The Impact of Airbnb Policy Changes, with Dennis Schaal of Skift

Alex Husner  

Welcome to Alex & Annie: the real women on vacation rentals. I'm Alex, and I'm Annie, and we are joined today by Dennis Schaal, who is the executive editor of skift. Dennis, it's so good to finally have you on the show. Thank you. It's

Dennis Schaal  

great to be here. I was so

Annie Holcombe  

excited when I got to meet you about a year ago in person. It was like meeting a rock star. Everybody, everybody was around him. Everybody wanted to talk to him, man, about

Dennis Schaal  

you guys with the podcast? You're ever

Annie Holcombe  

oh my gosh, oh my gosh. So Dennis, I think I, I've been a loyal follower of yours, as is Alex. I mean, we skift is like, we live and die by the content that you put out. And it's always so great. A lot of our audience actually is not necessarily in vacation rental or hospitality, so maybe tell us a little bit about your background, and then we could talk

Dennis Schaal  

about skift. Okay, so I've been writing about online travel for 25 years. I started at travel weekly, and then I had a column for USA Today about travel websites. I wrote for this tech publication called T news, which became focus wire, and then we started Skiff in 2012 I'm trying to remember there were three of us and our dear Our idea was to shake up the travel, trade media. We felt, like a lot of it was unnecessarily boring, full of jargon. We wanted to loosen things up, make things conversational, and also connect all the different parts of travel. So we weren't just an airline publication or hotel publication or an online travel publication. We wanted to put all the pieces together. So yeah, that's how we got into it, and now it's 13 years later.

Alex Husner  

Wow, yeah, no, it's been, you know, as Andy said, I mean, we look to skiff, and I think the industry does not just vacation rentals, but the larger hospitality and travel sector of you know, you've got your eye on the pulse of what's going on out there. And specifically, now you really know a lot about the vacation rental side, and there's been so much that has happened over the last, you know, post covid era of just technology coming in and consolidations, and it's like every day there's got to be something that you could possibly write about. But I'm curious, like, you know, from your side. I mean, you're kind of deciding the where you go with different stories that you're covering. But what? What makes a story interesting to you, and what makes it something that Skiff would cover?

Dennis Schaal  

We try to write stories that are impactful, in terms of impactful to the industry. So a lot of times we get pitches about from companies that are really small and nobody ever heard of them, and that's good to write about every once in a while, if they're doing something really interesting. But we try to we focus on the larger brands that are really going to make a difference in people's lives and people's businesses. We don't necessarily write about partnerships all the time, but basically about the future of travel, what you know, big things that are that are impacting the industry. We try to write original things, not to rewrite press releases. People approach us with scoops on various things. You know, somebody contacted me yesterday that one big company has called a meeting to talk about another big company next week, and we don't know what the meeting is about, but could be a deal in the work. So I'm contacting different sources. I'm contacting a member of the Board of one of the companies and asking him, you know, what does he or she know? You know, that's the way we approach it. So you're kind of an investigative reporter. The best thing we could do is to write a scoop, to write something about, you know that so nobody knows anything about that's often the most fun. It's what readers want. You know, readers want original stuff. You know. They don't want the same stuff that everybody you know had yesterday morning,

Alex Husner  

right? Yeah, well, and I think it's a good sign, and you have, certainly in skiff, have helped with the progression of this, but it's like, if people want to talk about you and they want to write about you, that's probably a good thing, actually. I mean, there's no such thing as bad press, to some extent. But it means that the industry is evolving, and it's of interest to a lot more large scale audience than it used to be that, you know, 10 years ago, there's, there was nobody writing about vacation rentals. I mean, like, maybe just some of our internal, you know, publications, vroom Intel within very closely knitted into the industry. But to now see, you know, companies like skift and others that are really keeping a keen focus on what we're doing, it just shows that this is obviously something that people are watching. And like you said, they want to hear more than what they can just read in a press release. But I'm curious. Like, what have you seen this year that is really just kind of like, what are the trends you're seeing? If you had to kind of summarize the year of like, the biggest things that you guys are really trying to make sure you keep a focus on, yeah,

