[00:00:00] John: Good morning, Mateo. How are you?

[00:00:02] Mateo: Good morning, John. You know the answer to this question, brother. I’m fantastic. Just back from Martha’s Vineyard. A little break. Get out to that part of the country. I don’t get out there much, but you’re too. It’s a different place, dude. We’re gonna have to actually talk about that area and that region. I know you come from that area, kinda.

[00:00:22] John: Kinda. New England, but not necessarily, I’m not necessarily the, a Martha’s Vineyard kind of guy. I’m more of—

[00:00:29] Mateo: Oh, shut up, dude. It’s changed so much. You would be, I honestly there’s so much to talk about. We’ll have to dedicate some time and talk about it. But I was in the Boston airport and actually thought about you. I was almost. Going to buy you like some Boston Red Sox gear, you know I’m not a Sox fan and all of that other stuff, but I looked at the price tag.

[00:00:50] John: Hell no!

[00:00:51] Mateo: I love you, brother, but there’s no way I’m buying you like a $50 airport Boston Red Sox t-shirt. So like I’ll make you that much or I’ll find one.

[00:01:00] John: Awesome.

[00:01:01] Mateo: Yeah.

[00:01:02] John: We got a great episode. I want to dive right in. Episode 109. Just pushing them out. Expedia Group, VP of Vacation Rental Partner Success. We are joined by Tim Rosolio. Thanks so much for joining us today, man.

[00:01:17] Tim: Pleasure to be here. Yeah, it’s I’m a long-time listener. Really liked the episode with Mike Golden recently. I go way back with him. And I’m also fantastic. Martha’s Vineyard sounds pretty nice though. I’m in Austin, Texas. It’s 106 degrees. Martha’s Vineyard, maybe a nice lobster tail. That doesn’t sound awful.

[00:01:40] Mateo: Oh man, can I tell you the amount of lobster that I’ve eaten in this past week has just been ridiculous but it was so good.

[00:01:47] Tim: Martha’s Vineyard, you probably, you’re eating breakfast and suddenly there’s lobster in it. Now, the downside of that is your breakfast costs $50, but, hey, you’re on vacation.

[00:01:55] Mateo: The key is recycle and reuse. So like the dinner from the night before that was just like all this lobster, just translate that to the breakfast of the next day, like lobster croissant and egg sandwich, like that actually, it was actually pretty good, but sidebar, put that in the no BS breakfast cookbook.

[00:02:15] John: There you go. I grew up on the coast of Maine. And so we’re lucky to have that fresh lobster decent amount of times. But I didn’t realize, and my wife was just telling me a couple of weeks ago that, and I wish I had more context to this, but back in the day, whatever this was, it was 1600s, 1700s, somewhere, that lobster was considered the cockroach of the sea back then, and it wasn’t a delicacy. And they were everywhere, like you couldn’t step and go anywhere without lobster, like it was, lobsters were everywhere and they were more of a nuisance. And back in the day, it was marketing that said we’re going to go ahead and say that this is amazing. And we’re going to convince tourists that this is like a delicacy. And in time, it transformed, like then the locals used to look at it as a nuisance and not good food. But over time, it’s turned into what it is today. But back in the day, everyone hated lobster.

[00:03:18] Mateo: That’s incredible.

[00:03:20] John: And there’s a lot to dig and look into that, but we’re not going to do that right now. Tim, thanks so much for joining us. There’s so much we want to talk about. Let’s talk about how you’ve been with Expedia for three and a half years. Previous to that, you were with HomeAway, again, seven years. VRBO, Tell us your journey. We love diving into the journeys. How did you stumble into vacation rental, short term rental space? I’m looking at your LinkedIn here and it doesn’t go that, it goes back, over 10 years, but you don’t really get into you were at Alex Partners before that. What is that? Tell us how you got into it.

