Destination Marketing Direct Bookings STR: Tapping Into Tourism Data with Jennifer Barbee

Summary and Highlights

👩‍💼 Meet Jennifer Barbee

Jennifer Barbee is a tourism strategist with 30+ years of experience working inside and alongside destinations. She is the Co-Founder and CEO of Destination Innovate and creator of the Host Gap™ — a framework that names the disconnect between destination marketing organizations and the short-term rental hosts who now deliver a significant share of the visitor economy.

Jennifer got her start in the late ’90s, accidentally becoming a programmer when the very first destination websites were being built. Before she turned 30, she had worked with over 400 destinations — from Las Vegas and Miami to smaller regional markets. Her career spans web development, advertising, audience research, and civic tourism strategy.

Today, she’s focused on bridging the gap between DMOs and STR operators through her upcoming Hosts & Home Teams™ summit and her ongoing essays on LinkedIn’s The Daily Destruptor.

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📊 From 4% to 30% — The Shift That Changed Everything

One of the most striking numbers Jennifer shared: before 2020, independent lodging (short-term rentals, boutique hotels, B&Bs) accounted for roughly 4% of the U.S. lodging market. Today, that figure sits at nearly 30%.

That explosion happened fast, and most destination marketing organizations weren’t prepared for it. Jennifer pointed out that DMOs were originally created by hoteliers—specifically as Convention and Visitors Bureaus— and funded through lodging taxes paid by hotels. Short-term rentals weren’t part of that equation. In many cases, they still aren’t fully integrated into the system.

This is why so many cities and counties are scrambling to figure out regulations, representation, and how to work with independent operators. Jennifer’s take? It’s not a moral problem. It’s a systems problem. And solving it starts with getting hosts into the conversation.

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🔑 What DMOs Have That You Don’t (But Should)

Here’s where things get practical for operators thinking about their direct booking strategy. DMOs invest heavily in traveler research — the kind of data most independent hosts never see. Jennifer broke down what that includes:

Who is visiting your destination, what are their demographics, and what are their travel patterns? What types of events and groups are coming each year? How repeat visitation compares across markets (Pigeon Forge, for example, sees about 75% repeat visitors, while Miami sees roughly 12%). Seasonal trends, spending data, and group travel behavior.

This research doesn’t just help with marketing your properties — it can inform investment decisions, amenity choices, and even how you furnish your spaces. If you know your market draws families with kids who visit four times a year, that changes everything from your guest avatar to your email nurture sequences.

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🏷️ The SMERF Market — A Hidden Goldmine for STR Hosts

Jennifer introduced one of the episode’s most interesting concepts: the SMERF market. It stands for Social, Military, Educational, Religious, and Fraternal — and it refers to unmanaged group travel.

Think quilting competitions, car shows, soccer tournaments, family reunions, and small niche conferences. These groups typically bring 10 to 50 people at a time. They travel more often, spend more money, and represent a huge opportunity for short-term rental operators — especially those who can accommodate multi-room bookings.

The challenge? Most hosts don’t know these groups are coming because that data lives with the DMO. Jennifer emphasized that building a relationship with your destination’s tourism office can unlock exactly this kind of intelligence, giving you an edge in preparing your properties and tailoring your content marketing to attract these travelers.

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🤝 How to Actually Reach Your Local DMO

Jennifer offered straightforward advice on making that first connection. Look for the community management or community steward role at your local DMO — not the chamber of commerce (which may try to sell you advertising instead). Your destination marketing organization is usually the entity that collects the bed tax and may be called Visit [Your City], Experience [Your Region], or something similar.

When you reach out, Jennifer recommended framing it this way:

Introduce yourself as a host who loves the destination. Ask what traveler research or data they can share. Find out how you can better align with the types of travelers they’re attracting. Request any printed materials or visitor guides you can keep on-site for guests.

It sounds simple, but Jennifer noted that most hosts have never taken this step. And the DMOs? They often don’t even know who you are — especially when OTAs like Airbnb remit taxes as lump sums without identifying individual properties.

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🔄 Repeat Guests, Destination Identity, and the Direct Booking Connection

Jennifer and Gil explored how understanding your destination’s repeat visitation rate completely changes your marketing approach. In a high-repeat market, your biggest opportunity is email capture and guest nurturing. In a low-repeat market, the focus shifts to discovery, social proof, and first-impression marketing.

Jennifer also shared a powerful insight about direct booking guests versus OTA guests. A book-direct traveler tends to be less sophisticated, more loyal, and craving personalization. If you serve them well — learn their favorite coffee, remember their kids’ names, leave a small surprise — they don’t just come back. They post about it on Instagram and become your marketing engine.

Her parting direct booking tip: offer a concierge experience, even if it’s as simple as a chat feature or an AI-powered assistant. When guests know they can ask you what’s happening that weekend or get a local recommendation, it deepens loyalty and makes booking direct the obvious choice.

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🎯 The Hosts & Home Teams™ Summit

Jennifer announced that on July 24th, 2025 — the day after Destinations International’s annual conference in Portland, Oregon — she’s hosting the first-ever Hosts & Home Teams™ summit. The goal is to bring STR leaders and DMO leaders into the same room to start building an open-source framework for alignment. With over 2,000 destination professionals already in Portland for the conference, this is a unique opportunity to start closing the Host Gap at a national level.

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⚡ Rapid Fire with Jennifer Barbee

📚 Book Recommendation: Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy — Jennifer reads it every year. Published in the 1960s, it breaks down narrative psychology, what motivates people, and how to use those motivations for a higher cause. She also mentioned gifting her four daughters Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Jennifer prefers physical books over audio — she’s “OG Gen X.”

💡 Mindset Advice for Starting Something New: Keep an open mind — someone may have walked that path before you. Be receptive to lessons from others, but also plan to fail. You’ll never succeed unless you’re willing to make a fool of yourself and ask the uncomfortable questions. Her favorite recent quote: “If the goal is experience, you’re always winning.”

🎯 One Tactical Tip for Growing Direct Bookings: Make sure your website is optimized with destination-specific language — that’s how travelers discover you. Beyond SEO, provide your visitors with pre-arrival value, such as local itineraries and personalized recommendations. And don’t sleep on social media — Jennifer noted that 80% of travelers now start their research there. If your social presence isn’t strong, your website and booking engine may not get the traffic they deserve.

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🔗 Connect with Jennifer Barbee

• LinkedIn (Personal): linkedin.com/in/jenniferbarbeeinc
• LinkedIn (Destination Innovate): linkedin.com/company/destinationinnovate
• Instagram: @alittlejennspiration
• X (Twitter): @jenniferbarbee
• Newsletter: The Daily Destruptor on LinkedIn

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🎧 Listen to the Full Episode

This conversation is packed with insights that go far beyond what we’ve covered here — from how OTAs are fragmenting destination data, to Jennifer’s vision for a repeatable national framework that connects hosts with their local tourism ecosystem. Hit play on the full Booked Solid episode wherever you listen to podcasts.