Dennis Schaal  

I mean, AI. Of course, everybody's talking about AI. Everybody's using AI. The bigger players yesterday, Google. Travel came out with its, really, its first AI application for Google Flights. You're going to be able to put in a query like, I want a beach vacation in December, a non stop flight. I'm a foodie. Where should I go? You know? And it uses AI to spell out a good answer. So everybody is obsessed with AI. We're obsessed with whether the AI chat bots will become the new Googles in terms of a new channel, you know, to sell your stuff, will property managers have to advertise on on chat GPT in order to attract bookings? Of course, everybody wants direct bookings, but if you don't get direct bookings, is this the new booking channel? And of course, regulation is always a hot topic in the vacation rental industry. We're seeing crackdowns in Spain and Italy, New York, I read about Monterey, California, I think this week passing a law to limit vacation rentals to, I think 4% of homes and primary residences residential neighborhoods, that is always a trend as well.

Annie Holcombe  

And I imagine Airbnb is always a hot topic. I think it's kind of one of those, one of those things that everybody kind of dreads to see their new post, their new their new alert, their new email, because it seems like they have just been rapidly coming out with a lot of new policies and some changes that have created a lot of friction and a lot of uncertainty in how operators operate their business. And you've been very vocal in posting a lot about that. And so I'd like to really dive into the Airbnb segment that I think you've been focusing on, on some of those things. So why don't we talk about, I mean, it's, we're set, you know, eight months into the year, and they've put out, I don't know, three or four different really big changes for property managers, so maybe touch a little bit on that, and kind of what your what your take. And I guess conversations you've been having with property managers about these changes,

Dennis Schaal  

right? I noticed that you said people dread what Airbnb is coming, going to come out with next, and that's appropriate. Yeah, they've been really active, especially in the last few months. They've relaunched experiences. They started with experiences in 2016 and it didn't really take off. I think they were losing a lot of money with experiences. Now they've relaunched it. And, you know, we'll have to see if, if that's successful, the jury's definitely out on that. But one thing I think especially pertinent for property managers is this new Airbnb services businesses, business that they just launched. They think this, this has more potential to be a bigger business than experiences, and that each segment of services can be a business in its own right. So if you're a guest, you can order, order somebody to come in to do photography, to a personal trainer, a private chef. You could order meals. You could do all kinds of hair styling and facials. And there's 10 different categories at all in all. But the catch for property managers and hosts is that the guests can, you know, order up one of these services, and you as a property manager have no financial benefit from it. You know, they could have said, Okay, you take, you know, it's in your house. Take 2% maybe that's too modest, you know, maybe that's too little, but property managers and hosts get nothing from it. They're not notified when a service takes place in your home, and you have all the liability, or you have some of the liability, maybe, maybe some of Airbnb is insurance policies cover some of it, but somebody could come into your home and damage a wall with their massage table. You don't even know they're in your home. You could think the guests did it. It would be nice to know who's coming in and out of your home, right? So, yeah, so I actually haven't found many hosts who who like it. You know, I found a lot of hosts who think it's crazy. Tell me if I'm wrong. I think some hosts or property managers, they probably have their own gig going with with local vendors. So So you might be competing with the host owned business.

Annie Holcombe  

It begs the question, and I think I asked you, when we were off camera, is, do you think, from your vantage point that Airbnb feels that they are completely in the driver's seat and in control of the entire relationship with the guests, that these property managers are just an ends to a means, that they're not part of the relationship. It's just, you know, we're sending you a reservation. That's it. There's you know, the guest is ours, and we're going to extract as much value from that guest as as possible, and you don't need to be part of it. Like from the property manager standpoint, I just, you know, do you feel like they just think that they're the All Powerful Oz is, I would say. You

Dennis Schaal  

know, I asked an Airbnb official Why aren't hosts getting a cut of the action? This person said to me, go on and. Explain yourself like it didn't even occur to them what I was talking about, right? You know, they say they're all about the host, and the hosts are the heart of the community. It isn't so, yeah, I guess they feel they're the biggest game in town. They can use your home and not and not compensate you for it well,

