Moriya Rockman, The No BS Podcast, Guesty, Villa Tracker

Key Takeaways for Vacation Rental Managers:

• Unlocking New Markets: Villa Tracker opens up a lucrative new market by connecting property managers with travel professionals who traditionally booked luxury hotels. This platform enables you to reach high-budget clientele that was previously out of reach.
• Exclusive Partnership with Guesty: As a Guesty user, you have a direct path to listing your properties on Villa Tracker. However, the platform maintains a high standard, accepting only properties that meet specific criteria, ensuring they appeal to discerning travel agents and their clients.
• Expanding Property Inclusions: Villa Tracker isn’t just for luxury villas; the platform is expanding to include city-center properties, sustainable options, and venues suitable for events, making it easier to attract a diverse range of bookings.
• Building Trust: Villa Tracker emphasizes rigorous due diligence, ensuring that only qualified and trustworthy properties are listed. This builds confidence among travel professionals, making them more likely to choose your property for their clients.
• Seize the Opportunity: By joining Villa Tracker, you’re positioning your property in a growing segment of the vacation rental market, where innovation and collaboration are key. Don’t miss out on this chance to elevate your business and tap into a new stream of high-value bookings. Guesty users sign up today via Guesty or send us an email to add your properties today!

The Conversation:

3 Minute Read

Mateo: Villa Tracker was freshly announced yesterday (Thursday 15th August) in partnership with Guesty—the first B2B2C platform in our industry. How did this come about?

Moriya: The industry has grown considerably. We started 12 years ago, back when platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com were just emerging. The interaction was directly between guests and hosts, leaving no space for third parties. Our sector was not seen as a serious part of the broader travel industry. We weren’t considered qualified, and they protested our presence in the marketplace. But fast forward to 2024, and the importance of the vacation rental industry is undeniable. Despite this, travel professionals have never had the tools to offer our properties to their clientele—until now. This is the mission we’ve taken on at the Smiling House group, and Villa Tracker is the tool we’ve created to empower property managers to access the high-budget bookings that these professionals can bring.

Mateo: So, Villa Tracker is a B2B2C platform that gives travel professionals access to vacation rentals. What does that mean for the industry?

Moriya: Villa Tracker opens up a whole new target group of bookings that we’ve been missing out on—people who rely on travel agents to handle their entire trip. These clients typically book luxury hotels like the Marriott or Four Seasons, but during COVID-19, many started requesting private villas instead. This demand revealed a blue ocean of opportunities, and that’s when I realised there was a need for a platform dedicated to serving travel professionals. Villa Tracker allows us to reach a clientele worldwide that we couldn’t communicate with before.

Mateo: Right, it’s about introducing travel professionals to the industry…

Moriya: Exactly. These professionals weren’t even looking at vacation rentals before. They simply directed their clients to trusted hotel brands. But during COVID-19, a shift occurred. Clients started asking for private villas instead of hotels. This is when I realised there was a huge untapped market. No one in our industry was bridging the gap between hosts and travel professionals. With Villa Tracker, we’re finally reaching a new clientele that was out of our reach before. It’s about creating forward trust—ensuring that every property manager working with Villa Tracker undergoes due diligence, and that travel agents feel confident offering our properties to their clients.

Mateo: Tell us about your partnership with Guesty and how it fits into your vision for Villa Tracker.

Moriya: Our story with Guesty goes back to the early days when Smiling House was just a small property management company in the Swiss Alps. We were one of Guesty’s first users, and we’ve seen them grow and shape the industry. When I decided to build Villa Tracker, I knew I needed a partner who could help introduce it to the vacation rental industry. Guesty has been incredibly supportive. The standards required to integrate with their platform are high, but we met them, and today, Villa Tracker is live. I’m proud of this accomplishment, not just as a pioneer in the industry but as a woman who has navigated the challenges of building something entirely new.

Mateo: What’s next for Villa Tracker?

Moriya: We’re just getting started. Villa Tracker will soon include more properties in city centres, some smaller properties, and more budget-friendly options, opening up our platform to a wider range of travellers. We’re also focused on building collections like the sustainable, family friendly, and events, enabling travel professionals to select the right offering for their clients needs. This is just the beginning, and I’m excited to see Villa Tracker grow and evolve.