Ready to take control of your direct bookings and build a brand that works for you? Head over to CraftedStays.co to launch your mobile-optimized, SEO-driven direct booking website — and start turning traffic into bookings today.

Join the Booked Solid community to stay connected with top operators, strategies, and tools that help you grow your independent booking business. 🚀

Transcription

Jennifer Barbee

Jennifer: I think I just wanna double down and say to your listeners out there from a book direct strategy is, it is so worth it to get to know your visit, X, Y, Z, or your experience, whatever that destination is, find out, get to know them. They’ll be so happy to hear from you. Let them know what kind of content your marketing department is creating.

Maybe you guys can do some share there. There’d be so many big benefits to booking direct because most destinations also you’ll notice, don’t have a booking engine. Or they may not even list those things. Get to know that. Also, understand what your hotel market is when you’re trying to flesh out that book direct strategy with some of the destination information.

Because if you have large flags in your market, and a flag hotel is basically one that can carry a brand like Marriott, when you have the flags in there, they can’t really work with the DMO because they’re managed on a national basis. So you’ve got some flexibility. Some nimbleness that allows you to, to create that.

And also booking direct, remember that repeat guess is really important to the destination. So however that connects in there, these just great benefits to booking direct. But I do think it’s a, it’s always a challenge with whatever flavor of the day is.

Gil: Before we bring on my guest, I wanted to talk just a little bit about something that I’ve been hearing a lot from Host. I keep on hearing the same thing. I know my website isn’t converting, but I can’t afford $8,000 on an agency to rebuild it. Here’s the thing, you’re letting all these marketing strategies, you’re driving traffic and you’re putting it all to work.

But if your site isn’t really built to convert. You’re basically lighting your energy and money on fire, and even if you could afford an agency build, every time you want to test something or make a change, you’re having to pay them again. You can’t iterate, you can’t test, and you really can improve on things.

You don’t need a custom $10,000 website to get the conversion rates that really matter. You just need the right platform. That’s why I built CraftedStays. It’s purpose built for short-term rentals and designed from the ground up to help you drive more direct bookings. You can finally turn that traffic into bookings and you can keep on testing and improving.

As you learn, you can make changes all on the platform. You don’t need to learn something new. So if you need some help or you wanna get started, go ahead and go to CraftedStays co and start your free trial. Now let’s bring on our guests and dive deep into hospitality and marketing.

 Gil: Hey folks. Welcome back to the Booked Solid show, the podcast where we’re bringing top operators to discuss hospitality, operations, and direct bookings. Today we have a very special show where we bring on Jennifer Barbee. She is just amazing. We had a little bit of chance to talk right before the show, and I had to stop us, , because we were just go diving deep into such interesting topic.

She opened my eyes to a whole new world that. I was not exposed to before. She is the founder of Destination Innovate. She is also the creator of the Host Gap. All in summary, she’s on a mission to help. Destination marketing organizations, what she calls dmo, what the industry calls dmo with short-term rental operators.

So we talk a lot about how each county, has this tourism organization where they’re trying to drive traffic into the county, the city or just the region. Region, and how. For the most part, short-term rental operators have not been exposed and have not been able to tap into it. We talk a lot about how these dmo have a lot of information on why people visit when they visit the different events that are happening.

What’s. What’s people’s trends and, and how short term rental operators can really get involved into that. It’s a really meaty discussion and I, I’m just really thrilled to bring Jennifer on. So without further ado, let’s bring her on.

Gil : Hey Jennifer, welcome to the show.

 Jennifer: Hey, Gil. Thank you so much. Glad to be here.

Gil : Yeah, I’ve only just gotten to know you very recently and we just had a, just right before the show we had a, a, a discussion and I was like, I wish we were recording already, because you’ve, you’ve Ed educated me so much and we’ve, I’ve had to like hold my tongue and ask you to pause so that we can keep things kind of fresh when we, when we talk on the show.

Um, but maybe to kinda get us started, do you mind giving folks an introduction on who you are?

 Jennifer: Absolutely, you’re right. We had a great convo before the show and I think it’s gonna continue. Now, for everybody listening, I’m Jen Barbee. I’m the CEO of Destination Innovate, and most recently created the Host Gap Conversation, which is host and home teams. My background starts. In the late nineties actually, uh, Gil and I were just talking about this.

I accidentally started in tourism because I accidentally became a programmer when the very first destination websites were being built. Um, was planning on studying anthropology, kind of change games on that. That did come around thankfully later on in the process. Like I get to, I get to see that passion now, but began with.

Building websites for some of the biggest destinations in the us So started with Las Vegas, then we had Miami, New York City, moved down to two tier two destinations. I was so blessed to be able to work with a little over 400 destinations before I even turned 30 years old. So I got a lot of education from just being in the trenches there.

Gil : and you, when you say destination websites, what’s an example of that?

 Jennifer: So a destination website is gonna be your, your DMO are considered destination marketing organization. So if I go to the ones we just talked about, that’s gonna be visit las vegas.com, that’s your DMO. And they handle not just leisure travel, but they’re predominantly, especially larger ones, are getting those conferences because you can get.

You know, one or a family when it becomes leisure. But on the conference thing, you’re getting, you know, a couple of thousand visitors at one time. So those conferences become really important in larger destination marketing organizations. Um, and that’s not typically your chamber. A lot of people feel like that’s the easy part to go.

That’s who promotes businesses, but the chambers, only in some destinations do they really focus on real tourism and leisure. Most of that is gonna be whoever, whoever collects that bed tax. So that could be a nonprofit standalone, that could be a city department, it could be a state department. It kind of varies.

So it takes a little research to find out that space. So I work in a very, very niche space so far.

Gil : And so when, uh, okay. I, I, there’s so many questions of like, how do I find who collects the taxes and where it goes to, but I wanted, I want you to continue kind of your journey on, on, on what it is. Uh, but I’m gonna put, hold on that one.

 Jennifer: Sure. So, uh, so after like a whirlwind of explosion in my late twenties to early thirties, I decided to slow it down a little bit. That was a lot at one time, and it also obviously turned into advertising. Websites were one thing, then it turns into advertising. I actually think that destinations made a big mistake before the OTAs came out.

Expedia and Velocities, they had the opportunity to own the official traveler and visitor, but I think everyone was a little scared, which isn’t. Necessarily unrealistic when you’re talking about civic politics. Um, but then my, my work got a little deeper with those destinations once I slowed down from the digital and web aspect of it, was to find out, you know, what’s really going on in the community.

Hoteliers were all you ever heard about. I found that kind of bizarre because I was always, always, always a short term rental guest. You know, I went through all those destinations, a hotel, an airport, and home. It just became. A short term rental became my vote for independence, my vote for being able to enjoy that business trip.