Alex Husner  

and everything's been, you know, there's no coincidences here. I mean, Airbnb has done all of these different steps to get to this point, very strategically. That was just a few months ago, this March, that they released that, I mean, you you cannot even even post booking. You're not allowed to ask for the email address, you're not allowed to take them to any external guest app, to be putting in any sort of information. I mean, like, and they're really just, they're closing that box. And, you know, it makes perfect sense for Airbnb, if you're in that situation and you control it, then why? Why wouldn't you? But it definitely, you know, we the issues with Airbnb have been around for many years now, and we had the hashtag we are not Airbnb shirts a few years ago, and I feel like, you know, things have not gotten any better since then, if anything, they've only gotten worse that like there's, there's from our side, from the property management companies that I represent, from their side. It's like we have all these issues and or things that we feel like if they would just listen, that would make us also want to give more revenue and do more bookings through that platform. But they're just not listening. And they don't, they don't feel that they need to, right? But it's definitely creating a lot of unease and a lot of chaos. And, yeah, we're being used basically looked at as, you know, we're toilet cleaners and, like, we just, we just happen to have the contract with the property, but it's like, you know, until somebody can come around with a alternative, or if VRBO can really out smoke them and, you know, pick up that revenue, which I don't know that either option is possible. It's, you know, it's a necessary evil that you have to put your properties on there. But it's tough

Dennis Schaal  

so far, verbo isn't picking up the slack. So they're still, they went through this whole big tech, tech migration that took a few years, and they they still haven't recovered from it. They said this this week, that they have, you know, big gaps in supply, which they're still working on, that, you know, their bookings were soft, you know. So I'm wondering, do you feel like the the resentment against Airbnb among property managers, managers, is that growing, or is it? I mean, it's been, it's been pretty heightened for quite a while, right?

Alex Husner  

I yeah, I don't, I don't think that it's ever let up, to be honest. I think it's just been like a slow, increasing unease of like, frustrations and things that just, you know, you don't you. The one thing I will say, I mean, property managers do not have nearly as many problems with VRBO as they do with Airbnb. That VRBO comes to our conferences. We had Tim Rizzoli on our show a few months ago. They invited Annie and I to a luncheon with their whole team, and we were in Austin, and like they want to know how they can improve. And Airbnb has made it very clear that they might have a booth at the shows, but they, they're, they're not coming to the shows for the reason of trying to make strategic decisions and guide strategy there, they're going just to, you know, help get more listings. But

Dennis Schaal  

beyond the shows, if I'm a property manager, why is it easier to deal with verbo than Airbnb?

Annie Holcombe  

What we see is that they just, they will. They have better support. You can actually some, I think they can get to people, but they, from what I see, is there's something about their their guest profile is different, and it, and it might be, it's higher, yeah, and it, and I don't know what, I don't know if that's like, you know, it's, it probably is. It varies from market to market. But I think if you're looking at people that are looking to go to a traditional vacation rental destination, verbo has kind of owned that market, and Airbnb sort of came in and, like, dug in, you know, and took away some of their their thunder there. But I, what I find interesting is that it seems that the what I see, anyway, is that the people that are the, you know, most vocal about it, probably don't represent the largest amount of the inventory that sits on Airbnb. I could be wrong. I would love to see the numbers, but, you know, we invited them on the show, and they were the one OTA that just they didn't want to come on the show, and that's fine, but it also it makes that, it makes that the chatter and the and the narrative about them just kind of be pervasive, like you can't change it, because they never get out and say, they don't get out in front of anything. So when everybody's on LinkedIn and in an uproar about it, nobody's coming on to say, Oh, well, what we meant was, and I know that when they did the the announcement about the new cancelation policies that were going to go into effect, people were very upset about that. And there was some people in the industry that kind of used chat GPT to sort of summarize it. It wasn't completely correct, but that's what got shared. And nobody from Airbnb kind of came out and said, Well, this is what it's meant. So fast forward a couple, I don't think, a week or two, some of our friends in the industry actually sat down with their reps, and the reps were like, yeah, like, it's that was incorrect. This is. What it is, it wasn't communicated clearly. And so sometimes I feel like maybe they're their own worst enemy in the way that they present stuff, and just sending everything out broad brush via email, and not having any explanation or people available to talk about it makes it a problem. But I go back to do they their inventory appears to be so much in that small host who is only using Airbnb. Airbnb, yes, they have, you know, and I joke about all the time that people say, Could you look at my website and give me some feedback? Absolutely love to help you. They send me their link to Airbnb. And I'm like, Well, you don't have a direct looking website. They're like, This is it. And they'll, they'll admit, people will admit that they're buying keywords and pay per click and everything to send to that all they're doing is helping Airbnb out. It's like, oh my gosh, yeah. So Airbnb knows they have a power for sure. They're they're in a power position.