[00:03:58] Tim: Yeah, it’s been an interesting run. I started a career in consulting, and generally what we were doing is we were parachuting into companies, typically with business problems. We were trying to relatively quickly figure out ways to turn around their business. And I was, to a certain extent, a hired gun to do that. And I worked on a company that imported parts for toilets from China and put those parts together. And I worked on a power plant company, and I worked on a real estate investment company. And the real reason I left consulting was because I was sick of traveling 45 weeks a year. But there was also something about to figure out these industries didn’t necessarily get me excited all day, every day. And when I got the opportunity at what was then HomeAway, I got the opportunity to think about vacations all day, every day. And in particular, what got me excited was the idea that not only are vacation rentals but they’re a special part of the category that I think is particularly special in terms of delivering some of the most amazing experiences that people ever have in their lives with people that they love. And then on the flip side of it, it’s an industry where there are people that maybe never thought they could have a second home. And because of this industry, they’ve discovered that they can. And as my career has grown in this industry, I’ve become a total junkie for it. And I’m a vacation rental traveler, and I’m a vacation rental shareholder, and I’m a vacation rental employee, but I’m also a vacation rental owner. So I’m someone that’s enjoyed the dream that we see on the traveler side and the dream that we see on the owner side. Really since then. I haven’t felt like I’ve been a hired gun to a certain extent. It doesn’t even feel like work to me anymore. Cause I’m so passionate about what our category brings.

[00:06:09] John: I love that. Tell us about those early days at HomeAway. So you were there, if I’ve got my timeline right, The last five years or so before HomeAway went to VRBO or, like approximately in there it was Carl. And there’s some big names that, like that came from that. Tell us a little bit about that nucleus.

[00:06:34] Tim: Yeah, I was there for the tail end of what I would consider the true old guard. I joined that at the time HomeAway in 2015 prior to when we were bought by Expedia. Yeah, I got a chance to rub elbows with Brian Sharples and Carl Shepard and John Gray, these guys that are just total visionaries. And then after that, really the person that took up much of the torch. Much of the torch after that was Jeff Hurst, who’s one of my main mentors. I worked in the strategy group for him. And also there was a period of time when I was chief of staff to John Kim, who was the person that Expedia brought in to really take our product and technology to the next level. I was very fortunate to be to a certain extent in the right place at the right time around people that I consider. Not only great executives, but to a certain extent, visionaries for what our industry has become. A lot of what we were doing what I wouldn’t consider the early days, the early days of the company were really, when Brian and Carl were going out and they were buying companies and they were consolidating those companies onto a unified tech stack.

[00:07:58] John: And we have, we’ve had Carl on the show and it’s a great episode just talking about,

[00:08:03] Mateo: Carl.

[00:08:04] John: coming doing some old stuff in Vermont at Okemo and this some really old acquisition stuff. It was pretty cool.

[00:08:11] Tim: The guy’s an absolute visionary. He was the person that at the very beginning said, I have this fragmented space that’s largely offline and we’re going to bring it online. Funny story. Apparently when him and Brian made some sort of investment pitch to get the money to really make HomeAway a thing, part of the thesis statement was that we’re going to build the Expedia of vacation rentals.

[00:08:41] John: No kidding?

[00:08:42] Tim: Funny thing is, X number of years later, they sell to Expedia. But I think what, where we were in 2015 was we saw a business that was largely built upon a Google model of SEO. And when you’re in a Google model of SEO, it means that you’re not paying for clicks. And as such, the subscription model and the tiered subscription model was fantastic for us. It really worked. But the problem was, when Google pivoted so much to SEM and pay per click, we found ourselves in a situation where we would sell a subscription, we’d deliver a booking, and we weren’t making more money that helped us deliver the next booking. And that was really the impetus surrounding the whole.

And because of that, really Jeff was the person that really did a lot of the work surrounding how are those economics going to work? How are we going to go to market with it? And then John Kim and some of the product and technology people that he brought in really had a deep history of understanding how do we deliver e-commerce well.

And that was what we did really from 2015. Through probably 2019 and then obviously the world was turned upside down and that was an interesting time for the industry, but the run was really about optimize, switching to a transactional marketplace and then optimizing that transactional marketplace, doing proper e-commerce.