So it was always a real advocate of that. That work has now brought me to looking at since 2020, and really that’s where the tipping point came for the, the smaller host market to those under 50 doors has exploded to almost 30% of our overall lodging product now. And so I think it’s time to re-look at these systems.

And kind of find out where that gap can actually mean better business for our host, better stewardship for our destinations, and just a better, healthier economic environment.

Gil : Yeah.

 Jennifer: today.

Gil : Yeah, so, so you mentioned just now 30%, that’s what you’re saying is 30% of lodging now goes to short-term rentals, independent, and is that short-term rental or is that kind of more broader?

 Jennifer: kind of bleeds, so you’re gonna see independent lodging would be. Non flags, so it’s gonna be more like A, B and B and an N would be the only kind of hotel product. Most of that is gonna be your houses, your short-term rentals, your resorts, your condos. So only a small fraction would would be anything considered near a hotel.

It’d be like a boutique hotel. Yeah.

Gil : Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking is like, okay, so it includes all short term rentals, which are homes, condos, and so on, but also boutique hotels along with that as well too. B bns and such. Okay. And how does that, how has that changed throughout the time? Like I, do you have any stats on what it was previously and kind of where it’s trending towards now?

 Jennifer: it was, uh, prior to 2020 and 2019, it was only close to 4%.

Gil : 4%.

 Jennifer: But you’re talking about the whole country. So you’re gonna see, like, again, in, in very high leisure destinations who had short term rental product before they had hotels, their hotels can’t sell. You’re talking like. Miami’s a massive boutique hotel and short terminal market.

They would’ve seen something different, a different anomaly, but they’ve also like figured that out and had to work with those short terminals a lot earlier. But, um, most, yeah, 4% was really where we were before 2020. We’re right at right at 30%, 27, depending on the market, but right at 30% and that’s now hitting middle America.

So now this becomes. A bigger issue. This isn’t just a very specific high leisure drive issue anymore.

Gil : And is this kind of why we’ve seen such a kind of chaotic. I don’t know how you say it, but like we’ve seen many cities and counties not know what to do with short term rentals and how do they regulate or not regulate and just trying to really try to piece things together and not really know what the right path is.

Because some are really embracing it, some are not, and some are like, okay, I’m don’t know what to do so I’m not gonna do anything. And then they end up. Later citing one side or the other, changing the rules is that kinda why we’re seeing such a disruption in the last three or four years, because we’re going from four per 4% up to 30.

 Jennifer: Yes. Yeah, you’re seeing that come on so fast. They dunno how to deal with it. And again, historically, quick, little fun, little history lessons. So, um. D Os as we call ’em, just kind of broadly started as what’s called a CDB, that’s a convention and a visitors bureau. So obviously conventions were first, it was created by a couple of hoteliers in, uh, in Detroit who thought, how can we get more room sold?

So basically they took a piece of their lodging tax and that became standard. So hotels became standard paying into this lodging tax. Short-term rentals did not. And in some cases there’s still fights all over the country about where that lodging tax is going from short-term rentals. But because that accelerated so fast after, you know, after 2020, nobody knew how to keep up with it.

So from the civic side of things, it really does reward discernment committees. It becomes slower in the short term rental side. These are entrepreneurs, man. They need speed, they need profit. Those two systems have never slowed down to talk to each other because they don’t see the benefit, and except in very specific leisure destinations,

Gil : Where. Where do you see things headed now? I, I’m skipping like several

 Jennifer: that’s okay.

Gil : I’ll go back to some of the other questions I have later on, but like, kind of riding on this, what you’ve seen, the history, what we’re seeing now, what’s your premonition of the next few years for us?

 Jennifer: Oh, I love this. And also I think you guys did your job. Like Steve Martin says, be so good till they can’t ignore you. That’s where you are. So now we’ve hit this tipping point. I can’t tell you how many calls I got January 2nd once these destinations got their tax report from 2025 and found out, oh yeah, this might have been like 15% last year, but here we are now, so they’re paying attention.

So if I look ahead. You know, this conversation’s gonna get better, it’s gonna get different in different destinations, but I mean, you guys are part of, part of the fabric, part of the community, part of the stewardship that D os are trying to, trying to accomplish. So, well, so I think if I look five years down the road, uh, you’ll see standard host owners being on the boards for tourism promotion, being part of the conversation about where that advertising money goes.

What kind of tourist we want in our destination, how to increase repeat visitation. I think the alignment between a destination and a tax entity, a promotion entity and a short term rental community is really going to accelerate return visitation because that brand identity becomes a, a thorough through.

So all that to say that’s my best paced scenario. I’m a super optimistic, maybe toxically optimistic, but I see it going well now that they know what’s going on.

Gil : I, I can share that optimism, um, more generally as well too. What, what do you think? Okay, so, so we’ve, short term rentals have, has done a really good job at really saying, okay, you should be paying attention to us. We’re driving significant amount of value back into the counties and the cities and so on, and.

The vision is, or the premonition is that we’re going to be a much bigger part of the conversation where sometimes we’re not even part of the conversation at all and things are happening in isolation now. What do you think needs to happen for us to get there? What changes needs to happen? What activities needs to happen on both sides of the conversation for that vision to to come, come into fruition?

 Jennifer: Yeah, I could share with you my theory, which I’m, I’m stress testing now with this. Um. Uh, covet we have coming up in the summer, but my theory is it’s a systems problem, not a moral problem. And I think that is what before caused us not to come together, both of those sides of the market because it became like a, oh, we should be nice to our hosts.

There’s there’s small business owners here. So that becomes, that seemed like a moral issue now that we’re seeing that it’s 68 to $70 billion in lodging for short-term rentals alone. That’s that 27 to 30%. Now it makes a lot of sense. So we’ve gotta go back and look at the system. Where are we missing representation that that matches that taxation?

We’re literally getting taxation with that representation now. So

Gil : yes.

 Jennifer: I didn’t mean to go there, but that’s where it, that’s where it leads Gil. So I think it’s a systems issue, and those systems have to be done on a couple of levels. We’re trying to start it on a national conversation because I think it’s gonna be.

The louder leaders, the leaders that sit on other boards, that represent other types of both sides of this industry. Um, once we can come to some agreement there on that framework, then it starts, for lack of a better word, a trickle down into frameworks in smaller destinations and local communities. And we plan to take this framework on the road so that we can educate as many as possible into a system that’s repeatable.

Gil : Yeah. Yeah. And we talked a little bit about this, um, before the show, but, um, I think a lot of your work aligns really well with what Dana and Dave are doing at Rent Responsibly.

 Jennifer: Love them.

Gil : Yeah, I, I, I see, and we talk about this not often enough to be quite honest, but. What I’m seeing is that it’s because that, it’s because the lack of regulations, the lack of structure in a lot of these counties, them not knowing what to do is why we’ve been seeing such a revolt on what short term rentals is.