Dennis Schaal  

It's funny. I heard the chatter more years ago than I do today, but, but individual hosts always used to complain that the property managers were the ones who had the upper hand on Airbnb, that Airbnb was doing everything for the property managers. I don't, I don't hear that as much

Annie Holcombe  

today. Yeah, I think it's reversed, for sure. And I think it's reversed since covid, because there's so many new people that came into I mean, what is there, like, you know, 1.6 million listings in the US, and how many of those are professionally managed by somebody that has 100 or more properties? You know, like, I think the number, the average, is still well under 50. So if you look at that kind of makeup, they're dealing with people that, and not to I never want, you know, never want to disparage and say they're not professional, but they're not scaled and have big operations, and so they're they're less likely to have a fallback. If Airbnb doesn't work, they're only using that and we talk about it into Alex's point about the hashtag, we're not Airbnb. It wasn't about putting Airbnb down. It was like, we just don't want to become everything in the rental industry be called an Airbnb, because there are brands that are out there that can stand on their own, and they've just they're getting lost. You know, so very frustrating.

Dennis Schaal  

I live in Puerto Rico, and around the corner for me, there's somebody's got a sign on their home that says, Airbnb. I mean, for what purpose?

Alex Husner  

Yeah, I would say one very remarkable difference between Airbnb and VRBO that we've you know, most property managers know this, but they verbally said it to us when Andy and I went to lunch with their team that they said, you know, if a guest finds finds a property on VRBO, and then they love that house, and next year they want to go book and they want to book it again, and they go through the Property Manager, that's fine, but that is not how Airbnb wants it to happen at all. They want you, if you like that house, you're gonna always go back from from Airbnb. And so like, the difference of like, understanding that is really important. And I know in my years with condo world, and we had built an OTA, and that was our mentality too, was we were going out on a limb. We were doing a lot of marketing for properties in the entire region, and of course, we hope that if somebody found a partner property on our site, that when they come back next year, we'd love for them to book with us again. But we totally understood, because that was part of our value proposition, that if this ends up being a guest, that now is your guest, that's part of what we were putting ourselves in the mix for anyway. So I think the understanding and just more of almost there. It's like the empathy from VRBO is much more real.

Dennis Schaal  

It's real in the in the data, day to day interactions with them. Yeah, right. What you know talking about professionalization, property management, stuff. What do you think of the whole co hosting thing that Airbnb is doing? Do you think that's a positive thing for the industry?

Alex Husner  

I don't. I don't think so, but I think it's, I think the next phase of what you're going to see with CO hosts is you're going to find people that, okay, they're an Airbnb co host, but they're also going to be in the same boat that the property managers are in now that they're going to realize, well, shoot, I don't have a business if I don't have Airbnb. So how do I how do I find I've got these five properties that I co host? How do I find other ways that I can put them on other channels? Or how do I use other tools to make this process better, and I think that's where it's going to start to get strained. Of, like, it the direction is going to go in that, that same kind of conflicting area of, does Airbnb de prioritize co hosted listings if they know that they're on other platforms, right? Like, it's, it's going to be interesting to see?

Annie Holcombe  

Yeah, I find it, I find it weird. But I do think if people are like, wanting to dip their toe in the water, that's a great way for them to start out. And, you know, maybe they get it and they realize this is, this is not for me. So it's probably better to do it that way than to try to go full bore into having a bunch of units and that type of thing. But I also think that, you know, there's somebody was telling saying the other day, like, if somebody's. Watching another person co host their unit, they realize they can do it themselves. And so does somebody put themselves out there where they don't have any equity in anything, they literally are just a middleman. And at what point does it become somebody take it away and and like, again, going back to these people that only uses Airbnb and if their account gets suspended, I mean, we've heard these horror stories of people being wiped out of a million dollar but you know, their their million dollar Airbnb business in a day because they had nothing in nothing in the works to to be a fallback for that. And there's no fallback for CO hosting. If you're that's all you're doing,

Dennis Schaal  

right? They're kicking off a lot of listings. You know, they say for quality control, you know, which is probably true, but, yeah, that's the frustrating thing I hear from hosts that they get get kicked off at of Airbnb with no explanation. It's like almost impossible to find out why you were kicked off,

