[00:00:57] John: How are you?

[00:01:00] Mateo: I

[00:01:00] Mateo: am fine, brother. Doing fantastic. How are you?

[00:01:04] John: I’m good. I’m good. I am excited. We’re going to dive into a unique and new, a a press release version of the No BS podcast. We’re excited to be joined by a colleague and friend of ours. Let’s dive right in I’ll let you go ahead and give a great introduction.

[00:01:23] Mateo: I like that we get to do things with and for our friends and the people that we know within this industry. We’ve always wanted to, on this show drop new things, right? And to, be first to the wires. And, it’s always great when it’s people we know. And today is no exception. Today we are joined by the one and only Mariah Rockman, founder of Smiling House Triangle Luxury Vacation Rentals, and something new that we are going to talk about today. The one and only Villa Tracker OTA. These are all exciting things with someone that I personally have been able to know since I’ve been in the industry a long time ago, met internationally since I was branded and have had the pleasure of watching her family and her team build an amazing business that we’re going to get to talk about today.

[00:02:14] Mateo: So Mariah. Welcome to the show.

[00:02:17] Moriya: Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure being here. Thank you for inviting me and I’m so excited to share the news with you and with all the audience, all the crowd out there because it’s really an exciting times for us. Yeah. Villa Tracker is Freshly been introduced yesterday with the big announcement with Guesty as a new and first to market.

[00:02:41] Moriya: OTA that’s connecting us, the vacation rental industry, with the legacy players of the travel agencies out there as a first time thing. And we are very proud to be the builders behind this bridge.

[00:02:58] Mateo: So talk to us. How did the, how did this come about? Cause this is something new, something we really haven’t seen.

[00:03:04] Mateo: This? Why now?

[00:03:05] Moriya: yeah. So first of all if we’re looking at the perspective of the vacation rental in general a little industry that let’s say we can mark started about 12 years ago with the big OTAs like Airbnb, Booking. com, et cetera. Since first days of this industry, since day one the idea was guests To host direct contact for the best hospitality journey.

[00:03:33] Moriya: Each one each host can give to their guests and there was no place for any third party. So actually all these travel professionals, such as travel agents, concierge companies, travel designers, event planners, they’ve been kicked out of the game.

[00:03:50] Moriya: At that time, if we’re looking at the little history lesson, These professional travel industry players.

[00:03:58] Moriya: Were looking at us, the hosts, the vacation rental industry as not so professional. We do not have the diploma from the hotelier this institution or hospitality MBA from that university, they didn’t really trust us as a provider of a real solid travel product.

[00:04:20] Moriya: And in many places in the world, these industry players were also protesting in the streets and saying this Airbnb and all these other OTAs are not serious. They should not be part of the travel industry at all. Things have changed. We all know where the vacation rental industry is and how important it is and how the the travel world of 2024 cannot do without.

[00:04:52] Moriya: But

[00:04:52] Moriya: the one thing that didn’t change is the fact that this professional couldn’t and still can’t until yesterday to offer our properties. As a professional property managers and host to their clientele. And this is exactly the mission we took on ourselves within Smiling House Group and I took it as a personal mission.

[00:05:15] Moriya: And if you want to know why it’s because

[00:05:17] Moriya: I do have an experience with these professionals, with these B2B travel companies

[00:05:23] Moriya: for the last few years. It was great experience, but I understood that without the right tools, other property managers won’t be able to enjoy the wonderful and high budget booking that this professional can bring.

[00:05:37] John: Yeah. So it’s. B2B2C now. You’re giving access to these, these different professional organizations, these designers, , all these different, the event space. I know that In the past, their best and only option, at least overseas is, to go ahead and book via a hotel, right? In the States, and I think it’s obviously it’s in Europe as well there’s a corporate travel, which is like corporate housing, which is a little bit different, right? Because you’re, it’s not going into like these amazing villas

[00:06:09] Moriya: No, we’re not talking corporate. We’re talking, by the way, if you want to know from our experience today the experience we have is about 50, 000 average booking for wonderful, beautiful chalets, castles, villas, anywhere in the world. And working only. Obviously because of Smiling House specific niche of of luxury with the travel agencies that representing those travelers that will go to this kind of professionals because they simply, will not look through the OTAs.