We’re seeing like people, neighbors worried that their towns are gonna be flipped upside down and that these short term rental hosts, these independent hosts are, are being reckless. But that’s not actually really the case, and that’s not actually what we want as well too, like on the other side of it.

 Jennifer: agree. I I see that. I see that, but, you know, uh, I’m, I’m telling, and this is what I love about Dave and, um, Dana’s work and Alexis’s work is, you know, if someone has a rager in a small town. You guys’, everybody’s reputation is ruined for the next five to seven years, so it’s really, really important that rent responsibly doing those things are really important.

But I have seen way more instances of really good hosts, and so I just think that, you know, they’re doing the right thing for the community. Community, the destinations, and gosh, I don’t blame them because they’re having to do so much job every year, especially as this digital’s coming on. It’s like, okay, now you got a podcast.

If you’re a destination, now you have to add that on. Okay, we can’t just be here now. We have to be on TikTok. We can’t be on TikTok. I mean, it’s overwhelming for them. So we have to simplify this as letting them know these hosts are also doing community work. They are also having your guests talking to your guests.

This becomes part of a traveler profile. How does that relieve some of the issues on the destinations? And that’s where I think e alignment is an economic answer.

Gil : Yeah. As I think about this, we have so many, such a diverse range of property managers

 Jennifer: Mm-hmm.

Gil : We have some that are really small and this is maybe like what we call like a side hustle and maybe their investment property. We have ones that are more established and growing into more property management and we have like really established ones as well too, and many, many kind of a wide spectrum, all in between. But as I kind of think about the industry and especially ones that are more independent, um, there. What I’m seeing is that there are some people that are really, really involved into shaping what these standards are and there’s almost like this whole wave of folks that are not oblivious, but they’re just not, they don’t have that visibility into what’s happening and how they should be involved or could get involved.

And as property managers and host that may have W twos and they may have a job, I see that discrepancy, kind of like pulling apart where. A lot of property managers and hosts, especially on the smaller side, aren’t part of the conversation. They’re

 Jennifer: they’re not,

Gil : and and I, I don’t know what needs to change to make it sustainable for them.

Like how do we like lift it all up and, and get everybody involved in this in a, in a systematic way? And I don’t, I don’t know. Have you have any thoughts about that?

 Jennifer: I’ve got lots of thoughts about that, but I think the first thing to do, because you just, you just laid out the complexity of some of the issue, and that is the first thing you’ve gotta do is find out what’s going on in your own community, you know, to find out if that’s, if that’s a predominant issue, if there’s pushback, issue.

I love what, um. Visit Lodi is done in California actually, and they have, their independent lodging association actually has an open house so the community can come and see. It’s not so scary. What? Why is there a rental next door? They get to come and see. They get to meet the host. That goes a long way in Goodwill, and then that, that effect really does come out in how the guests are received and all that kind of good stuff as well.

So I think there’s a lot of ways that can be done. It does take a little bit of. Of investigation, a little bit of finding out what’s going on and where there’s duplication of effort. That’s also another systems issue. Probably a down the road issue that can be addressed, but there’s a lot of duplication of marketing effort and advertising effort to get the same guest in the market.

Gil : Yeah. I want to kind of flip from like the, the regulation, the more

 Jennifer: mm-hmm.

Gil : and how this industry shifting into, I think one thing that we talked about on during the show is like, you, you mentioned this, this term that I actually quite honestly did not know all much about the d os, the destination marketing organizations here and how actually hosts property managers on the more independent short-term rental side of it.

Has been underleveraging, this organization there where they’ve been much more entwined with the, the big hotels and and so on. How do you see hosts kind of getting involved in that? Or first off, should they get involved and what impact does that have on their business? And then how do they get involved into

 Jennifer: Well, I think it, they should get involved because on that side, I will say destinations are facing their own challenges because they do get this bed tax. Now, most of the time a community feels like, that’s my taxes. Why are you spending my taxes?

That’s a visitor’s tax. So destinations have this whole relevancy issue they have to deal with right now. Like, why are they there? Would the visitors come without them? Where are they spending their ad dollars? So there’s a lot of things like that that, um, a short-term rental can, a short-term rental host can benefit from because the d have to do that.

They have tons of travelers research. It’s gonna help a short term rental. They have their own campaigns, their own advertising, their own social, going on their own events put over there. So that becomes a knowledge resource. If you don’t even have a relationship with that destination, you have a full team of people who are doing their job to educate travelers and staycations on the destination, why wouldn’t that same information be great for your guests?

Gil : So you’re, you’re telling me that there is an organization kind of within these counties that their whole purpose is to drive visitors into? Into that destination. That’s their sole purpose there. And that for the most part, short-term rental operators have not tapped into that, but they do have the opportunity to tap into it and get the benefit of knowing who’s visiting, when they visiting, what the types of events are happening.

All that information out there that they’re doing actually can, can be leveraged by by the operator.

 Jennifer: and even further, you could even put something physical in your, in your short term rental. If you just find out, again, it’s not usually not a chamber, sometimes a chamber. It’s usually like a visit. So and so experience, so and so. Find out who that is. You can request visitor guides. Printed materials with all the activities and things to do in your destination and have those for your guests.

So there’s so much benefit in finding that information and tapping into it.

Gil : Are there. What resources, so, so, so we talked a bit about like, okay, we can benefit from this. Where do I even go? Do I, do I go to now like visit Gatlinburg or, uh, these destination and then try to poke around to find it? Or is there some more logical way to figure out like, okay, my, my lodging, my tourism tax dollars are going here, I should talk to this person at these places.

Like what, where should someone go to

 Jennifer: I would look, there’s an, there’s a fairly new, um, role in d os. It’s usually community management, community steward. That’d be a good place to go because you’re, you guys are considered a stakeholder basically. So the thing that you have to be co cognizant of, and what a lot of my friends in the short term rental industry have run across is when you call, if you don’t.

Introduce yourself or say the right things. Nine times outta 10, they’re gonna sell you advertising. So like you’re not trying. So you have to think about that, especially if it’s chamber chambers kind of like pay your membership, then here’s some advertising. Here’s how you can get involved. And so the way I would approach it to say I’m a new host or I’m an established host, I love this city, I love this destination.

Would love to know any kind of data or research you can share with me about the visitor makeup. Secondly, how can I better align with the kind of travelers the destination is attracting? And third, do you have any materials that I’m able to, that you’re fine sharing with me, or that I might be able to put on my website and my other materials?

Just have a, just have a convo with

Gil : so, that sounds so simple, but I think it’s, it’s so underutilized. Like, I think even like the small little tip of saying, okay, you don’t wanna just go on their website and, and poke around and email the info at, on the very bottom. No, you want to go to the community steward there. Um, and then asking them these very pointed questions.

That seems like a huge unlock for a lot of property manager. A lot of hosts in there.

 Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think, again, you just gotta think about, these are just. People who love their city, who love their county, who love their state. So if you don’t, if you approach ’em with the, Hey, I’d love to help and know more and do this sort of thing, rather than, you know, why aren’t you representing, why am I not in this ad?

Because I think a lot of short-term rentals, once they realize how much tax is being contributed, then they get a little bit like I have to be here. They get a little entitled. So you gotta be careful ’cause this is civic. This isn’t private. So it’s a little different kind of politics. I love that kind of politics.

Gil : Yeah, I mean, I almost like we pay a ton in, in taxes in, in, in both Tennessee and in Missouri, especially to the, the counties there, and I almost felt like. It’s also like my dues, like I can’t fight it. It’s, I almost feel like it’s almost the same tax. I pay the IRS, I just have to

 Jennifer: oh, but yeah, you do. But

Gil : Yeah, and, and there’s maybe like some ways that I can do like bonus depreciation and kind of defer some of it, but like I just have to pay it.

But for these types of lodging taxes, there’s no real way around it. And I always thought it was just my dues. I never thought about it like, oh, actually it is your dues, but the dues are due for this particular reason. And I can in, I can leverage, not leverage that. I think that might be like the wrong negative word there, but I should be utilizing that more effectively.

Um, and, and because it’s, it’s paying into driving more and more traffic into it and really working and collaborating with them is something that I never thought about. Yeah.

 Jennifer: No, no, it really is. And um, you know, when you think about like where those taxes are going and how that’s being represented, again, if you come at it not as a, I guess I call the, the short term rentals and the destination marketers a situationship, because, you know, it seems like it could be tense, but I, I just think there’s a common goal here, and I just think if we stay on that common goal and focus on frameworks and how those systems work and get us, get you guys back in the system that is.

You know, the core of the economic system in tourism

Gil : Yeah. Yeah. When you have some of these datas there, and we talked a little bit about this, some of this on the show, how should you be leveraging that data and to drive more, more direct bookings?

 Jennifer: So, I love this, uh, love this topic too, because also the other, the other situation about bringing more people in is, is people get real scared of over tourism is a super big buzzword right on the destination side right now. Too many people. And if you look at certain like events and things like that, it definitely has a potential over tourism because it’s a broader aspect, but you don’t have to worry about that if you know the identity.

So that’s where those stats and that research comes in. If you really understand the identity of your traveler, then you’re, you’re getting repeat visitation, which by the way is. So much more beneficial than that first time visitation. So you’re getting repeat visitation. You know, this is, you know, a mom in her forties with a boy and a girl.

Two kids, they travel four times a year. She’s also doing soccer, you know, drives that sort of thing. Those are important things, especially what I call the smurf market, or we call the smurf market, the social, military, educational, religious, fraternal. Those are your small groups. Those are your soccer moms.

Those are your get together people. That is such a huge opportunity for short term rentals. And you guys don’t have the data about those groups that come in from the destination. So a destination who does tons of investment and research, they could say, here’s your groups. We get this type of, um, you know, reunion in every two years.

So you guys know that you guys can bid on that. You’re not bidding on larger because you can’t, you aren’t together on that. You’re not able to bid on those larger room blocks because you’re usually single audiences. This, that kind of research will unlock those things for you. And I say you, I don’t mean like Gil, I’m not pointed, but.

Gil : Yeah. You are listeners, the folks in the cars, um, uh, I want you to repeat the, the smrc market again, because I’m gonna, I’m personally gonna rewind back, but for our listeners here, what are the, what are the, was it five letters? Is it five letters? Five groups of, of folks that, okay.

 Jennifer: So it’s uh, S-M-E-R-F, social, military, educational, religious, and Fraternal. So, uh, that’s acronyms probably 60 years old now. So a social group would be like, let’s say like in Pigeon Forge, they have the big quilting, you know, kind of thing that goes on.

That’s a group that’s, you know, people who are interested in quilting, people who go to these competitions that becomes what we call a Smurf group. It’s an unmanaged group versus like a conference that specifically comes in and needs a room block. Okay, so they, they travel more often. They spend a lot more money.

Um, and it’s just, it’s just a matter of unmanaged groups that includes weddings, and I know you guys are pretty far in the weddings market, but it includes those, those kind of things. It’s more than one room and it’s a collective, uh, point at something. Education could be some of these smaller conferences on a specific, you know, specific type of thing.

These are niche groups. It’s kind of sometimes hard to find out what those are without that destination research, because those research firms don’t only study the behavior and the patterns that are going on, you know, and the engagement and the bookings and that sort of thing. But the surveying they doing, the panels they do gives us a purview into what types of groups may be coming that year, where they’re coming in a different situation, how you can bring them in.

It’s a high, high value piece of business, and those are gonna be, you know, 10 people to 50 people.

Gil : Wow. I, I, I like some of the events I’m going through is like, I know like we’re in us in the Smokey Mountains, we had like the Rod Run and we

 Jennifer: Mm-hmm.

Gil : the, I think it’s called the, the Jeep Escape. I forgot what it’s called, but there’s a bunch of these like different car shows that happened

 Jennifer: Car shows are big. Yeah.

Gil : Yep. And we have like our, like arts and crafts, um, events as well too, like, which I think probably is the, the colting one. A few others. We have a few others in Gatlinburg as well too. I, I. Never thought that I can like tap into the knowledge of like you mentioned like one thing serving the panels. Like what these organizations are doing is they’re actually figuring out like who’s in there, how are they, how is that growing year over year?

And really trying to understand like what are the types of events this community should be putting together more of? And where should the city and county be investing more dollars into? And the better that you know, that. I’m thinking from not just a marketing perspective, like making sure that you’re tailoring your marketing towards that, but also on like the investment side as like some property managers and hosts as they expand their portfolios.

This gives them a wealth of knowledge of making sure that the product that that they build, what they’re buying, what they’re furnishing, how they amenitize their properties are geared towards specifically these types of stays.

 Jennifer: And Absolutely. And the, and the data share there, because you guys have the guests like barely ever, that’s why they spend so much on research. Does A DMO find out about the actual guests? They have panels, they have research, they have the tax collection, but. Finding out what you know about a specific guest is very different.

So when that data share comes together, it could be honestly just incredible.

Gil : How does, I think that brings me to, to a topic that I wanted to bring up with you. How do the OTAs play in all of this? Are they involved? Are they deliberately not being involved? Like how does, how do the Airbnbs, the vrbo, the Expedias booking.com, how do they play in all this?

 Jennifer: well, gosh, they did. They did such a favor and such a disservice at the same time when they came about. I mean, but here’s the thing. They are where they are now and the travelers trust and respect that. If you look at national statistics, people are gonna research mostly even on social media. And this is where the book direct conversation kind of comes back.