Alex Husner  

right? Yeah, they're in the clouds. And honestly, I think you know it's going to also follow a similar pattern that, you know, post covid, the rise of VAs and vacation rentals just really skyrocketed, because it was like, there's so many messages coming in through the channels, and you know how you could if the property wasn't available, how you could try and push them to a different property, and how you could push up sales, and all these things. But technology is also quickly evolving to solve a lot of those problems. And so boom, which is one of the companies that I'm a fractional cmo for. I mean, their AI is solving a lot of that that it's like these co hosts. I think the need for CO hosts is going to eventually go away, because if you have a platform like theirs, and maybe other ones that will eventually be developed, that that guest communication is handled. I mean, like you need to make sure you have somebody boots on the ground, that is a maintenance person, and someone local maybe can check in on the property, but the back and forth of that's mostly what co hosts do. They're not out there. Actually, in many cases, they're not actually going to plumb the toilet or anything like that. They're really just managing guest communication. And it's like, as these tools start to take center stage, it's that the CO hosting thing could not even be a thing. And, you know, few years from now or sooner,

Dennis Schaal  

so guest communication seems to be the sweet spot for AI right now in vacation rentals, right? Would you agree?

Alex Husner  

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And

Dennis Schaal  

that's that's going to be saving a lot of men, women, hours,

Alex Husner  

yeah, yeah. I mean, I was talking to a client earlier today that it's like 73% of her messages now are handled by by the AI. And it's like, that's, that's incredible, you know? I mean, whether it's, it's not meant to replace people, necessarily, but it's like, if you have a great team, get your people off of having this, you know, back and forth, and just the stress of people texting you at midnight and everything else, that if you've got your system that is able to make things happen and get tasks and work orders that are automatically put in so that you're not having to manually do that, it's like you can that frees your team up to go work on higher level things of like, How are we going to go to the business? Like, let's go spend more time with homeowners and go to real estate local events and build relationships and partnerships and things that are actually going to move the needle and build a brand, versus just the minutia of the back and forth,

Dennis Schaal  

right? Yeah, like a couple of weeks ago asking, so where is the best restaurant I can go to. They've answered this question 5 million times already, you know, right,

Alex Husner  

right? Exactly,

Annie Holcombe  

yeah, well, and I think also, too, it's, you know, you talk to property managers. I mean, Alex, I know you see it in your consulting, they're, they're looking at the margin and what they have to spend their allocated, you know, funds that they can use for the things that are important for the business, and there's these mandatory things that they've had to have, which are people to answer the phone, people to answer the questions, people to answer reviews, like those kind of things. It'll free that up where they can start saying, Oh, I have dollars for marketing. Like I can do I can do this. I can put this into marketing. And maybe I don't have to be so beholden to an OTA anymore, maybe I can, you know, the it's, it is changing things. And I think that it's kind of like when the internet came to be, everybody freaked out. I was like, what is this going to do? But it's going to, it's going to, it's going to move us into a better direction where we can better optimize the day to day in the business. So I, I was always kind of a skeptic of AI, because it just, it freaked me out more than anything, kind of scared of it. But I think I also was the generation that grew up with all these, like doomsday movies of what happens when the robots take over. So

Dennis Schaal  

Right? Yeah, exactly, exactly. Another thing that's going to drive host crazy is this new Airbnb policy, reserve now pay later, and with that. As a guest, it's only in the US so far, but as a guest, you could pay nothing up front and cancel your reservation, you know, say six days before or two days before you're supposed to arrive and just walk away and and then the host has to go scurrying to find a guest. Guests, you know, to fill the house. So, yeah, it's great for the guests,