[00:06:42] Moriya: What Villa tracker is doing is not focusing only on this high budget travel agencies. and clientele behind them, but opening it to anyone that can and wish to go to a travel agency that will fix for them a whole itinerary, including flights, including activities, including any other thing and will give the vacation rental options.

[00:07:09] Moriya: The beautiful apartment, the lodge, the the loft and so on, even in city center all the way as one itinerary. So we are not aiming only to the 50, 000, 60, 000, 70, 000 ticket. As we’re experiencing today in the B2B, but we are talking to everyone that has 500 a night and above to spend. And instead of going to a hotel, we’ll be in center of town with a beautiful modern apartment, or anywhere in a leisure, via his trusted travel professional that he’s trusting and working with for years.

[00:07:48] John: Love it.

[00:07:49] Mateo: It’s really expanding the reach, right? And really opening up something that’s been a segment for a specific group and encompassing the travel planning for, it’s still for a certain subset, but it’s a larger subset that actually can take advantage of this and have a fully planned out vacation. They’re not, having to put all the pieces together as they would, if they were putting, if they were looking for villas by themselves. They can actually now go to a travel planner and plug in and actually have this designed and

[00:08:20] Mateo: not be

[00:08:21] Moriya: the truth is, these people were not looking at vacation rental at all. Means that

[00:08:27] Moriya: they,

[00:08:27] Moriya: These are a new target group of bookings that we were missing on. Because they would go to wherever their travel agent will fix for them as part of the whole thing. They are paying more money to know that somebody else will take the hassle and build the whole trip on their behalf.

[00:08:48] Moriya: In other words, as long as this travel agent or concierge company would direct them to Hilton or to Marriott or to Four Seasons, they won’t

[00:08:59] Moriya: ask for anything else. The only time that it happened, and that’s actually was the beginning of my idea to build Villa Tracker was COVID time. In

[00:09:10] Moriya: COVID time, a lot of these guests, Ask from their representative in the travel industry to give them a private chalet or a private house, a villa as an alternative to hotel.

[00:09:24] Moriya: They didn’t want to be together with so many people in the dining room. They didn’t want to share the pool and the jacuzzi. And that was the moment where I start to get This request coming from all kinds of travel professionals worldwide asking for our product. And this was the moment that it got into my mind and said Hey, there’s a whole blue ocean out there.

[00:09:48] Moriya: Nobody in my industry was daring to break the rule of host to guest and no one in between, but hey, there’s a place for us to share the commission. And there’s somebody that needs to take the job of building a platform that will be dedicated for these professionals so they can. offer our our offer.

[00:10:08] Moriya: And we finally going to reach a whole new clientele worldwide that we didn’t

[00:10:14] Moriya: have the possibility to talk to. Together with the fact that we will forward trust. We will say that all the property managers working with Villa Tracker going through due diligence, we’ll make sure that all the offers that the travel agent will do is under the logo of the travel professional and the most important.

[00:10:34] Moriya: Understanding the idea of B2B means that these travel professionals are companies. They cannot work with a homeowner out there or a small property manager out there. They need to work with a solid company that will pay their commission, that will invoice them. And take all currencies out there in the world and we’ll make sure that cancellation and everything else is taken in account.

[00:11:01] Moriya: Her OTA dedicated for them. So let’s say that Villa Tracker is now the Airbnb for the travel professionals and we hoping that it will. Show the good numbers into many property managers that will join us, just like we’re enjoying it in Smiling House. I can tell you that without the platform, we’re already turning a few millions in a year just from this B2B connection, that’s all

[00:11:28] Moriya: been done by us.

[00:11:29] Moriya: In a high touch base until until yesterday, actually, where we finally,

[00:11:34] John: Until

[00:11:34] John: yesterday.