They’re gonna research nationally mostly on social media. They’re gonna hit some websites. Destination websites aren’t as relevant as you think, so they’re trying to push that as well. They wanna get official information out there, but then they’re gonna book to whatever flavor they like. So that’s gonna be like, I’ve gotten my Expedia points, or you know, I’m an Airbnb only kind of person.

Now, Airbnb, it’s gotten into hotels. Whew. It’s a mess. I could go on for a lot, but I think where they play in it is. That’s why the banding together is so important because they are calling the shots and they’re gonna continue to call the shots and fragment because they’re doing a greater job of the destination education.

Even then, you look at a TripAdvisor, you can find a lot more about a destination than you can on a destination website. So I think they’re gonna continue to. Deliver the demand of the traveler. And it’s so hard to keep up with the demand of the traveler considering just how volatile everything can be.

Um, you know, I think that’s where the OTAs, we have to watch them. There’s no battling and there’s no reason to battle, just where do they fit in. And how does that work?

Gil : Do, do these, are these DMO fragmented in in many ways or is there some sort of. Collective group association that helps knowledge share amongst all these dms.

 Jennifer: There’s, uh, there’s a couple of great organizations. One is called Destinations International, and that one, um, I mean it does have some international in it, but it’s mostly domestic, and so those are gonna be, almost every member of that is gonna be your official. DMO organization. So Destinations International is great.

US travel is another one. Slightly more expensive. Lots, lots deeper research. But as far as knowledge share goes, you’re gonna see Destinations International, then you’re gonna break those down. They’re Southeast Tourism Society. That would include. Where your properties are. That’s a great place. Lots of DMO in that.

Um, then you’re gonna have one west on the other side. There’s, there’s actually so many good organizations, but there’s not been one that ever got D os and short-term rentals in a room together, which is what I hope to accomplish in July.

Gil : Uh, what’s, what’s happening in July?

 Jennifer: So we are doing the first, we’re calling it a traveling Think lab, but it’s called Hosts and Home Teams, you guys being the host, the d os, being the home teams.

And right before July 24th, July 21st through the 23rd is Destinations Internationals annual conference. There’s gonna be 2000 plus destination professionals in Portland, Oregon. So I’m like, Hey, let’s make it easy for them. So on the day after that, on the 24th. We are hosting the summit, um, from eight to five to bring in short term rental leaders and the DMO leaders and kind of start breaking down this framework, a lot of the things we talked about, and then come up with what I hope to be an open source framework that can be repeated locally across the country.

Gil : And that, I think that that’s, that’s kind of where I was going with the question is I’m thinking about kind of this, I’ll call it a mess for right now, for lack of a better term, this mess of. These dmo having such access to data. These hosts that are, they’re actually very connected in many ways, like short-term rental hosts are actually very connected.

They hear there’s a bunch of different Facebook groups with 30 to 60,000 members in them. Um, and so the short term rental community, there’s a bunch of masterminds. There’s a lot of like content and word of mouth and things that they can kind of corral around, but what I worry about is like if the DMLS are so fragmented in the way that they disseminate information and they would, the way that they work and the frameworks that they use, it’s really hard for short term rental to say, okay, I’m now going into this market, or I, I’ve, I’ve found success in this market.

Can I repeat in this market? It,

 Jennifer: So it’s gonna be harder for, it’s gonna be harder for your investment standpoint on that for sure. Um, this is more of a benefit of where you’ve already chosen I, from a, uh, an investment decision standpoint. I wouldn’t necessarily. Totally focusing on the promotion of the specific destination. I’d look more at your state data,

Gil : Got it. And, and I wasn’t, I wasn’t saying like that from an investment, like how do you get, extract more information out of it, but more so like.

 Jennifer: Yeah.

Gil : We’re, we’re in two different markets. Right. Um, and the way that I would maybe go to visit Gatlinburg may be different than visit Branson and just knowing how to navigate the two.

If I know that like, oh, for short-term rentals hosts, there’s a lot of like shared knowledge. Like there’s a lot of, like, we have a lot of different conferences. We end up hearing the same type of information. We think about like systems, processes, like how do you do certain things and run short-term rentals really, really effectively.

And what I wonder is like, okay, if there is a marriage also on the other side, on the, on the DMO side, and that there are frameworks in place. Then it makes it very easy for people, for the short term rental operators to say, okay, this is how they operate. This is how we should get in there. This is how we should be involved.

This is how we get information. But if it’s end up becoming fragmented, you almost have like every host trying to figure out for each individual market, how do you really tap into such a wide, vast of resource.

 Jennifer: I think, I think I, and I, I don’t wanna misstep when I say it’s fragmented. I mean when it becomes to like a chamber of commerce, I think that’s where I, you know, where most of it gets fragmented. In short term rental mind, there’s only like two or three main types of D os. You’re gonna have a county funded or a, you know, government funded.

You’re gonna have a standalone nonprofit. Um, you know, those are, those are your major ones. The chamber is a rare one. And so again, with this framework and what we hope to come out of it is, so a short-term rental owner can say, you’re in two markets. Okay, here are the three types. It’s that type. Okay. If it’s this type, I do the rest of the flow chart.

So we do hope to demystify that for them in this, in this

Gil : I love that. I love that made. That is, I, as I think about like how you, and you mentioned this very early on, is like there’s a lack of, it was, you talked about moral and structure.

 Jennifer: mm-hmm.

Gil : Um, and I think it’s the, I agree with you that, that the structure is lacking in so many different places and without that structure. It’s really hard for any individual or organization to be able to connect the dots, but when you do have that structure in place, you can say, okay, this is how things are operated. This is how I should go into it. Like I know for instance, taxes, I know how to do taxes in both of these counties. I had to learn them from scratch, like.

Taxes is so, so hard to know, okay, if I get a short-term rental in this county, it’s gonna be taxed this way and these are the places I need to go to. I had to learn all that. Um, but I, like, after going into a new market, I knew, okay, I have to go to this part of the agency and to figure out, okay, do I have taxes there?

How do I remit it? What cadence it is, what percentage it is? Um, so there is a bit of structure on like the taxation side of things. That makes it easy. Yeah.

 Jennifer: And you know what’s crazy on, on the destination side of things and why I wanna bring you guys together too, is on the destination side, most of them don’t know who you are. There’s not, there’s business license, um, laws in different places, but normally A-D-A-D-M-O or whoever the tax collector is before they disseminate, they’re getting, especially from the OTA, we, we go back to the OTA conversation here.

It comes in a lump sum. So Airbnb pays the taxes. You don’t know if that was 12 properties, if that was 200 properties, you don’t know who it is, so they don’t even know who you are. So identity is like step one,

Gil : Yeah, and I, I think like for any property manager that is independent, especially. Like anyone that’s on VRBO, on direct especially, we have to basically remit taxes ourselves. Um, in, in many, many situations. I think booking.com, I, I, I forget actually, I, I’m not on booking.com myself personally, but I know that like, because I take direct, because I take VRBO direct and I’m the merchant of record, I have to then report back to the county what it is, and they, they have that data.