Alex Husner  

but, oh yeah, yeah. I mean, versions will go way up, right? Yeah. And I mean everything I feel like, you know, and Airbnb has not made this they're not trying to hide it, that they are very much more centered on their community of guests than they are the hosts or certainly the property managers. Actually, we were just talking about this before we hit play. Just earlier this afternoon, we had Sasha Lawler from a company called Rome that is a newer company within the space that they've built a basically, it's like cancelation insurance that allows you to the property manager and the owner to still be protected that even if the guest does cancel six days before an eight bedroom home they're about to occupy. I mean, there's no way that home is going to get is going to get rebooked. It's just impossible. And it's like, you know, they still need to get those bookings. And in order to get the bookings, the channels are making it so that you have to be super flexible in the cancelations. But it's like, you're going to property managers will lose owners because of that, because they will just be infuriated that they thought they had, you know, several $1,000 coming for that week, and now it's gone. But it's a cool program because it allows them to offer those flexible policies, but know that they are still protected in that case and for the you know, the wide majority of vacation rentals cancelations are not a rampant, rampant rampant thing. I mean, I know it varies by company and by market, but it's not like people are just out booking a bunch of properties and then canceling most of them. I mean, people, if they have an intent to go on vacation, they're going to do it. But if you have a 10% cancelation rate, and you know, even one of those 10% bookings could throw an owner over the cliff that now they're going to leave, and they're just too pissed off about it. If you had something to protect that and it would get you more bookings in the first place. It makes a lot of sense.

Dennis Schaal  

So the property manager has to pay the full bill for this insurance, right?

Alex Husner  

It's, yeah, it's a percentage of reservation,

Annie Holcombe  

yeah, yeah. They're selling it as a premium add on to be able to have, like, so, you know, typically, if you had you've got the non refundable. And those non refundable is generally are discounted. And if you have a refundable, you pay higher. And so by being able to offer this, they offer it as a premium. So I think it's a win, win. We were talking about it. I mean, just from having been in property management before, that was always like, such a stressor. Was cancelations, you know. And you just, like, didn't know what to do with it. And then people have, they have travel insurance and but some of these insurances, like, you really read through it, it doesn't, it doesn't back up half the reasons you would have to cancel, you know. So like, there's, there's, there's just things that this would give the property manager the peace of mind. But interestingly, there was a conversation that was had yesterday on LinkedIn, and and it was about the the new Buy now pay later. And one of the people that commented on it was about people that are in rental arbitrage, and he's like, you know, this, just this takes the money out of their pocket. And I, I'm not a fan of rental arbitrage. I mean, I was back in the day when people were trying to do it. I was a property manager. We tried to do that with, like, individual owners, not like broad brush in a building or something like that. But do people that are on rental arbitrage? Are they not doing

trust accounting like they it? Because he was like, that. You know this, 50% of our revenue could be that we need. And I'm like, if you're spending the money before the reservation is consumed, like that's that's a dangerous game to be playing. It's just a fascinating place, because, you know, you've seen the companies that did that in mass, and they're not around anymore, and so there's people that are still doing it. And Alex and I interviewed somebody about two years ago, and we joke about it all the time, because as we're talking to them, it dawned on me that's what they were doing. And I finally just said, are you doing rental arbitrage? And he was like, 100% and I was like, why? Like, why are you doing this? And he's like, because in July, I've got, you know, one and a half million dollars in the bank. And I was like, What about December? And he goes, Well, I'm, you know, I'm back at my parents house, but noodles, right? But Alex, I joke about it all the time, is like, you know, if you put your stuff on Airbnb, you have this empire, and you're driving a Bentley by Saturday, you know, it's just, but you got to turn it back in in December. So what could go wrong? Right?

Alex Husner  

It is, I mean, we're what's happening, and the rise of that is 100% also social media driven. That it's like, every time I go on Instagram or Tiktok, I see a video from somebody similar that that's what they're trying to show people, of like, you know, you've got people that they want to invest in short term rentals, but maybe they don't, they don't have the money to be able to go out and buy them. But it's like, this is, that's the way that they're pitching it, is, you don't have to go out and buy these properties. You can rent it, and then you re rent it on your own. And there's all these different frameworks for doing it. And, I mean, some people have done it well, I mean, like, it's not that it's absolutely terrible, but it's just, it's a risky business, and I think that's where, you know, we haven't talked to anybody that has done it and has really, really failed, from, like, a like, I'd like to talk to somebody that's just, like, one of us, right? That's just like, Okay, I want to try this and like, what really happened? I mean, like, are you, I don't want to hear. Bad stories. But same time, like, I feel like there's a lot of misinformation about how this really is that get rich quick, get a Bentley by Friday type thing, that it's still risky, like, it's not, like, it's not a zero risk obligation there. So switching gears a little bit. Dennis wanted to get your thoughts on. There's a lot going on in the industry right now. As far as consolidation, I mean differences. And you know, there's not just one franchise model now, there's several franchise models out out there. There's a lot of different things going on on that side of it. And I think, you know, the the future of where this brings the industry, a lot of people just kind of have a question mark of, okay, if these different groups, if they become franchise, or if they become, you know, part of one of one of these, like, larger PE backed companies. Are we going to look back 510, years from now, and there will be no locally owned companies? But, like, what are your thoughts on? What's going on there?