[00:10:26] Mateo: I definitely want to dig into your story a little bit more. One of the things, I want to know is we know how you got here. What kept you here? You come from the consulting background, so I’m sure your time in this. In this space in the timeframe in which you’ve entered, the vacation rental space was interesting, right? There’s a huge transformation going on with technology and what we like to call the professionalization of the STR and vacation rental space. And all of these things are coming at the same time. You have companies running to go public, you have companies trying to form their identity, STR brands are bustling and building, in all of that chaos. What grounded you? What kept you in this space? What kept you excited? What kept you here versus saying, Oh I want to go to other areas of hospitality cause you were in a space where you had broad bandwidth with hotels, airlines diversity of platforms, especially around technology and develop technology, right? So what kept you here?

[00:11:26] Tim: So I think the first thing that kept me here was a love of the category, and I touched base on that a little bit, but then the second thing that kept me here was you’re speaking about opportunities for growth, and I thought that vacation rentals, specifically Vrbo, As part of Expedia group had more growth potential than anything else that I saw that was out there. Because if you think about it, Expedia bought Vrbo towards the tail end of 2015. And over that period of time, we operated almost as an independent company, separate tech stack, separate teams, separate marketing. And that was very successful for us. And that was probably the right thing to do as we were trying to be nimble, moving to a different type of model. However, we never really did the hard work to actually integrate Vrbo technology with Expedia Group technology. But that’s actually what we’ve been doing a lot over the past few years. And that’s going to fuel the next wave of growth. The Vrbo story in my mind is going to be taking all of the things that people love about Vrbo and accelerating them with the depth and breadth of technology power of Expedia Group. And we’ve never been able to do that truly properly because all of the tech was different. It was almost like they were separate companies, but we’re finally doing that hard work now and you’re going to start seeing us come up with innovative features that are going to be totally transformative for the category. So at the same time without getting away from what made Verbo great, which in my mind is the focus on families and groups and the corresponding really a dedication to Multiple bedroom homes, no shared spaces, largely in leisure markets. Sticking to that wheelhouse, accelerating it with all the technology that Expedia Group has to offer. We are laser focused on bringing and groups into our funnel, and then once in our ecosystem with things like OneKey and some of the things we’re developing. On the supply side, the way that I look at it is the most professional acting partners are the ones that we’re going to align with. And in my mind, professional acting does not necessarily mean professional property manager. It can be an individual owner that really invests in making sure that the house is clean every time they set out the perfect welcome gift. They’re engaged in their community. They pay their taxes. It is a professional acting partner.

[00:14:16] Mateo: Right.

[00:14:17] Tim: And if you deliver the goods for the traveler and you deliver the experience we want for those families and groups, we’ll get you the next booking. But if for whatever reason you’re missing the mark, if you’re missing the mark in terms of that consistency or you’re missing the mark in terms of being involved in your community, or if you’re not paying your taxes, then we’re less aligned with you.

[00:14:40] John: I love your, distinction here is that, the professional acting, we talk about professional hosts and we recently we had Bill Faith on basically going against the word professional hosts and I agree with him on that because I like the acting, there’s, so many tools that property managers and hosts and whatever you want to call yourself today. They have it at their fingertips now that if they utilize them, they’re a pro, if they use them correctly, they’re a pro. So I liked how, you said the professional acting.

[00:15:19] Mateo: That’s what it is, John. So we talk about that all the time, and it’s fitting if you look at my shirt today, like this wasn’t planned, but it’s the mindset, right? It’s not and we talk about this often. It’s not having, a hundred units under a company that’s just running perfectly within the space. It’s your actions and your deed, whether you have five, 10, 20. I know plenty of operators that are small operators that have no design to scale, have no willingness or wanting to scale, but they run a professional operation.

[00:15:53] John: I agree with you, but yet how do you go ahead and…

[00:15:56] Mateo: think it’s damning, and I love what Bill meant and what he was talking about when he said that, because he doesn’t want it to be exclusionary to companies, right? Companies are not the only professional operators within this, and I think that’s the distinction that we have to make, especially as we have an industry that keeps accepting, and not even accepting, that keeps, Indoctrinating and like we keep bringing in people that have professional expertise that know hospitality that regardless of the size and scale are bringing great opportunities and great experiences to guests through the properties that they operate and manage. regardless of if they’re under a property management label or not, or a professional property manager label or not. So it’s like, how does, they’re all a part of what we are. They’re a part of the hospitality experience. And so I get where he’s coming from when he’s Oh, let’s not, segregate this group over here saying that, this is what a pro looks like. And I think that’s where we get it messed up because a pro can look like. doesn’t matter what it looks like, it’s how do you operate, right? It doesn’t matter who you are, it matters what you do.