Quite honestly. They don’t ask for nearly enough data.

 Jennifer: mm-hmm.

Gil : Like they asked me like, what is the total amount for the month? And that’s it. They don’t ask me By a

 Jennifer: They only ask about revenue, and that’s, that’s something else that I’ve just discovered. Talking to some leaders on the short-term rental side in the. Regulation side is if destinations and hosts push a little further, you can get more data from Airbnb, at least Airbnb I know of more on the guest data.

Gil : then that’s a big swoop for them. Like that’s a big win. You can go and hit one organization now you have so much more data rather than. Going through each individual host on the direct and BRBO side, like it’s gonna be hard for them to adapt into that. Um, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s quite smart.

 Jennifer: I know. It’s so complex. It’s gotten so sticky. It’s so exciting for me though, like I don’t think this is gonna be the year we solve it. I think this is the year we name it and start working on it,

Gil : I like that. And I, I do think that it is a complex problem,

 Jennifer: but

Gil : but. If attacked the right way. I think that there can be some pretty massive strides. And I, I do think that like structure and frameworks and ways to think about things and even naming things, um, putting things into pillars and, and frameworks.

Those go a long way to make sure that everybody understands, like, this is kind of like how we kinda move the needle towards some uniformity on that stuff.

 Jennifer: Absolutely,

Gil : Jennifer, we went pretty deep into a lot of different areas. Were there any topics that we talked about during the beginning of the show that you want to kind of bring back up?

Um, otherwise I do have my, my rapid fire questions, but I, I wanna make sure that we covered all the things that was on your mind coming into the show.

 Jennifer: I think I just wanna double down and say to your listeners out there from a book direct strategy is, it is so worth it to get to know your visit, X, y, Z, or your experience, whatever that destination is, find out, get to know them. They’ll be so happy to hear from you. Let them know what kind of content your marketing department is creating.

Maybe you guys can do some share there. There’d be so many big benefits to booking direct because most destinations also you’ll notice, don’t have a booking engine, or they may not even list those things, get to know that. Also, understand what your hotel market is, when you’re trying to flesh out that book direct strategy with some of the destination information.

Because if you have large flags in your market, and a flag hotel is basically one that can carry a brand like Marriott, when you have the flags in there, they can’t really work with the D os because they’re managed on a national basis. So you’ve got some flexibility. Some nimbleness that allows you to, to create that.

And also booking direct, remember that repeat guess is really important to the destination. So however that connects in there, these just great benefits to booking direct. But I do think it’s a, it’s always a challenge with whatever flavor of the day is popular with travelers. Yeah.

Gil : You mentioned the repeats, like in, in Gatlinburg specifically, we have families that visit year after year. Um, and for very specific purposes, we had to learn that ourselves. We, we pretty much, like when we have someone rebooking with us, we, we kind of survey them and, and, and we figure out like, oh, actually it’s the same guest that happened.

This stayed with us before. Um, and they’re visiting for this particular reason, and then it helps us on. The marketing, the things that we, we do, the things that we say our, our

 Jennifer: how you talk to them. Yeah.

Gil : and how you Yeah, and how you talk.

 Jennifer: And that’s a, it’s perfect. When I mentioned, uh, I know, know Gatlinburg as well, pigeon Forge worked with them for decades. But, um, you know, on that case they do know, like Pigeon Forge last I know has like a 75% guest repeat, where you have like, Miami has like a 12%.

So when you know those things, you’re right, you can do a better job of booking direct, building that relationship. It’s predictable income. You know, when Sarah and her kids are gonna head over that summer so you can do something special for them, it becomes. A marketing engine of its own.

Gil : I think that also changes the. The way that you do your marketing, the strategies that you deploy as well too. Because if I know that it’s a, like if I’m in a repeat market, what I’m gonna probably be spending more time is. On my email newsletters, capturing emails, nurturing them. Over time like that is where I’d be spending a majority of my efforts.

However, if I find that it’s low repeat, then I may be chasing new guests out there that are finding about the destination for the first time or more word of mouth that they found about it from someone else. But it’s often a place that they probably travel like once every four or five years. If I knew that information, it changes the way that I would go out and reach for that.

 Jennifer: it’s a completely different mindset in dating, right? Like one, you’re headed towards a long-term relationship. So you know, it really is how you approach them, but also the ability to delight them. Give, you know, they’re coming a second time. Find out what their favorite coffee is, put a little snack in there.

All of those things don’t only make guest satisfaction and repeat, but those guests are gonna post it on Instagram, let’s be honest. So now you got a marketing word of mouth for you. So absolutely repeat. Guest repeat visitation. Internet in on, even in a historically low repeat visitation market can be completely established by the, by the, uh.

Host itself. Hotels don’t do that.

Gil : I agree with you. Because they have a much more global way of, of thinking about marketing. They’re thinking of, they’re, think, they’re thinking much more globally and they globalize in like all of their units across the nation or, or elsewhere.

 Jennifer: And have a concierge. That’d be the last quick little book, direct tip I have for you is like, have a concierge to be able to help people make choices about the destination. If you can afford it, a concierge would be great. Even a chat, even if you’ve gotta use AI for it, that extra piece also like, makes it tighter.

Okay. I am definitely going to Gil’s company because I know I’m gonna find out like, what’s going on that weekend? I’m coming on, you know, they, they wanna know those things too.

Gil : Yeah. I love it. Awesome. Jennifer, you, you, you. You blew me away. I, I, I knew that we’re gonna have a good

 Jennifer: I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.

Gil : No, it’s, it’s really, really good. Um, it’s, it’s, it’s good to get an, I wouldn’t say outside perspective because you’re not necessarily on the outside, but it’s a different perspective that I think a lot of operators aren’t exposed to.

Um, and hopefully after this conversation. This ends up becoming the, the Beder Minoff where you hear it once and you hear it over and over and over again, type of thing, and that we start to see this more, more prevalently.

 Jennifer: Yeah. I’m not completely in your world. I’m just kind of y’all’s cool. Older cousin.

Gil : Yeah. Oh, I think, I think you’ll be pulled in quite a bit. It sounds like. Well, Jennifer, we usually end this show. Three questions. So I’ll start with the first one. What’s a good book recommendation? I’m always looking for a good nugget. I don’t get to consume all the books that I get re-referred to me, but I, I, I add them to my little library of like, my, my, my want to reads.

 Jennifer: It’s so funny you ask ’cause it’s propping up my microphone right now. I read this one every year. Confessions of an Advertising Man, David Ogilvy.

Gil : Okay. What is it about?

 Jennifer: is it about? So Ogilvy is one of the largest, uh, global ad agencies in the world and most people think of David Ogilvy is like the Messiah of it.