[00:11:35] Moriya: until, yeah, where we can finally say, it’s all made from A to Z, peer to peer, travel agents on the other side, you, property managers from the other side.

[00:11:46] Moriya: Everything is transparent and within a click, just like any other OTA.

[00:11:52] John: Super smart.

[00:11:53] Mateo: that’s, I think it’s brilliant at the end of the day. Cause it’s always something that I’ve wondered too, like, why have we not plugged in with. Those other travel professionals to make sure, not even on the luxury side, just period, like quality rentals, right? When people are going to a travel agent and they’re getting only hotel options, maybe, here or there, they’ll have some alternative accommodations at their, but there’s no broad access. to vacation rentals, right? Within this space or short term rentals, right? Everyone looks at the other OTAs and they go that line and travel agencies don’t do that. So it seems like it was a partnership that makes sense. It’s interesting that it hasn’t

[00:12:33] Moriya: Exactly, but I can tell you, there was a big, long, expensive road to create this bridge. We needed to be in a convention dedicated to these travel professionals. That are not our conventions. We needed to create the trust. We needed to create the big amount of inventory. Now we have 9, 000, and I believe that Villa Tracker will be much bigger than that.

[00:12:58] Moriya: Because we’re gonna add city centers, which today we’re not having in our Inventory. We are very much focusing on luxury and vacation rental. Just to give a little bit of knowledge to the people who are listening to the podcast. Smiling House Group is now active in 52 countries and 400 destinations.

[00:13:15] Moriya: But very focused on high level luxury to ultra luxury products. For example, we do not have two bedrooms. We do not have one bedroom. We do not have mainly small rooms. City centers. So all this will be now open to the

[00:13:29] Moriya: users Villa Tracker for both sides. And so we’ve been busy with creating this part of demand from from this travel professionals but making sure that.

[00:13:40] Moriya: Everything is there in place also in the concierge level from our side means that our travel sorry our team of Villa Tracker would help them to sort out the other needs that they have, such as chef and ski instructor, or maybe a very interesting something to do VIP tickets to all restaurants or concerts.

[00:14:04] Moriya: But now when we want to focus on the $500, We will be able to cooperate with so many other tech companies in our industry and offer more and more services. It’s like a whole new plug and play playground that I’m very excited to see where it’s gonna lead to.

[00:14:22] John: Tell us about the, your partnership with Guesty. Obviously this is a big partnership. We were talking before the podcast, you were talking about how you met I’d love to tell that story with your, and get into the Guesty partnership here.

[00:14:35] Moriya: Yes,

[00:14:36] Moriya: yes. So our story with Guesty is going long back, actually, to the days where me and Ira, my husband, which is a Smiling House CEO

[00:14:46] Moriya: today, were just a small property management here in the Swiss Alps, as you can see. Where I am, everything is made out of wood. Talking to you from from Gstaad, Switzerland.

[00:14:56] Moriya: And we were representing 40 Chalets. And Amiad Soto, which is the the very talented CEO of Guesty, were,

[00:15:05] Moriya: Just to sign us up as one of the Guesty first users back in L. A. at the. first convention of Airbnb, where we met also Brian Chesky and and the other founders of Airbnb.

[00:15:17] Moriya: By then we’ve been back then we’ve been like only 7, 000 hosts, if you can at all imagine how small the industry was I’m

[00:15:25] Moriya: looking

[00:15:26] John: it’s hard to believe,

[00:15:27] Moriya: I hope I’m not looking too much like a dinosaur, but I am. So actually we’ve been one of Guesty’s first users. And Guesty as we all know, grew above and beyond and shape the industry and today considered to be one of the leading PMSs, with their last fund, I think that they raised almost one billion dollars, I think. And they were purchasing also and and putting the Rentals United channel manager under their brand.

[00:15:53] Moriya: This is exciting times because Villa Tracker is actually a unique OTA that will be firstly introduced in the future. I really hope that it means that it will be connected very soon also to all the other PMSs who’s using Rentals United with

[00:16:11] Moriya: this last acquisition of of of Guesty

[00:16:14] Moriya: but I must say the friends in Guesty been involved in my crazy ideas that I had already two, three years ago. And I told them I’m going to build a whole platform. And they say, go for it. And

[00:16:28] Moriya: as I started to do that, I asked them, will you be the one introducing it to the vacation rental industry?

