Podcast The death knell of property managers may be sounding if some vacation rental experts are to be believed. Martin Picard of VReasy talked of this at a VR Tech conference in Rome earlier this month. OTA’s are taking over much of what a property manager does, from marketing properties to an array of consumers; offering best matches for a guests criteria, and promoting their own brands, and the traditional role of a property manager may soon be reduced to the cleaning element. Instead of rolling over, many PMs and independent owners are fighting back by doing the one thing that an OTA cannot – offering personal hospitality and relationship building. In a survey compiled by the digital guide company, Hostfully, property managers were asked about their perspective on hospitality, what they currently do and what they would like to offer guests if time and resources allowed. CEO of Hostfully, David Jacoby, joins me to talk about the results of the survey and what PMs can do to pull back control and cast aside the anonymity the OTAs are threatening. We also discussed the work of the Home Sharers Democratic Club of San Francisco, an organisation with the aim to: “Organize the home sharing community to work politically to bring about fair and reasonable laws and regulations concerning home sharing and the sharing economy and for the promotion of the welfare and well being of home sharing hosts and their guests.” In this interview David talks about: The challenges property managers face in a time of OTA dominance What is on property managers’ wish lists The peripheral industry bridging the gap between PMs and guest wants The 84-point gap between mainstream software and what PMs would like to offer How managers (and owners) can streamline communication & deliver what OTAs cannot A 4-point plan for initial communication with guests Short term rental advocacy and the need for owners/managers to organise in the face of pending legislation Links to sites mentioned in this episode Home Sharers Democratic Club of San Francisco Hostfully Properly Honortab Babierge