Dennis Schaal  

I mean, it seems to be trending in that direction. I'm not sure, really sure how it'll play out. Just,

Annie Holcombe  

I guess, changing gears again. I mean, skift has been in the news a lot as of late. You guys have done some pretty cool acquisitions of some things. Now you've taken on the hospitality FM podcast group with will slickers, which is he's built that into, like, such an amazing it's it? I don't know. I always feel like so prideful, because I feel like he's a little brother to both of us, like he's he was very instrumental to to Alex and I just getting into podcasting and being positive to us. I mean, he was one of the first people we talked to who was like, Do it, do it. Do it. And so we owe him a lot of, you know, big debt of gratitude to that. So it's really exciting to see, to see that. But I guess for you guys, what does this mean in terms of your, you know, skift Overall, and kind of your media empire that you're building

Dennis Schaal  

out? You know, I'm not sure what the overall plans are. I know that from on the editorial side, we're just seeing increasingly the importance of video of now, you see it on the New York Times homepage all the time with the reporters, you know, talking into their phones and doing an explainer about, you know, the story they just wrote. And we're definitely trying to do a lot of that too, you know, short clips, YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram, we're really emphasizing it because people, people really seem to enjoy it. So and will is going to be helping, helping us with that, you know, to refine that. So that'll definitely be a big push. And I'm sure, you know, board podcasts, you know, integrating his podcasts into, you know, the larger Skiff podcast realm. So yeah, we have high hopes for that.

Alex Husner  

Yeah, no, I love it, and I think it makes a lot of sense, because it's like, you know, we're all inundated every day, by the amount of emails that we get and the things that we have to some things that you really do have to read, but it's like we're in such a quick consumption era of we have a lot of people that watch our show that they don't always listen to every episode, but they also consider seeing our reels that we put on LinkedIn and Instagram and all the circles or Tiktok. They consider that watching the show. And it's like, you know, you have to have multiple different types of, you know, length of media and platform of media to reach everybody these days. But the one thing that one thing that is consistent across the board is that people's attention span and time to to pay attention to this in general, it's shrinking. So it's like, you've got to hit them right between the eyes if you've got something important to say. And I think for skiff, that would be really interesting, because you guys have been a lot of more written editorial base, but to actually see some of this more visually, I think will be really impactful.

Dennis Schaal  

Yeah, a 32nd clip here or there. Like you said, people consume their their media in all different ways. So yeah, give them what they want, you know. So, yeah, we're really going to be experimenting with it. So yeah, like everybody

Annie Holcombe  

else, you have your big event coming up in a couple of weeks in New York, right? Yeah. So why don't you give us a little insight on that, and who's on tap for it? All

Dennis Schaal  

the major players are there. You know, CEO of Expedia, Airbnb, booking.com, they're going to be there. The big hoteliers. We all want to know what the next step is with AI, how they're using it, industry trends, the future of travel, they're all going to be up there on stage. So

Alex Husner  

it should be great. It's the place to see and be seen, I would say,

Dennis Schaal  

and for the for the networking, you know. So, yeah, I always got, I always used to get a kick out of the former CEO of Trip Advisor, Steve Koff, or for some of our conferences, he used to literally sit up front in the audience and take in the whole darn thing just about, you know, you know, you would think a lot of people are running around to meetings and and they're skipping the sessions. He would be there just taking everything in, which is really great. To say I

Alex Husner  

remember, I mean, for a while you got and maybe you probably still do around this event, but I remember this is going back probably years ago that there would be a lot of, like, video recordings from those events, of the booking.com CEO and the Trip Advisor, CEO and Expedia. They were fascinating interviews, and I'm sure you still continue to have them. But I just, I remember, as I was getting more interested in, like, the media side of our industry, watching those and just like, you know, I mean, what, what these guys know that we don't all know is a lot, and I mean, their predictions, in a lot of cases, end up happening. So it's like, you know, to be in that room with those people that are sharing what they're seeing is, is, you know, it's an advantage. I mean, there's a reason to be there. But Well, hopefully we'll be at the next one. I know Annie went to the right noon last year, but next year, we should definitely plan to be there.