[00:16:37] Moriya: And they say if you will stand the standards. And believe me, it was high standards and very expensive road to build such thing to the standards of Guesty API as an OTA from day one. We will be the

[00:16:50] Moriya: one to introduce it and the day have come and here we are and I’m proud of it also in the level of of a pioneer that

[00:16:59] Moriya: want to bring back something into the industry that I enjoyed probably with very few other companies ourselves alone.

[00:17:07] Moriya: And and I think that it’s to be a woman doing that and going through this road, going, talking to all these developers and code and at the same time learn a completely different industry to

[00:17:19] Moriya: serve their needs. That was a challenging, big time year, but such a relief.

[00:17:25] Moriya: It’s I’m the mother of seven kids and I think Vila Trekker is probably a new kid in the Rockman family.

[00:17:32] Mateo: And that’s one of the things I was going to say. Anyone who knows you and has had the pleasure of time, the pleasure of actually sitting down and talking to you. Like I remember back in my early days at Rented, I think we met at like the World Summit. I met That’s where we met first. we spent time at GuestyVal.

[00:17:47] Mateo: Anytime we sit down and talk, it’s never about little things. It’s always about progress and new and innovative things that you’re doing. And they’re never small and they’re never easy. And then on top of that, let’s like be very clear. That’s on top of being a mother, that’s on top of being a wife, that’s on top of doing all these other things. I’ve never seen, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sitting down, being still and doing nothing. It’s always something innovative, and challenging to our industry. You’ve never done anything that’s status quo, so I think seeing this and seeing, we talk about it in simple terms, but it’s Building an OTA is complex.

[00:18:24] Mateo: It’s not easy. It’s not easy at all. It takes time, money, talent, and experience, and the right partnerships and relationships. And it seems like this is just a merger of all of those things coming at the perfect time. So

[00:18:38] Moriya: Thank

[00:18:38] Mateo: this

[00:18:39] Moriya: Yeah, it is. It’s super exciting. And some people are very much busy of doing what they good at. What’s interesting for me is to create something that is not existing, to create something new and, also to to encourage other people and men and women to step forward and to bring their light and their ideas.

[00:19:01] Moriya: Because I think that we have an industry that make it possible. We don’t have so much of a glass ceiling above us. And I think this is one of the wonderful part of the industry where we are. And that’s why with Villa Tracker, I felt like, Hey, it’s like a playground you welcoming another new industry to join.

[00:19:21] Moriya: So try to bring the best out of it. So they will see us in the way that we are really are. We are very innovative. We are very powerful. We are very dynamic. We are. able to embrace any change. And COVID was just proving it in such a strong way that we are agile and we are having amazing people in this industry.

[00:19:44] Moriya: And I’m happy to be with two of them here this morning that help us make things happen. And this is maybe a place also to say thanks for the friends in Guesty that was innovative, still innovative, even though they are high in the sky up there with seeing the needs of our industry and encouraged me just to keep on doing it and giving me the possibility.

[00:20:09] Moriya: To set up the standards to the highest because their demand is

[00:20:12] Moriya: the highest that I met so far. It’s like when you’re running and you’re a very good runner. If you will run with somebody that is better than you, that is stronger than you, you will,

[00:20:23] Moriya: Yeah, exactly. Your score will be better.

[00:20:26] Moriya: You’ll get better. And I’m always trying to surround myself with people that are in that kind of persona. That are serious, professional, stronger, and maybe a little bit ahead. Even

[00:20:40] John: It’s amazing and what I love your story and I love where this is going, but it just says a ton about our industry, right? If you think, you mentioned you’ve been in this a while, right? Mateo and I have both been in the industry nine years or so now. So we aren’t to the same, but we’ve immersed ourselves into it as much as we possibly can.