[00:17:03] John: You’re much more eloquent in saying that than myself. Thank you.

[00:17:08] Mateo: Joe, that happens sometimes,

[00:17:10] Tim: I think it’s well said. it’s well said. There’s, ultimately what the traveler wants is an amazing hospitality experience. I’m not sure they care whether it’s… or Steve Milo, or Evolve, or a local property manager, or if it’s some guy with a secondary home that’s doing a really good job. Now, the flip side of that is, I think within professional property management, some of that is actually about how much work does the underlying owner really want to do? And there’s a lot more options that are available out there than perhaps they would have historically been. There are people that want to do absolutely nothing. And hand the keys of the car to the property manager and say, you do everything. There are people that have business models where they effectively handle content and distribution, but the ground game, they do it themselves. And then there are people that do it all themselves.

[00:18:01] Mateo: right? I think, and having that diversity, I think, is good for us. And I think it’s interesting too, because I love the approach that you guys have. Because the reality is, you were here first. VRBO was here first. So when we look at the, and we look at the genesis of like where this has come from, like that booking platform and the fact that this openness is coming from you and that you guys are looking at it in terms of, you know what, this is where we began. This is our strength. And we’re focusing on the vacation rental experience in vacation rental spaces where we know we’re strong, where our platform is going to grow. And I look at it as a segment in time where others have grown out and marketed fantastically and done things. But they’re also still struggling to grasp the industry as a whole, right? Like you’ll sit up here and say, look, we’re looking at. Whether you’re a company or not, we just want you to be a professional operator. We’re not going to go into this space because that’s not our strength. And that’s not where our customer base is. Others aren’t necessarily doing that. They’re still trying to figure out where their identity is. They shun, from my experience, and this is Mateo speaking, not anyone on this call or anyone in industry, they shun the professional aspect and the professional part of it. Even though it’s crucial to their business model, crucial to their revenue, but they still look at it like, Oh it’s a nice to have, but not necessary, where I disagree. I think that even from a timeline perspective, like getting someone who’s a professional operator now that continues to build and grow their business and whether they grow into a company or not, or still is just as important as me and my second home or. I’m not gonna rent a room, but even if that was someone that, was doing that to maybe keep their home, or whatever that story may be, being able to dial into that and keep it within the vein, I think there’s something to that. And I’m excited to see the growth personally, because staying power in this space is something that we are seeing a shift in. There’s people that aren’t here anymore. Organizations aren’t here, there’s management companies, there’s technology. But to be the first and still be here, and to still be excited about what’s coming up next and still being able to shape the industry and have a huge impact in the industry is huge. So that has to be exciting to you.

[00:20:22] Tim: It’s a tremendously exciting and I appreciate your recognition of what I find to be some of our core values. We believe in having quality on both sides of the marketplace. And then I would say. We don’t treat supply as a commodity. There are only so many amazing houses on the beach. And there are only so many amazing houses that are on the mountain. , so that’s the location of the house. Within that, there are only so many people that really know how to do the hospitality piece right. And we believe that in the long term, if we can have affinity , for those homes that are On the beach or next to the mountain with the professional acting. Again, doesn’t need to be a professional host, a professional acting hospitality provider. That’s good for us in the long game.

[00:21:17] John: Let’s talk about some of these things that Expedia is pushing forward. We have a great friend in the industry that participated in your Expedia accelerator program, , Lorraine Woodward with Rentable are becoming rentable. and there’s a bunch of others that are coming. Can we talk a little bit about this Expedia Accelerator program and what it was for and why you guys went, got behind this and, are really pushing this?