He would start as a copywriter, had no degree built the largest. Branding piece you can see in Ogilvy is really respected. So confessions of an advertising man, it just breaks down like narrative psychology, what we call today. He broke it down in the 1950s. You know what, what triggers somebody to feel certain ways about copy, about advertising about?

And it works for social media. So I read it every single year just to remind me of what really motivates and how to use those motivations to a higher cause.

Gil : Yeah, I’m guessing that book was published many, many, many,

 Jennifer: Many, many, many years ago. Yeah. 1956 or something way before. Me too.

Gil : Wow. I

 Jennifer: think of the era of the Mad Men, like the, this is the OG Mad Men.

Gil : oh, I really appreciate those timeless books. Those are the books I actually. I don’t hesitate very much to consume. Um, because I find that if, if a book was, has been referred from, from way back when, those are books that have kind of like, it’s built on strong foundations that don’t really change. And so like when. And when you consume it, even though the world around us is changing, a lot of times the foundations and the drivers and the things that people care about don’t often change all that much. Humans don’t change all that much

 Jennifer: really don’t. Mm-hmm. That’s what’s so fascinating. I have four daughters and I give them each the same book, and that’s how to Win Friends and Influence People.

Gil : okay.

 Jennifer: There’s classics. I mean, those are things that just teach you how to be more communicative and um, in society.

Gil : Yeah. Okay. I’ll definitely, I’ll definitely pick that one up. And I, I was gonna ask you do, do you have a preference or do you have a suggestion on the type of medium, this one to be consumed in audio, kindle or physical, but you’re holding the physical books? I’m guessing

 Jennifer: I am o, I am OG Gen X, so I do like my books in paper and I don’t like to be read too. I go too fast. I love podcasts though.

Gil : Uh, yeah, I,

 Jennifer: I.

Gil : I, I say this on the show every so often, but I find that depending on the type of book, I will either read it on, I’ll read it on Kindle, I’ll have it on paper, or I’ll have it on Audible. Um, if it’s a mindset book, I actually like being read to. Um, it almost like, it’s almost like them mentoring me when I’m, when they’re reading to me.

 Jennifer: oh, I like that.

Gil : Yeah, so I found like mindset books I love on audible reference books, things that like have frameworks. I typically get a paper copy of it because I, I like knowing where it

 Jennifer: like to mark it up and Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it

Gil : Yeah. And if it’s like a quick, like, oh, this, I got this recommendation, but it’s not, doesn’t kind of fall within those two cams, then I’ll, I’ll buy it on, on, on Kindle.

So because like I, I’m starting to run outta shelf space.

 Jennifer: Kendall’s a good option for, uh, for confessions of an advertising man. So, so, and also how to Win Friends and Influence People. Those are good Kindle books. Yeah. I.

Gil : Yeah, I think I, I think I do have the how to win friends on either physical or, or, or Kindle version. Yeah.

 Jennifer: It’s a classic,

Gil : second question.

 Jennifer: uh.

Gil : What’s one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new?

 Jennifer: Um, I think the first piece of advice I’d have is keep an open mind. ’cause when you’re starting something new, you have to remember someone may have walked that path before. Several people may have walked that path before. And being open and also receptive to, to lessons from others will set you up for better.

You know, better success, but also plan to fail. You’re never gonna succeed unless you fail first. So like, be okay making a fool of yourself. Be okay Do asking the odd questions, the uncomfortable questions. I think the tenacity of that is like the most important thing, trying to do something new.

Gil : Yeah. Someone shared with me the quote the other day of like, whether or not you succeed, you decide to succeed or to fail, you’re go, you’re, you’re right. Uh, and, and that kind of, that kind of hit me where like, okay, if you decide that you’re gonna succeed, you’re gonna do whatever it takes to succeed. But if you decide to fail, you’re gonna fail.

 Jennifer: That’s so true. It’s definitely a straight mindset on that, and I love something. I saw a meme the other day that said if the goal is experience, you’re always winning.

Gil : I really like that one.

 Jennifer: Yeah, I do

Gil : I’m gonna, I’m gonna write that down now. That one’s really good. I, I, I always like to find like these little, little. Mindset cues that I can seed into my little kids every so often, they don’t, might not understand it, but if I see it enough times, they’ll, they’ll eventually get

 Jennifer: It, it does, it does. My, uh, my kids say I talk in bumper stickers sometime, but I’m like, that’s because it’s repeat. You remember it though, don’t you? And one day it’ll hit just right.

Gil : I, I, I, I wouldn’t mind that at all if that’s how the kids interpret me. I do not mind that at all. Um, Jeff, last question. Okay. We talked a lot about different tactics, property managers and hosts can use to really leverage, uh, and grow their direct bookings. What’s one tactical advice that you would re recommend to them if they’re either trying to get started in direct bookings or trying to amplify the direct bookings?

 Jennifer: Well, I’d look at where your ad spend is. So let’s say you, you’ve got an advertising spend. Obviously I’m gonna, I’m gonna hit your core right here. You wanna make sure you’re optimized SEOed for any type of destination language. That’s how they’re gonna find you and discover you. But on the other side of things, I would be just as.

Just as helpful as possible to your visitors. So that means not necessarily, not necessarily just the amenities that you’re promising when they get in market, but whatever you can do pre-market, like itineraries for certain types of things. It’s really about serving them. If I feel like I’m served, I’m gonna book direct.

I’m gonna be more loyal because there’s a different kind of buyer that’s a book direct buyer than an OTA buyer. An OTA buyer may be traveling a lot, they’re gonna be more frequent travelers, possibly also. So an OTA traveler’s gonna be doing those things. A book direct traveler is gonna be less sophisticated, they’re gonna want more, um, personalization.

So if you just come at it with that mind, that brand set mind that’s gonna, I think translate for most short-term rental property owners.

Gil : Yeah. I think that with all the things that are happening in AI and guests looking for information and guidance on kind of where they visit,

 Jennifer: Have a cool social media presence. That’s where it absolutely starts now. Like 80% of travelers are starting there. So if you don’t have really good social media, that that website and booking may not give you what you want.

Gil : yeah, I may not get enough. The traffic that you’re looking

 Jennifer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Gil : awesome. Well, Jen, it was really good having you on the show. I learned a ton, a ton, ton, ton. Um, you’re having me think about things that I’ve never thought even existed before, so I really appreciate you educating me, educating our listeners here.

Uh, it was a fantastic conversation and I. I look forward to just seeing your work grow over the next year, what’s coming out in in July. Let’s make sure that we keep in touch and maybe have you back on the show, maybe a year from now and tell us like, okay, we’ve progressed this much, but we still need work in these areas and how we can get involved.

 Jennifer: a year from now. We’ll check in and I’ll either give you a great update or I’ll be day drinking. We’ll find out.

Gil : Let’s hope that’s not the latter.

 Jennifer: Let’s hope it’s not the latter. Such a pleasure, Gil. Thank you so much for having the

Gil : You’re welcome. All right, till next time. Bye Jen.