[00:21:01] John: But if you think back 20 years, 30, like villa, renting villas and vacation rentals, and this has been going on for 40, 50, 60 years, right? This isn’t a new thing. Technology has,

[00:21:12] Moriya: before that, exactly, just technology,

[00:21:15] John: Yeah, this has been going on forever.

[00:21:17] John: It’s always been the wild. It’s, this has always been the wild west, right? This is not a, this is not a new thing.

[00:21:24] John: But what I love about our industry, it’s collaborative. We push each other to be better. We’re competitors, but we’re not, for the most part, we’re not backstabbers. We learn from each other. And what ends up happening is we raise the bar collectively. This bar I don’t see this in other industries.

[00:21:44] John: It happens in other industries. I’m immersed in this one,

[00:21:48] John: but I don’t think it’s the same, right? Mateo came from like investment banking. Like it was a totally different mindset. I came from a different, background. It was a totally different mindset here , in the short term rental industry. It’s still new. It’s still new today. And it’s. It’s been around for decades. And that’s what I love about it. And I love that you’re pushing the envelope and where you’re taking, like what you have done, you’re going to have competitors soon.

[00:22:18] John: And that’s

[00:22:19] Moriya: happy, I’m happy to have them. I know that it’s always, I know it’s always the challenge to introduce something new and maybe we’re going to have competitors. Maybe they’re going to do it even in a better way, but we know one thing. We will be the first ones to welcome the industry. to test the water of of this pool that they didn’t haven’t been part of so far.

[00:22:43] Moriya: And let us all enjoy. There’s more place for many more people to come and to do things better. This is how industry getting better all the time. And we starting with with a very big base of luxury to ultra luxury inventory, and we will open it. To much wider product. Maybe tomorrow there will be a Villa Tracker only for city centers and then only to cooperate, and I’ll be super happy to see it happening.

[00:23:12] Moriya: You know why? Because all these new bookings about to come are from people that were not part of our world so far. We just couldn’t communicate and talk to them. So let the microphone be open and as many people can join the show.

[00:23:29] Mateo: No, I love that. And that’s the spirit in which John was talking about, right? Like you won’t hear other industries. I think the hospitality aspect of our business encourages that, right? Because at the end of the day, it’s about what environment. We’re allowing people to, do new and more creative things, right?

[00:23:49] Mateo: You’re not doing this from like a walled off perspective. I’m first to market to do this. I’m going to be the only one to do this. We don’t have that monopolized mindset where it’s just it’s going to be me and only me. It’s Hey, this is what I’m doing. This is my lane. And there’s so much more room to grow. I think that’s what makes it exciting because now we’re going to see other people be innovative, right? And, do you broaden the product spectrum? Do there’s so many different niches to pull this out of. And there’s so many people that we’re bringing into the industry that should be here, right?

[00:24:18] Mateo: Travel agents, travel planners, people that should be at our conferences, talking to our professional

[00:24:22] Moriya: Yeah it’s bringing to mind something very material that you remind me is so important to, to discuss. Villa Tracker is also allowing things and considered to be not allowed.

[00:24:34] Moriya: For example, in all the OTAs, there’s always no parties, No music, there’s a whole a whole set of a bunch of friends we all know tech providers that that’s giving the facilities to make sure that there’s no noise and so on and I say, hey, What if we have the collection of all these thousands of properties that is the perfect place for a party?

[00:24:57] Moriya: Come and have your

[00:24:58] Moriya: wedding here, come and have your mini festival, or your retreat, or your or your party here, your little wedding here. Because this villa, or this chalet, or this venue is allowing it. Why everybody that have it today cannot even market it in other OTAs? We welcome them. And another thing that we are marking, so maybe it’s a place to say that we are having full focus that we’re offering to these travel professionals and also in Smiling House which is, of course, the family and the pet friendly, the unique of ready for events.

[00:25:34] Moriya: That will give you all the way to the knowledge of how many people you can have in an event. Is it catered insurance and all kind of other things.

[00:25:43] Moriya: And another remarkable thing that I’m happy for everyone that’s listening to take in account. We are of course embracing everything that has to do with sustainability.

[00:25:53] Moriya: And we want these professionals to become even more professionals by able to offer. All the sustainable homes may be with a different Certificate that they got from Sustonica, or from Enviorental, or from any other body in the vacation rental, that testified that these properties are more sustainable.

[00:26:13] Moriya: We are personally a part of Swiss Sustainable, which is Switzerland is leading when it comes to government to programs. Switzerland as a government took the initiative of setting up a bar for sustainability. So imagine that by doing this professional is offering to the group or to the family or to whatever sustainable property where they can also have a little event or party.

[00:26:39] Moriya: And offering them with other five options at once, which is another tool of Villa Tracker. And from the other side, we have different property managers. They’re just happy that within one click they’re getting into totally, completely new eyes and can get these bookings.

[00:26:56] John: Super smart, great partnerships, makes total sense. We’re so excited that you were able to join us today and to share this amazing news.

[00:27:04] John: How do, so Guesty users, right now you’re going live with Guesty first, how do Guesty users connect with you today?

[00:27:12] Moriya: So for Guesty users is as easy as to connect to a VRBO, Booking. com or Airbnb. Villa

[00:27:21] Moriya: Tracker is one, if you check Guesty dashboard, Villa Tracker is one of the leading OTAs that Guesty’s are offering. And everyone can actually connect their properties to Villa Tracker and not all the properties will be accepted.

[00:27:35] Moriya: We still have a bar. We still have due diligence that we’re doing both on the property manager itself, which gets to help us, of course, to

[00:27:44] Moriya: To solve it in many ways, because we trust very much trusting their clientele. But from the other hand, we’re looking at the inventory itself. We seeing if this is something starting with the nightly rate.

[00:27:55] Moriya: Like I said, we want to take probably properties of one and 200 and the size, and we try to think would a property with this property will be offered by a travel agent. We also want to use the 500 companies that already using as a test agent. study till recently the platform and we’ll ask them about certain destination that would they want to to have and then of course about certain amount of money for now, from what we see that makes sense is about 500 a night.

[00:28:28] Moriya: Properties that will be combined with the rest of the itinerary of the travel agent and will make sense budget for them to work on because otherwise these people can really go directly to find it elsewhere in the OTAs. Then of course, we welcoming. to the one who’s listening to us and to anyone else any tech or innovative company in our industry or service that they see themselves as suitable to be added to the itinerary of these travel professionals.

[00:28:57] Moriya: A welcome, of course Villa Tracker is a new baby that’s gonna keep on growing and this is the time to to put more and more features into it and to give the service on both sides to be better with all the wonderful answers and companies that we have in our space of vacation rental that providing so many wonderful services for the end guest.

[00:29:18] Moriya: They can do it the same to the B2B one.

[00:29:21] John: Now, if they want to go ahead and follow your progress along and they’re anxiously awaiting for when you’re going to connect to other PMSs or other channel managers they could just go to Villa Tracker

[00:29:32] Moriya: I still

[00:29:33] John: you have

[00:29:33] John: a blog that can?

[00:29:34] Moriya: the Villa Tracker is really Villatracker. com is really dedicated to the travel part of the travel partners. But our team in Smiling House and reaching out to me also in all the social media as Mariah Rockman we still an onboarding manually that we’re giving as a service to, especially to homeowners and to small property management that we’re giving their product Head Start joining our collection, then they’re going to get Smiling House and Villa Tracker at the same time.

[00:30:00] Moriya: So we are open still to do a manual onboard. For the ones that are not having this connectivity and not going to have it soon, if they have the right product for us, we are here for you. We’re doing it free of charge. We very much believing in sharing and in succeeding together.

[00:30:17] John: Awesome. We’re super excited for you. Congratulations.

[00:30:21] John: Look for Villa Tracker B2B2C

[00:30:24] John: and and just as pioneering. Thank you.

[00:30:27] John: Thank

[00:30:28] Moriya: Thank you. It was wonderful being here today and see you this smiling familiar faces .