[00:21:41] Tim: think that as an industry, we’re still in the second inning, which means that things are changing rapidly and things are innovating a ton. If you were to look at new and fresh ideas five years ago, maybe that idea would have been something like Noiseware. And we think to ourselves, what if we were at the cutting edge of NoiseAware? And we thought to ourselves, who are the new, fresh companies with fresh ideas that could potentially transform the industry we could partner with and becoming rentable is amazing example. And for those of you that are listening that don’t know what they do, they essentially provide services and coaching and technology that helps vacation homes. be accessible for those people that need an accessible home, which is a huge amount of our category. Just if you think of the demographic of family travelers, multi generational travelers, this is a huge addressable market.

[00:22:48] John: And it’s not just physical accessibility as well. they get into autism, all sorts of things. it’s pretty fantastic. we did a prior, podcast, look up Lorraine Woodward, and we dive into it with her. She’s fantastic.

[00:23:02] Tim: yeah, she’s a pretty inspiring person. First time you meet her. and it’s just one example of, I think there’s 12 different companies that we’re working with. That are new and fresh ideas that we think could be one of the next big things in vacation rentals, and we’re providing our expertise and our history truly in this e commerce space to work with them and really get them from point A to point B to hopefully point C. I think it’s a pretty exciting program. I wish we did it. I wish we started a long time ago. I

[00:23:38] John: Is this, accelerator program, you help, you bring them in, you hear their ideas, you give them a, little influx of money, to help them develop and, or to continue to develop what they’re doing, is this something that will come to an end and then you will potentially do another accelerator program in the future. Or is this we have these 12 partners, we’re going to work with these. Or is this something you’re still trying to figure out?

[00:24:01] Tim: think the intent is that we provide them all with expertise and support and then over time I think we’ll figure out what blossoms from there from those 12 in terms of investments or continued support, but the intent very much is to make it. much a, almost say a class. We’re going to bring in a new class of accelerators of fresh ideas so that we’re continuing to develop and evolve the industry.

[00:24:29] John: I love it.

[00:24:31] Mateo: I love that. I think that’s, I think it’s smart. I think it’s forward thinking, but I also think it, it takes, if you want to, I mean it’s leadership, right? Like it’s not just sitting back and waiting for the industry to, to become what we want it to be. It’s actually, it’s a proactive step of encouraging growth within our space that. To be honest, may or may not directly affect your bottom line, right? It may not directly have an effect directly for you, but the push that you’re giving will make the industry better, right? Even with, helping a company figure it out or giving them the resources to push forward or whatever that does, I think that there’s not enough of that within this space to do it in creative ways that. I don’t want to say it’s selfless, but doesn’t necessarily, it’s not self-promoting, right? Because it’s actually helping others within this space grow, solidify their space here, and makes us better. Using Lorraine as an example I love her platform. We were just talking about being in Martha’s Vineyard. Every beach I was at in Martha’s Vineyard had wheelchair access public Wheelchair accessible beach chairs on that beach. Never seen that before. Wasn’t even aware of that until I had that conversation with Lorraine and she’s how do you think people with mobility issues get to the beach, get on the beach?

And it was just like, how obvious is that? And how big would that be for the number of travelers in our space that have mobility issues and can’t do something as simple as access the beach. So

[00:26:04] John: It’s keeping your finger on the pulse. It’s staying there with what’s current. And by bringing these in, it’s very smart and very forward-thinking. The other real big thing that you’re pushing, or the new thing that I’ve seen, came out recently, I think it used to be called just Expedia Rewards, is now OneKey.

What is OneKey, from your perspective, and what’s the goal? Where are you taking OneKey?

[00:26:31] Tim: So the background with OneKey is Expedia is a business that was built largely via M& A. And via M& A there was, because of that, a special hotels. com rewards program. And there was an Orbitz rewards program and there was an Expedia rewards program. And what we found was. That there wasn’t that opportunity for people to really understand that this is a portfolio of brands that together has value.

So the idea was that we were going to develop a single rewards program across all of these companies that Expedia had bought over the years with one single technology platform. So we could really drive value from the house of brands. Rather than independent brands. Now, of course, with my VR hat on, what am I excited about?

I’m excited about bringing the idea to earn points and burn points in the vacation rental category with the type of scale that we have, 2.4 million properties. This is a total game changer. It’s never been done at this type sort of scale before. When I think about it, I think about the time when I was in consulting. And I had every type of status that you could possibly imagine. I had so many points, you couldn’t even believe it. But I was staying at a hotel 45 weeks a year. And when I went on vacation, the last place I wanted to be was another hotel. I wanted space. I wanted something different. And there was nowhere at the time for me to burn those points on vacation rentals. If something like this existed today, I would absolutely, I’d go all in. I’d go all in on Expedia and I’d book my properties on Expedia and Hotels. com. I’d earn the points that I could burn them on Vrbo. That’s such a huge opportunity for our category to introduce people that still maybe necessarily haven’t tried what we do because what we find is, we saw this a lot during the pandemic, when people try our category.

What they say is, that was unique, that was awesome, and I’m going to do that every year.

[00:28:48] Mateo: Yep.

[00:28:48] Tim: So it’s a huge opportunity for us just in terms of building new people into the category, building the flywheel of repeat. And then beyond that, I think what’s helpful for us is… With a loyalty program, what you also get is you get more people that are logging in to make their purchases.

You are getting more people that download the app. And if people do that, we can personalize recommendations for them even more so that we have data that helps us drive conversion for them and helps them find the perfect property that we know they’ll enjoy.

[00:29:23] John: So I’m looking at the tiers and, of what it means to be a OneKey to be a part of this. It’s pretty phenomenal. The tiers and you’re leveling up, from blue to silver to gold to platinum. The amount of savings is, not only are you able to burn these points, but the savings you get on them are substantial as well.

So if you’re listening and you haven’t checked out OneKey, definitely go ahead and check it out. Sign up if you’re booking with Expedia or any one of the, Vrbo or Hotels. com. Any of these, the, fact that they all work together is, I agree. It’s, I’m glad you did it now.

Someone else will end up doing it. It’s always the first one to get in gets that momentum. and there’s other travel platforms doing different things that are similar, but not to this extent, where it’s bringing all the different things together, which I like a lot.

[00:30:13] Tim: It’s our big bet. In the scope of the real assets that we had as a company. If you think about the people that have some degree of allegiance to this house of brands, if you can bring them all together and make them somewhat allegiant to Expedia group as a collective, that’s really powerful.

[00:30:35] John: it raises all your brands together, whereas, the other way that we see this is it’s tied to a credit card, right? That’s where we see it in other verticals, or it’s the same vertical, but it’s tied to the payment solution as opposed to the brands, which, or the distribution brands, which I like.

I like this. it’s fun and it’s new. And I think this. has legs. it definitely has legs.

[00:31:00] Tim: I certainly think so.

And imagine a world, you talk about payment solutions, imagine a world where there is a one-key credit card too. And perhaps you earned and burned at even greater value if in fact you opted into the credit card solution as well.

[00:31:18] John: Are you hinting? Are you hinting?

[00:31:20] Mateo: But I’m a strategic partnership guy,

right? So that was actually one of the things I wanted to talk with you about today too. It’s just, and not specifically to, and just in a broader sense too, right? Like why don’t we see more of these developed commercial partnerships within our space as we have brands evolving the technology’s there. We’re learning how to integrate membership and loyalty programs now. Why is there not a bigger outreach to the broader commercial entities that intersect with our business, right? Whether it’s airlines, rental cars, like the places that make sense of our space and hospitality.

I feel like that’s an area that’s sorely lacking and I’m always looking at relationships and things like that. And I always wonder like, why don’t we have more of that, right? Like, why isn’t that a more developed area of the business? And from your perspective, especially coming from a platform that kind of has it all within the family, what has been the hold-up? Has it been tech? Has it been people just haven’t figured it out? From your perspective, why are we still far behind in that space?

[00:32:23] Tim: Fragmented Tech. It’s the idea that even though Expedia, you can book a rental car via Expedia, all of that technology for years didn’t play nice with Vrbo technology. Almost like we were different companies. But again, by doing this hard work of unifying tech, it’s going to open up a world of rental cars, and activities, and even, imagine flights, and if somebody, if you were a new partner, you’re a new partner, and you were trying to get those first bookings, And, say for example that you were in Hawaii, it’s an island, why wouldn’t you opt into some sort of package rate with a flight? That’s something that no one’s really quite done, but with The depth and breadth of Expedia Group technology, this is the sort of stuff that’s going to be possible.

[00:33:17] John: We see this with, this M& A that’s going on and the tech M& A that they’re going in, they’re getting these pieces and they’re bringing it all under their family of whatever it may be. and you have your insurance and you have your web and you have your distribution and you have your software that manages everything and your revenue management, but you don’t see real change until four or five years, six, seven years of This M& A coming together , when the tech actually starts talking to each other well and then actually starts like, and it takes time because everything, there was no true standard.

And I think that overall that code is getting cleaner and there’s becoming more standards and we always, and the distribution. It was always, the home away that was the cleanest standard for, for that back in day was the cleanest distribution standard at least for, code. But it’s still not.

100 percent locked in as to, and this is how you want to do it. And I don’t think we will see that. And we talk about this a lot. I don’t think we’re going to see it yet. I think you’re going to have, this is the standard for this group of companies that, that’s taken some time. And unfortunately, now this is the standard that these group of companies, or this Powerful ownership is like step forward and you guys are doing the same thing.

Hey, you’ve developed your own standard for Expedia Group and you figured out how all your brands are talking well together and therefore now you’re able to go ahead and push out One Key and all these different things, but it still doesn’t fix your company still doesn’t necessarily talk to another company, which doesn’t necessarily talk to, and when I say company, companies, brands underneath that. Is this detrimental to our industry as a whole? or is this just the natural transition and the natural evolution of our industry? And then over time, do you feel it getting closer and coming together? Or do you think we’re gonna Stay fragmented.

[00:35:19] Tim: I think that there’s a tremendous opportunity in building,

Really, a business development platform, seamless APIs that make all of this easy. Because that will enable us to actually drive business with other third-party companies at scale, rather than, listen, I think we’ve all probably seen The situation before where you try to launch something, you’re managing all of it in spreadsheets and it doesn’t work.

You need to have proper technology that makes it seamless and easy and really makes it scale without tremendous amounts of manual effort and investment.

[00:35:55] John: Is this middleware? or is this, or is this a standard?

[00:35:59] Tim: Hard to say. Probably depends on the solution,right?

[00:36:02] Mateo: It could go a couple ways, right?

[00:36:04] John: I love where you guys are going. I’m excited to see, One Key take off. and I love the state of the industry right now. I, think that we’ve gone through, we’ve had some pretty, crazy years. Like we’ve had some extreme highs and extreme lows.

And now we’re at a place where you can almost, you can see it. We’ve been brought back down to earth a little bit. We understand, from a distribution standpoint, what we’re seeing is, some, property managers and hosts and just anyone with inventory are figuring out how to go ahead and make their inventory visible and rentable and.

And there’s been so much inventory pushed into our space recently that how does, A property differentiate from B property when they cost the same, they rent the same, they’re in the same demographic, We’re in an interesting state now because there’s so much inventory. Everyone’s now, it’s exciting ’cause we’re trying to figure it out again. but we’ve been brought back to earth at this state of the industry. Where do you see, short-term rentals, ification rentals going? do you see, it like a consistent, like more steady growth ? Where are you seeing this right now?

[00:37:17] Tim: So it’s a good question. I think the state of the industry is, obviously we had what was a bit of a sugar high of demand and tailwinds at our back at the height of the pandemic. After that, we also saw a tremendous uplift in supply. So you’re at this interesting moment where as an industry, the trajectory is very strong.

But at the same time, maybe the income per property probably is something south of that. And in my mind, what that means is owners and property managers need to embrace change to create differentiation. Because the way I think about it is What is yesterday’s differentiator quickly becomes today’s norm.

If you were to go back to 2018, about a third of our inventory was instant book. And we talked to property managers about how, really like the future here is instant book. People don’t want to be on a 24-hour hold model anymore. This isn’t what the traveler wants. And partners that were fast movers on that reaped the benefits of it, and then the others came along for the ride.

And today, I think something like 80 percent of our properties… That was a differentiator, now it’s today’s norm. then the question is, what’s the next differentiator? There’s a number of them I look at. I Think some of them are surrounding minimum night stays. I think there’s a lot of partners in our industry that have said, I do a Saturday to Saturday schedule.

It’s seven days. That’s how I operate. It’s always worked for me. Maybe that still works for your summer, but for your shoulder season, I don’t think it does.

And then,

[00:39:07] John: 100 percent.

[00:39:08] Tim: another one would be flexible cancellation policies. There was a time when this industry was almost all non-refundable. And I think that during the pandemic, travelers definitely showed That they want to have that flexibility.

And I think that’s persisted, even though the pandemic, knock on wood, somewhere is over. So the way I talk to partners is listen, if you’re on still seven, seven days, Saturday to Saturday schedule, you’re totally non-refundable. You’re operating in what I would consider a relatively old school way. You better have really good inventory. And if you’re on the beach, it’s probably still all right. It’s probably still all right because so many people want that house, but you’re a couple of blocks off the beach. You’re starting to get into a type of inventory where there’s a little more supply and you’re going to need to do different things that perhaps you would have historically been uncomfortable with to have your supply stand out.

And I think this is just this is. A continued evolution of our industry. For those houses that are on the beach, much of that inventory will be on some sort of much more flexible and refundable rate. And then there will be something new that comes along. I’m hopeful that thing that comes along might be that people will want to offer member-only deals.

On Expedia as part of our Rulers program, that’d be the next differentiator. And my team of account managers, it’s our entire job. It’s our entire job to understand those differentiators, understand the value of it to our partner’s business. So we’re here to help you understand that. So you don’t have to figure it out yourself.

[00:40:48] Mateo: So, with the breadth of your platform and focusing on vacation rental spaces, what we’re seeing is this is a huge part, and it is impacting our industry tremendously, which is the environmental impact, not just in Hawaii but in Florida and all of these other places where beachfront, while beautiful, is also now a risk, right? Where in the mountains in Oregon is now a risk, right? Because of wildfires and other things. It’s like, how do you all view the environmental impact of what’s going on in our world, in our industry, and how does that play into your strategic focus moving forward? Because it’s a real thing. We see what’s going on in Hawaii right now. Nobody saw that coming. Nobody was thinking about wildfires in Hawaii decimating entire towns and entire communities and entire businesses. Is this the ring the alarm moment? What are you guys doing from a strategic perspective to look at this and to address it?

[00:41:41] Tim: I think that we are thinking of it from the perspective of how does the general public feel about it. And what we generally find is that travelers care. Travelers are a lot more likely to book properties that are doing the right things from a sustainability perspective. And as such, we’re doing a lot of work to display that content and badging to those travelers so that they get what they want, and it becomes an asset to the partner to be doing the right things. And hopefully, when we talk about things like what is yesterday’s differentiator quickly becomes today’s norm. We might come to a point where the economic impact of being appropriately sustainable will become the norm because we know it’s what travelers want. So sustainability is a huge focus for us because we think it’s the right thing to do. And because we think it’s what the traveler wants, all the data says it’s what they want.

[00:42:42] John: Great insights. Super smart. Tim, thanks so much for joining us. We had a great time.

[00:42:48] Tim: Absolutely awesome. We’re about to go on a great run as an industry. So many people saw the experience that you can see in vacation rentals during the pandemic. Those travelers are coming back, and hey, like they might not come back necessarily for another trip. If you’ve been going to the beach and nothing but the beach for three years, maybe this year you’re staying at St. Regis in New York and hopefully booking on Expedia, right? But one way or another, because of the experience that you had during the pandemic, you’re now going to consider vacation rentals as part of your set of options. And then I’m hopeful that via the evolution of our industry, the smart things our partners are doing, and hopefully the smart things that the OTAs are doing, we’re going to continue to drive a better traveler experience. And that will drive the next category and next phase of growth for everything that we’re doing for this industry we love. Thanks for having me, guys.

[00:43:42] John: Appreciate you. Thanks.