Mateo: Tell us about your partnership with Guesty?

Moriya: Our story with Guesty goes back to the days where myself and Ira, the CEO of Smiling House, were just a small property management company in the Swiss Alps. We were representing 40 chalets and signed up as one of Guesty’s first users, back when the industry was very small, with only 7,000 listings on Airbnb. Guesty grew exponentially, shaping the industry as we know it today, and with their last fundraise, they raised almost a billion dollars. They’ve been pursuing and also integrating Rentals United, a channel manager, into their brand. This is an exciting time as Villa Tracker is a unique OTA that will be introduced to the industry, and I hope it will soon be connected to all the other PMS that use Rentals United. Guesty has been involved in the crazy ideas from the start, and they’ve supported us in building this platform to the highest standards.

Mateo: You’ve never been one to stick with the status quo. What drives you to keep innovating in this industry?

Moriya: It’s super exciting to create something that doesn’t exist yet. Some people do what they’re good at, but what’s interesting to me is to create something new and encourage others to bring their light and ideas forward. I want to encourage others—both men and women—to step forward with their ideas. Our industry doesn’t have much of a glass ceiling, which is one of the wonderful parts of where we are. With Villa Tracker, it feels like a playground where we can welcome another new industry to join us and bring the best out of it. We want to be seen for what we are—innovative, helpful, dynamic, and able to embrace change. I’m grateful for the friends at Guesty who saw the needs in the industry and encouraged me to keep doing what I do. With Villa Tracker, we’re welcoming a new industry to join us, and I’m eager to see where this journey takes us.

Mateo: Looking back 40 years, it’s not new to rent, but what I love is how collaborative this industry is. We’re competitors…not backstabbers. We learn from each other and collectively raise the bar. The STR industry is still new, even though it’s been around for decades. What you’ve done will inspire competitors. How do you feel about that?

Moriya: I’m happy to have competitors. It’s always a challenge to introduce something new, and maybe others will do it even better. What’s important is that we were the first to welcome the industry to this new way of thinking. Let us all enjoy the possibilities—there’s room for many more people to come and do things better. We started with a focus on luxury and ultra-luxury inventory, but we’ll open it to a much wider product range. Maybe tomorrow there will be a Villa Tracker just for city centres or corporate clients, and I’ll be happy to see it happen. The new bookings we’re about to bring in are from people who weren’t part of our world before. It’s exciting to see what’s next.

Mateo: I love that spirit. It’s what makes our industry unique. Hospitality encourages innovation and creativity. It’s not about monopolising but about creating an environment where everyone can thrive.

Moriya: Exactly. Villa Tracker is also allowing things that aren’t typically allowed at other OTAs. For example, other platforms often prohibit parties, but we’ve created a collection of thousands of properties that are perfect for events, weddings, or retreats. We welcome them at venues and villas that allow it. We’re also embracing sustainability. We want property managers to become even more qualified by earning a certificate that testifies to a property’s sustainability. We’re part of Swisstainable, which helps properties get on track with sustainable practices. And from the property managers’ side, with one click, they’re getting these new, interesting bookings.

Mateo: How do Guesty users connect with you today?

Moriya: For Guesty users, it’s easy. Villa Tracker is one of the leading OTAs that Guesty offers. However, not all properties will be accepted—we still have a high bar and do due diligence on the properties and the property managers themselves. We look at the nightly rate (starting at 500+ a night), the size, and whether the property would appeal to a travel agent’s clientele. The types of properties that could be accepted into the platform are unique and must bring value. If you’re a Guesty user, connect with your account manager, and they’ll help you get listed on Villa Tracker.

Mateo: This is such an exciting time for the industry. Thank you for being a part of this conversation and for sharing your insights with us.

Moriya: Thank you, Mateo. It’s been a pleasure, and I’m excited to see where this journey takes us all.

Moriya Rockman is a trailblazer in the STR industry, and her latest venture, Villa Tracker, is building a bridge between travel professionals and property managers that wasn’t there before. Her passion for innovation and collaboration shines through in this episode, making it a must-read for anyone in the hospitality industry. The insights shared here are invaluable as we move forward in this exciting new chapter of vacation rentals. Listen to the full conversation here to learn more about the future of this dynamic industry.