properties and and that's that's the biggest trend. So so like that, that is coming in a very big wave, and it's happening in the US and in Europe. There's no regional difference there, right? Whoever is launching it, and I think that's where you need to change as a accommodation partner in like, really saying, okay, instead of looking at your own data set and the way that you have always distributed your amenities or selected which amenities need to be in a vacation rental. Is that you look at and you ask, and you intertwine with your software companies and with your OTAs to say, hey guys, what are you seeing from your AI structures? What new amenities Are you launching? What should I have in my vacation rental if I want to be successful in like, the next two or three years, because that's how rapid it is going to be. And so we are trying, as next box to also really build on that AI wave and say, Okay, we get all the pictures from the property managers. If they're not in the right size, we upsize them if they're not provided with the right tags, because there are system limitations. We let ai do the tagging, and we are seeing right so from, sometimes we get from, from, from import, we get, this is house, house, house. All the pictures are tagged as house, and then we run AI, and then we suddenly have three to five texts per picture, and it's just a massive increase of quality, and there's an increase of search and matching. That's what OTAs do, and that's that's how you get into the right spot for the traveler. And it's even further because, like, if you have the image I can see, well, you have a bookshelf there and a chair, and there's you can see that of every picture in the swimming pool, oh, you have nice lounge chairs. You have a fancy pool, everything that makes it also easier, because you need less data from the source. And you can just have aI look at pictures and design or bring up all the amenities that are in a vacation rental. So these are trends. The AI trend is impacting search, is impacting the way we communicate, because we earlier told about messaging that we can integrate all these endpoints from the OTAs. Yeah. Why shouldn't we start with answering like, 90% of the basic questions by AI, like, yeah, some OTAs have published figures that 90% of their customer service has been automated with AI,

Alex Husner  38:18  
yeah. It's incredible. I mean, AI has to have simplified the onboarding process for you significantly. I mean, think about even just, you know, a few years ago. I mean, the onboarding and, you know, whether it's a PMS or a channel manager, you know, it's, it can be a heavy lift. But I mean, now, with how things are, it's like that just simplifies things so much and just makes the listings better, you know, I mean, just the way that you described it. So that's really cool. 

Lennart Kok  40:54  
You can really go in niches now, for instance, here in Europe, or we have a channel as a company here in Europe, is called fino, largest Norwegian marketplace. But they require all these things to have Norwegian descriptions in Norwegian currency right and resource descriptions from all kind of PMS systems. And guess what? Not, every pm knows right in Norwegian or can do it on scale for all their properties. Yeah. I mean this, this is the quality of AI to to really transmit descriptions into different languages and therefore enabling us to enable a niche for them. So, so that's, that's, these are interesting things that are happening. A lot of people about AI like simplifying tasks of people, but it can also bring higher quality in a level of accommodation, data, yeah, and

Annie Holcombe  41:55  
one of the things we're really working on is to be able to, you know, one thing that I think every technology provider suffers from is support. The support queue gets backed up. And so we're really working towards having AI kind of be the front line of defense. So if there's basic stuff that we can help navigate through with a partner to say, like, here's where you go do this in our system, or here's how you do this, so they don't get stuck in a forever loop or a backlog of support. AI can take away some of those things where you don't have to have that absolute human interaction. Now, the nice thing is, the partner can say, like, I want to talk to somebody, and they can get to a person, but that front line of defense is able to get them a response within, you know, sometimes it's within five minutes, they can get the answer to it, instead of waiting 24 hours or again, waiting till a human can pick it up. So AI definitely has been a great asset for us to deploy within the next pack

Lennart Kok  42:48  
system. Yeah, and AIs are getting so smart that also big companies adopt and build solutions on top of that, and where you can connect it with your website, you can connect it with your APIs. You can connect it with your own operating system. And then, basically, they can search themselves, and they, they, they, they have all the knowledge. They can even write code for PMS systems, like, like, like, we did a live test in Copenhagen, I think, four weeks ago, where we said, hey, we asked breeze from HubSpot, our our solution. We said, I want to build promotions towards booking.com. And Airbnb, they both have last minute promotions. Can you please write me the code I need to use to connect my to those APIs? Yeah, which? Which coding language who you want? Well, restful, Okay, done, and the entire format on how to do that is written within 10 seconds, and then you can plug it in, and that shows how fast things can go. And it also shows why you see a lot of PMS solutions that are fully AI driven startups, and they are seeking just an API to connect to the world, which they can use a supply API for. And then they solve also these kind of things with AI. And then suddenly you can build your whole connectivity out in matter of two weeks to all. So why connect with every OTA directly as a PMS is then also, why would you still do

Alex Husner  44:27  
that? Yeah, no. Super interesting. And one thing that you both kind of touched on earlier, but about, if you're running promotions on your own direct website, that you should be running the promotions on the OTAs as well. And I was curious, you know what, you've seen as trends there. Because I know, I mean, years ago, it used to be that the OTAs really were strict on parity. I don't know if that's still really is as much of an issue now, because it's so complex to be able to track down. But are you seeing managers really utilizing pushing out the discounts, or are they still just trying to cover the. Mission on the OTAs, and maybe not doing that as much.

Lennart Kok  45:03  
Yeah, you really see a switch. And Annie was alluding to that Europe us thing difference. I think in Europe there's a bit more appetite. Because in Europe, a few years back, we had all of these trials to reduce or remove parity from agreements and hotels actually lobbied against vacation rentals and against OTAs to remove parity and to have a more open, open industry. But now seeing is that the OTAs are launching very interesting promotions. For instance, if your new listing and you want to make make a good living on Airbnb or booking, and ferbo is also having it, yeah, on the platform without reviews, because nobody stayed from these channels on your at your recommendation. Now, how do you diversify your product towards product with a lot of reviews and a lot of customer recognition, then they say, okay, you can offer a new listing promotion, which is often a discount, and it applies on the first month or three or it applies on the first X amount of bookings to really promote those listings. And also, again, geo rates, mobile rates. These are, these are promotions that are so unique and that people want to try them out, and they are seeing good results, but alluding to the point of parity earlier, if you run promotions only on your direct website and not on OTAs, you get these price differences everywhere, right? So like in Google rentals and in meta search websites where you may be listed, and research from these players show if there's a 1% difference in price no matter whether it's your own listing or your OTA listing, it reduces trust dramatically, that there is 30% decrease in conversion. So what does that tell you? Like, having such big price differences actually doesn't is harmful. So you better can give the same price across all of these OTAs and build up a promotional price and a promotional tag on these OTAs that again, help you convert with the OTAs. Turn travelers direct afterwards. And it can be strategy, but yeah, that's why I think OTAs are not cannibalizing. OTAs are not competing OTAs, you need to find the right mix. Of course, you need to protect your direct business, but protect your direct business and grow your direct business by applying the right marketing strategies for direct and still utilize indirect to have a solid traveler base that you welcome at your properties, that you can wow, that you can bring a fantastic experience and then try RE marketing them into direct travelers. So that's why I think the pricing needs to be on par, and that you need to advertise your promotions also on channels and data. There are significant sets of data that is articulating this.

Annie Holcombe  48:26  
Yeah, I think, I think also, overall, it's just, you know, people get so dependent on one channel and they just, they, there's some we deal with so many people that they don't even have a direct website, or they haven't done anything to their website to refresh it. And, gosh, no. I mean, Alex, I know you see it in your consulting like three to five years at best, you know. So the channels are constantly retooling the way they serve up, and they're they're doing a B testing all the time, and why not learn from them and utilize that so you can build up your base? Now, the thing we know is, travelers aren't going to the same destination year after year like they used to be. They're trying out different destinations, but that doesn't mean that if they stayed with you this year, that they won't go back. I mean, you, Alex, great example. You and your husband just went to Mexico. You went to a resort that you hadn't been to in several years, but you went back to it because your experience was great. So you didn't go every year, but you still went back there. And so I think that that's where managers often miss out the fact that they are like, I need this guest to be a repeat every year. But that's not how the way people travel anymore, especially, yeah, it's just not realistic. People want to go all over but litter. I think one of the things I wanted to touch on, too, is we've got a couple of offers in the marketplace the especially in the US, to get managers to utilize channels and utilize the next packs platform. Do you want to touch on specific to our booking.com? Promotion,

Lennart Kok  49:45  
yeah. So, so basically, what we did within next box is that we looked okay. Bridge OTA. Can we drive consumer action? Like most of the accommodation partners, they are on Airbnb, and they are. Verbo. So if I want to drive a new action or incrementality, basically, if we can get accommodation partners on booking.com then we then we are doing an offer. And the offer is, is that we do free channel management until the end of the year. So, so basically, what this means is is you are net new to booking.com so you've never worked with booking.com before because you were hesitant to engage due to credit cards, invalid credit cards, but now they have their payments program, or in the past, the commissions were not in line with what you were asking for, or it was still too much hotel focus, which is now completely different with all of these objections gone, we want to offer a tool that is completely free. And if you go to advertise on booking.com and list on booking.com you get access to our channel manager for free, which you then can subsequently use for all the other channels too. So, so we're really handing out a free technology software to really go out and experience something new. That's That's the condition people need to widen their distribution and to experience something new, which is also coming back in our philosophy of channel management again. And yeah, I think that's great for people to experience and and they get to experience high class technology, which is preferred by all of these channels. And yeah, there's, there's never been more economical way to try out channel management in in a big way,

Alex Husner  51:47  
yeah. And, I mean, now's the time to be thinking about that too, right? I mean, a lot of managers, they want to start implementing something towards the end of the season, going into the off season, if you're in a beach destination like Annie and I both are, so you've got that time to kind of get things ready and gearing up, because 2026 is right around the is right around the corner,

Lennart Kok  52:05  
crazy, and you better take those learnings and onboard fast. And that's also where we are continuously investing in. This is how quickly can you get these properties live. So where, for instance, we can import existing accommodations that you have on one platform to build everything automatically in Xbox and then distribute it back to other channels again. So, yeah, that's, that's, that's another key feature I think is driving a lot of growth, because people don't want to rebuild when migrating systems, they they they, they want everything to be, yeah, basically ingested and then be reused on other platform.

Annie Holcombe  52:48  
Yeah, on that, because we had a property manager that actually signed a contract, started onboarding yesterday morning, and they were live by the end of the day on booking. Oh, wow. Like so, you know that's, that's tremendous. And then, you know what we've seen with booking to the point of the power? And I was just at their click event, which is their, their their event that they do in different super regions around the world. I was at that two weeks ago, and they are all in on vacation rentals. I mean, they want to learn. They want to understand. They know there's a lot of differences between Europe and US, and they're very eager to to kind of listen to all of the property managers. And we're going to be doing some events in some key markets coming up. We're doing one in Nashville coming up here. We're going to do Austin, and then some other some other markets with booking to go out and kind of allow people to ask the questions and really understand it. But one thing that we see consistently is when we get property managers live on that channel, they get a booking within 24 hours. And that's not that doesn't happen on most channels. I mean, Airbnb sometimes that'll happen if you're in a hot market, but booking has the power, and I don't, and I think that people just are not recognizing the capabilities that it has. It's been, it's been a force in Europe, and it's going to be a force in the US, and it's a great time to adopt it, because we're giving it for free, you know, giving the channel manager part of it for free this year.

Lennart Kok  54:02  
And then another element to highlight, I think also, is, if you look at all the data of all the channels, is is Airbnb has a very informed an experience and marketing driven culture and booking system verbo is really tailored towards family. But where booking.com is really King is also a short, medium demand. So like the booking window in 30 days, is really where they where they are, highly profiling, and that's where, continuously, when we are into into the season in January, and we're going up till April, May, then, is the booking power, at least here in the Europe season. But you will find that in every part of the world where it gets closer to the hot dates, that's where you really see the booking travelers. Uh. To really start to book. So, so still not too late to endure high season demand and to capture that so. So that's also interesting for us market, especially as we see from macro economical numbers, that the inbound is slower to the US and try or inbound from Canada and Mexico is also slower, so yeah, then better widen distribution and do it with someone that can still deliver also for this season.

Alex Husner  55:29  
Yeah, absolutely. Well, very cool to hear all about what you guys have going on. I mean, it's been fun to watch the journey, and I get to hear, obviously, quite a bit from Annie and the successes and just the growth that you've provided for managers across the world, which is, you know, pretty, pretty incredible. But if anybody wants to get more information about next facts, I know they can contact Annie, but also Leonard, how do people get in touch with you if they

Lennart Kok  55:52  
want to reach out? Yeah. So basically, on our websites, we have various landing pages for various segments, so you can even, hey, if I'm a holiday park or a hotel or vacation rental, we have tailored information for you. You can get in touch via our support. You can call us and yeah, we are at events. And he just named two in the US and Austin and Nashville that were organizing together with booking.com and it's all on various trade shows, of course, excellent.

Alex Husner  56:22  
Well, if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com and until next time, thanks for tuning in, everybody.

Unknown Speaker  56:31  
You.