Dennis Schaal  

It's the great thing about being a journalist, you can get up there with all these really intelligent people, and you just have to ask the questions. Yeah, you don't have to know much. You just have to ask some questions. So we're

Alex Husner  

very inquisitive, and we like to ask a lot of questions, and it's worked so far. But yeah,

Annie Holcombe  

howdy on that. Because, um, one of the things I find when you're dealing with these public companies, you know, you have to kind of go through a question vetting session with their PR people. Like, what you can ask and what you can't can't ask. How do you guys navigate that? Because I feel like sometimes anybody who's had the interview or been, you know, been in the position to interview these people, it is frustrating, because you think like, I just want to ask the question that comes to my head, and sometimes they just don't allow you that, that that leeway to do that. So how do you guys have a way, a structure wherein that you can give, they can give you guidance and what you can ask, but you still are able to ask the questions. Because, I think, from a from a journalistic integrity and from, like, the audience who wants this information, they really want to know the things they don't want to know, what the company wants you to know. Like, you really want to ask these questions. So like, for Airbnb, are you going to be able to say, like, Okay, people are frustrated, you know, like, where how do you how do you navigate those relationships to keep people, one, keep the companies coming, but two, be able to satiate the appetite of the people that are attending, that you're giving them the information they want?

Dennis Schaal  

Yeah, it's a fine line, like you're inviting these people to your conference, so you don't want to beat them over the head with a hammer, you know? So it's a dance there, but I don't know if we're unique. So we have, generally, we have, like, a session, you know, before the conference, with the speaker or with the speaker's representatives, and we talk about topics that might be interesting, like, you know, they might be doing things that we might not have any idea directly, you know, they're doing, they're new, or whatever. But one thing is cool is, is we do not give them the questions beforehand. We'll give them the topics, you know, you know, for example, we might say to Airbnb, okay, we're going to talk about Airbnb services and and what's going on there. But we don't say to them, we're going to ask, how the hell are you launching a service in the host phone? And they're getting nothing from it. I mean, we don't give them the questions one CEO Steve, Steve Hafner from kayak. I really admire him. So sometimes his PR people before the conference will push, you know, what are we going to ask him? You know? And he'll, he'll come up at the day of the conference, and I'll say to him, like Steven, want to let you know. I might ask you something about, I don't want to know anything about what you're going to ask me. Don't tell me anything. So, yeah, he does everything off the cuff. Doesn't not want to, you know, be set up with knowing what the question is. So yeah, we'll get him

Annie Holcombe  

on the show. Alex, yeah, great, yeah.

Dennis Schaal  

Great quotes too, yeah.

Alex Husner  

And it's been interesting. We've had several public companies on the show now. And Danny's point, yes, we have to submit the questions ahead of time. And it's kind of hard for us to be honest, because it's like, it like, I mean, our show is very just conversational. We kind of have an idea of some topics we want to cover, but we really don't like to plan because we like it to be more just among friends talking about something. And that's that's hard for a lot of them to really get their head around. But, and even if we say we're not going to ask any zingers, I mean, like, we're not going to put you on the spot, it's not live. It can all be edited. But I appreciate that for somebody in his position to want that, you know, and honestly, it comes back to authenticity that Annie, I know that's been your Word of the Year for many years, whether it's the exact one or not, but it's like that's so important to us. Of like, people want to, they want to know who the people are, and they don't want to know that they're just doing business with a, you know, red tape media public company. I mean, they they want to know who the people are. And I think that it says a lot about that gentleman.

Dennis Schaal  

It makes for us so much better a conversation. Yeah? Free following like

Alex Husner  

that. Yeah? Absolutely, absolutely. Well, we wish you the best of luck. Stuck with the event coming up, Dennis and again, wish that we were would be able to attend, but next year, but we're going to make sure we make it a priority. But if anybody wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to reach out?

Dennis Schaal  

My email is ds for Dennis schall@skiff.com that's probably the best.

Alex Husner  

Super simple, awesome. 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.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai