The Modern Hotelier - Episode 23
===

David Milili: Welcome to the Modern Hotelier. You're presented by Stayflexi. I'm your host, David Millili.

Steve Carran: And I'm Steve.

David Milili: Steve, who do we have on the program?

Steve Carran: David, Today we have on Steve Milo, the founder and CEO of V Trips. Uh, Steve has quite an interesting background. He started as an entrepreneur back when he was 19, then he worked at Marvel and in eCommerce, before getting into the vacation rental business. he's growing trips from one vacation rental to now over 7,000.

Welcome to the show.

Steve Milo: Hey, thank you, David. Thank you, Steve.

David Milili: You're welcome. So we're gonna go through three sections. Uh,we're gonna go through a quick, section about asking you some personal questions. We're gonna go through your career and then we're gonna ask you some industry, topic questions. We're gonna get started. So what was your first job?

Steve Milo: My very first job was, uh, actually delivering donuts door to door.

Steve Carran: Nice 

Steve Milo: I think I made like 50 cents a box of donuts. So, uh,nice job at 10 years old.

David Milili: Who did you admire growing up?

Steve Milo: Well, I was actually a big comic book fan, so I guess Stan Lee would've been my, uh, the admiration. you know, he was the writer and creator of a lot of the, the marvel, comics and heroes that we know today that are all in the movie.

David Milili: What's the best piece of advice you've receiv?

Steve Milo: I remember my dad introduced me to, uh, an investment banker, right after I graduated, uh, college. And, uh, we had lunch together and he said, uh, save your money.

David Milili: who would a person be that you'd wanna switch places with for a day?

Steve Milo: Boy. I think it would be fun to be, uh, Patrick Mahomes, be able to throw touchdown passes 70 yards, have that kind of athletic ability. I never was that fortunate to have that kind of, ability.

David Milili: he's amazing. What's a secret talent that you have that nobody knows you at?

Steve Milo: Boy, you know, that's, that's an interesting question. I think. What I've learned is I've got a very strong, analytical mind. and um,I've kind of done some testing that indicates that, my analytical abilities are pretty much in the top tier and, uh, I didn't realize that early on.

David Milili: The favorite place you've ever visited.

Steve Milo: I think it's kyo.

David Milili: What scares you,

Steve Milo: Not a big fan of snakes,

Steve Carran: Same, same

David Milili: and what's something you wish you were better?

at this point. I wish I was, uh, a little bit more agile. I'm, uh, losing, uh, sometimes balance as I move along, but I, you know, try to exercise a lot and. Try to keep it up,

David Milili: If you could have a superpower, what superpower would you like to.

Steve Milo: mind reading.

David Milili: Yeah, that's a good, We've had one other person that said that that's, that's a great one.

Steve Carran: Well, perfect. That was great Steve. So now we're gonna get to learn a a little bit more about you. So where did you grow up?

Steve Milo: You know, basically I grew up in the Washington DC area.

so, uh, in. County called Fairfax County and a town called Vienna. And, I lived and went to school in the Virginia area.

Steve Carran: Awesome. I lived in DC for eight years, lived in Arlington for a few years as well. So how did growing up in, in Vienna shape who you are?

Steve Milo: Well, I mean, I, I think where I grew up, my dad was fortunate enough to get a job that landed us in a middle class neighborhood. And, uh, there were a lot of opportunities for me to make money at an early age. So, you know, I delivered donuts and then I started mowing lawns. and then when I got a car, I started to be able to take on other jobs, including, um, ultimately starting a kind of a comic book collecting business where I would go to conventions and buy and sell and trade.

it was pretty interesting, you know, that time of my life because there were a lot of kids who didn't really wanna work but there was plenty of opportunities for those who did.

Steve Carran: most people work in the government, around that area? Were you ever tempted to get into, to the government side of things?

Steve Milo: No, 

Steve Carran: No,

Steve Milo: I, uh, that was not part of my vision.

Steve Carran: Fair enough, Fair enough.

David Milili: So you got your degree from University of Virginia in Commerce. what led you to, pick that university and tell us if you were involved in any organizations or any, any activities at that university.

Steve Milo: You know, I can't say that there was a whole lot. Deliberation on that. Um,my father paid a little bit of my tuition, but I ended up paying the bulk of it and living expenses. So going outta state was not an option. And, uh, University of Virginia had the, the best business, and economics,in the state.

So I, applied early decision, got. . And, part of,some of the stuff I did there and, um, even in, in high school was I was involved in, um, political campaigns early on,at the local level and in the University of Virginia would be local issues. like, we advocated for. A fall break.

There were student mental health issues and um,there were a lot of stress related illnesses and, additional meal plans and flexibilities, things like that, that were very issue oriented. and you know, that's something that I've been able to continue as I've moved forward, obviously with V trips, you know, kind of advocacy of issue.

Steve Carran: Did you travel a lot growing up, or, did that kinda come later in life?

Steve Milo: Yeah, that most of the travel came later. My, my dad was great about taking us to, uh, the beach. we'd go to Ocean City. So if you grew up there, you know, everybody went to Ocean City and that was fun. but I can't say there was a whole lot of adventure outside of a driving radius. Uh, and most of it was,over to Ocean City or down to Nags Head,and Hadest. So those were kind 

of the places,they would take us for vacation.

David Milili: you've been involved in a lot of advocacy efforts in community development. Is there any other, areas in there that you wanna talk about or discuss that you've done as far as when you were, growing up? 

Steve Milo: Well, that, was the main thing, right? So once I got outta college, I was pretty mono focused on business. really the um,evolution of advocacy didn't start until I got into the vacation rental industry. and early on, when I started, I was in an area called Venice, Florida and Venice, Florida, allowed vacation rentals and then all of a sudden I was advertising, I built a website and I had, uh, ads on V R B O.

And before that time, it was pretty hard for people to even know where to rent a vacation rental. Now 

all of a sudden, there was a. And, uh, the citizens of Venice decided they didn't like vacation rentals cuz they didn't want strangers living next door. And all of a sudden I started to get involved in city council politics.

I didn't anticipate getting, as involved in advocacy as I've been, but that was the start. And, you know, just in the last year, um,I had. You know, meeting with a group of property managers with Governor DeSantis. We've had meetings with the, Speaker of the House and the speaker of the Senate of Florida.

Steve Milo: I've been involved with a lot of high level people, starting advocacy, in Texas and in Georgia. and it's been a big area of, emphasis now. you know, it's not really a republican democrat issues. it's really more of. I'd say constitutional, you know, property rights, you know, what you believe is your rights if you own a piece of property.

and what are the rights of governments to take those rights away?

Steve Carran: So, good to get to know you a little bit. Now we're gonna jump in into your career, more along the background, and then we'll work to v trips. But, seems like you're a natural entrepreneur. you know, at 18 you started a comic book, wholesale company, it seems like, and to help pay for college and turn that into a 15 million a year business.

How, How did you start the company? I, I know you are a big fan of comic books and have been collecting since you were 12, but how did this turn into a business and how did you end up growing this business? The story is just,

Steve Milo: Well, there came a time where I had a pretty large collection of comic books and, I went to a comic book convention and all of a sudden, even before the doors open, I had Delors. Buying stuff left and right. finally I asked one of the people who bought all the stuff, you know, how come I had so many people before the door opened?

And he said, Well, you didn't price things correctly, . So the Delors in the room noticed you were new and, they took advantage of you. so I made quite a bit of money and you know, I was kind of curious about this whole concept of, being able to essent. Understand the market where you could buy low and, and then make a markup.

so, I started talking to a, a dealer and they gave me some tips on, publications where you could buy stuff Dale, and different areas where you could, buy comic books at a. And so I decided, based on that to just try to play with, you know, Rebuying from the proceeds I made.

and that became scalable. And, um, when I was in the University of Virginia, I couldn't really do as many conventions cuz they were kind of scattered all over the place. But I could run, ads in these, uh, trade publications. And so I, started to have a business literally outta my dorm room where I was buying at wholesale and then selling at retail.

and that's kind of the origin of, of how the, uh, another universe started, was really, outta my dorm room.

Steve Carran: Sure. And then you continued to grow that after college as well, right?

Steve Milo: Yeah, it became quite a large business. I mean, we had 200 employees. We had two to three catalogs a month. we got into some retail stores. and we got in early on the e-commerce. You know, we, we had a e-commerce store as early as, 1996, which was fairly early for e-commerce. in that period of time.

And, um, the biggest problem we had was the paper business was coming to an end. So, it was all over, you know, really, the country where paper was starting to decline, you know, here comic books had been in place forever, but nineties was a transition where you started to see people heading towards digital entertainment, gaming, et cetera.

And, um, it was fascinating to, watch what was happening, but I clearly knew I was in the wrong industry. not that comic books didn't evolve into digital entertainment, they have, but, you know, this was before, the Spiderman movie and, um, Ironman, et cetera. This was before that wave of, digital entertainment that transformed Marvel into the, intellectual property it is today. This was just, you know, comic books that you would see on, you know, racks in a drugstore, racks in a comic book store.

Steve Carran: did you have a comic book that I guess was a very rare comic book, or, or one that sticks out that you're like, Wow, that was a good one. Or, Or . It was a rare one.

Steve Milo: Well, I remember it was pretty hard to get the first Spider-Man, so that was an accomplishment. Uh,Yeah. Uh, you know, I, I had a pretty big collection at one point and, uh,ultimately just bought and sold. I'd say, you know, the most interesting part of the nineties was meeting some of the, writers and artists.

I mean, I met obviously all the, the people like Stanley and Steve Ditko and people like that. But then the new wave, like Frank Miller and Allen Moore. Todd McFarland, Jim Lee. we would have signings and these guys would come down for not a lot. and then they would sign and you'd take 'em out to dinner and they were very gracious just to, to get out and, and publicize their work.

So we probably had over, well over a hundred different signings. and I got to meet a lot of really amazing, talented individuals that are still, active.

David Milili: So from there you went on to become president of new media, for Marvel comics. what kind of projects did you work on at that?

Steve Milo: Well, that was the internet, uh, early on. and I have to say, I was brought in to kind of clean up, uh, kind of a mess. They were trying to spend their digital, off separately from their publishing, which was a good idea. It was just too early in 99. and the whole idea was to spin it off and put it into a brand new company and IPO it.

But the window closed at, the beginning of 2000. We had the internet, bubble, that kind of burst. And so they were stuck where they had hired almost a hundred people for this digital, marvel.com. And so they brought me in to kind of try. solve and, figure out what the business model was.

So I spent about a year there. ultimately recommend, is it a board of directors that they fold us back in? that the content piece could report in the publishing, That the licensing piece could, report in the sales and advertising and that the, um, it piece could. Fold into their tech piece within the publishing side.

they just were too early at that point. and they just were, were not ready to be a, digital media company.

Steve Carran: from there, I think this is so cool, you just went backpacking in, uh, Southeast Asia for, for a couple months. anything that was just stuck out to you from that trip or, or even that you learned about yourself while backpacking?

Steve Milo: Yeah, it was pretty cool. Uh,

Steve Carran: Ha. 

Steve Milo: I'd say the best tip I ever got was, uh, I was backpacking through anger wat and, uh, smart enough to hire a guide. And the guy said, Don't go off the, the paths. there's these trails do not vary from them. Even if you need to use the bathroom, do not do it.

And I said, Why? And he's like, There's still unexploded landmines,

Steve Carran: Oh 

David Milili: Wow. 

Steve Milo: Because Cambodia had been occupied by the Rouge up until, um, I think the late seventies, uh, early eighties. So there were still, even in Ang Wat, which was this, uh, kind of city that was, recovered from the jungle, there were just, unexploded landlines buried throughout Cambodia.

So, that was a pretty valuable tip.

Steve Carran: Yeah. So you stayed on the on the path. I'm.

Yeah, I, I didn't go venturing off, uh,Well, that's good. That's good. so after backpacking you were the, executive vice president of consumer applications for, Ima, and then you were, again, the director, or you're the director, e-commerce at Bradford Group. what did you learn from those roles that helped you, you know, kind of start your own.

Steve Milo: Well, Ima was one where I thought it was important that I learned how to stay focused. You know, they had amazing facial recognition software before a lot of other companies in the industry had it. but the executives didn't know what they had. they, uh, were being approached by d. And other,agencies to use the facial ex, recognition software for government purposes.

And, uh, the principles thought that, it would be invasion of privacy to do this, the biometrics. And, uh, they wanted to use the biometrics into kind of a game. ultimately what happened is because they raised money and because the, um, investors. had a lien against the ip. When they ran outta money, it ended up that the Defense Department got that ip.

So, what they had tried to keep away from the department, of defense, ultimately ended up there. But, you know, they could have made a lot of money if they had had more open minds to what they had. built the facial recognition software. Now is, you know, something that. Whether you like it or not.

a part of travel, even getting through Airport security now, facial recognition is being, you know, predominantly used over and above even identification. So, this is part of the reality of, you know, creating a safe environment to travel, particularly on airplanes, that people feel safe.

and part of it is, making sure that. People that are, verified to get on the planes, uh, and also not have to go through intense security. So, that was one thing. Um,but I, at it ran outta money. so that was unfortunate. But, uh, I was hired by Bradford to run their e-commerce division and they were a collectible company.

Steve Milo: Very, very successful privately held company. And they're still around today. at the point I was there, they were probably. 500 million a year in sales. and they were primarily selling collectibles like plates and trains and music boxes back in the day when there was a lot of print. So, they were running ads on parade or the back cover of those magazines you'd get on in the Sunday papers.

Today a lot of their, um, advertising is through email and. But, uh, they were very, very, very successful. so I learned a tremendous amount about e-commerce, at the Bradford Group.

Steve Carran: It sounds like you were a little ahead of the, ahead of your time at Marvel and also at Ima, with dot com Boost and then, also the facial recognition as well.

Steve Milo: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting kind of seeing how things unfolded. Even at Bradford Group, the um,e-commerce division was very small. and they really didn't realize until I think later, that it should have been much more of an area of emphasis. you know, they were so conditioned on print and, newsprint and even coupons that you'd get.

Boxes or, or envelopes of coupons and they'd have these ads for music boxes or dolls or trains or whatever. And they didn't understand, that digital was the future. 

And so, that's where I ultimately started the experiment with vacation rentals was, creating my own website.

I had my, my first vacation rental when I was with the Bradford. In Florida and, started advertising it on my own website and created, advertisements on places like V R B O and I. It was pretty amazing what you could do.

David Milili: As you were saying, so in 2005, you. Vacation Rental Pros, which is now those rebranded V trips. you got into it, but what really led you into the vacation rental management side of things and what got you involved in that?

Steve Milo: I think it's pretty, pretty much the normal journey for most people that get into this. Where I started. one investment property, that I used part of the time rented out. I generated so much rental income, I bought another, then I bought a third. And then at that point, people I knew started asking me if, if they could participate.

So they started buying and I started managing their properties. which I think is kind of what happens to a lot of people today is, you know, they start with one and then they. Friends or family that ask 'em to start managing their properties. And eventually, I had so many properties I was managing, kind of moonlighting that I, had like 20 properties at that point and, uh, started, you know, basically went full time to do vacation rental pros at that point.

but it was really just, organic so to speak, where it wasn't necessarily a plan. it more of an opportu.

David Milili: And so getting and having a company, you know, Through a recession. What, what did you learn during that time and what advice would you have for somebody as we, as we possibly might be approaching a recession?

Steve Milo: Well, the good thing for me was I went into the recession very lean, and I stayed lean and part of it, what happened was, I came into the vacation rental industry just as hosted systems were started. and these, you know, these hosted systems allow you to do a lot of what used to be very labor intensive functions with, um, essentially software.

And that software cost is reduced because, there's so many users on the software and are constantly upgrading it. So I was able to literally run. About 75 vacation rentals just by myself. And then as I hired people, it was very, very slow and steady. So, just really containing cost and using technology to drive down, your labor cost.

And I think, that's really what we're talking about right now at V trips. And we have a pretty big company now. We have a thousand employees, but the discussion is really how do we use technology to gain saving? and you can think about all the different levels of technology. So there's savings you can get from accounting.

You definitely can get savings from your reservation. team, if you start to really take a look at, how you manipulate overflow, you can call routing. and then, you know, we even have a Jamaican call. that takes a certain portion of the calls. So, just by taking a look at your flows, you know you're gonna gain some labor savings there.

going to digital locks means that you don't have people going to an office, or doing some of the crazy stuff people used to do, which was creating, literally printing out packets and putting keys in the packet and then having people show up. Now everybody just goes and gets a, a digital code. All the instructions are by email.

not only is it, more efficient, but it's even better for the environment. You're not wasting all this stuff with, 

Steve Milo: with resources. So, you know, these are the type of things we've done. Um, laundry facilities, Which, um, you know, is not so much technology, but it's efficiency. by putting in equipment you gain efficiencies with, with labor and, and so we've really looked hard our, at our linen facilities just make sure that we are operating them as effectively as possible.

Those are all the things that really move the needle in terms of, of.

Steve Carran: and in the early years, it sounds like you, you know, got more properties by managing friends and family's properties and kind of, you know, more hitting the, hitting the road like, uh, acquiring just property by property. How has the past year been? I've read a few things and it seemed like the past year is, is, uh, you had a great year. 

Steve Milo: That was interesting. The recession also was the first. Area where I started with, merger and acquisition, and I did it just basically local companies. So it wasn't some master plan to expand nationally. It was opportunistically competitors who weren't using technology or were having a tough time, even with distribution of, advertising.

were contacting me about selling and I bought five different companies. I averaged the one per year, and that really made a difference cuz you definitely gain synergies as you start to, to consolidate. in the last year we, brought in a bunch of capital and we've, grown through, uh, a lot of merger and acquisitions.

Steve Milo: So we've bought 10 companies, uh, within the last year. So we, we've expanded our geographic footprint through that. And so, that creates a whole set of challenges, but it also creates opportunity. And again, you're gonna start to really see synergies, as you consolidate. And, and that's really been, you know, the biggest opportunity within the sector is being able to consolidate and, and gain synergies, energies.

David Milili: So what's unique about the VT trips 

Steve Milo: So right now, at least in the US I and I have traveled to Europe, but it, it kind of operate a little different than us. v Chipps is one of really only two companies. Vacas is the other. It truly has a platform.

And what I mean by a platform is, basically a central. Lies to operation management executive team that can scale. and,that is very different than a, a lot of these companies that are coming out and buying, essentially a portfolio of, uh, companies. So they'll just buy a bunch of affiliated companies and throw a centralized management team, but they're not synergizing the tech stack.

They're not really synergizing, the management group and, and a lot of the accounting and, and sales and marketing. we've done that. And when I mean scalable, that means can you scale from 7,000 properties, which we are now to 50,000 or a hundred thousand without breaking. and you know, that's the case with V Trip. because of how much time and effort we put into building a true technology platform. so that's what's distinguishing v trips from a lot of the other companies out there, who have attempted to, get into the sector.

Steve Carran: what's next for, VTrips 

Steve Milo: Well, we got quite a few things that are next, but I think the thing we're most excited about is we're working with developers on purpose-built inventory, brand new, purpose-built So part of the conversation has been, what's wrong with the industry and, some of what's wrong with the industry is, The product, or the properties are older, worn down, in some cases you really don't have as much control as you'd like,

over them.

in some cases they weren't even built to be a vacation rental. They were built to be a primary residence or a secondary residence So what's exciting to us is working with developers, on brand new vacation rental inventory where we not only get to help design the floor plan, but we, are working on, the furniture as well.Quite a few of these markets we're the exclusive management company, which means we can control, the rates, the cleaning, the maintenance, all of the things that are important, which lifts standards and lifts um, you know, customer and guest satisfaction. So, I'm very, very bullish about the future of, purpose-built inventory.

and uh, that's really a lot of where my focus is right now is talking to developers.

Steve Carran: and you've obviously been successful in your past roles being an entrepreneur to, you know, the CEO and founder of VT Trips. Do you have any keys to your success or anything you'd like to share?

Steve Milo: Well, you know, I would tell anyone that was starting a business that. They need to really spend time, take courses at a college or whatever, but take accounting courses, learn how to read a p and l often in loss statement. Learn how to read a balance sheet, Learn how important it is to not only have a yearly operating budget, but um, a monthly variance report.

if you don't do that, you can get into trouble very, very fast. And I'm shocked. I go to conferences and I. To see a show of hands of how many people, do a, operating budget, a yearly operating budget, and it's a fraction of people. people just are not paying attention to their financing.

Steve Milo: They're not creating a budget. They're circling, not doing variance reporting, and it's almost trial and error at that point. so, you know, that would be one of the biggest pieces of advice that I've given people is, You know, spend the time to understand how financing works and accounting and, and school yourself.

David Milili: that's great advice because as I, advise companies, a lot of them startups, um, you know, 99% of them, when I ask the question, Are your financials in order? They say Yes. And then I'll have, I've got a woman who's my kind of financial ninja who she comes in and she's like, Nope, David, they're not in order.

We gotta redo everything. We gotta, they're not, you know, they don't have any schedules. They, so that's, that has, is really good.

Steve Carran: Well, awesome. Now we're gonna head into the last section of the podcast here. this is where we just kind of talk about the industry thoughts you have about where the vacation rental spot is. So first thing, anybody looking to get into hospitality or the vacation rental space, besides the accounting aspect, any advice you'd give them?

Steve Milo: Well, the advice I'd give them is What's your goal? Right? So, I think it's very easy because this industry is growing so fast. You know, we talked about the comic book industry, at least the print part of that was declining, where it's vacation rentals, everything is, going up, right? So the tide is rolling in and, partly because we take a look at vacation rentals.

consumer awareness continues to increase. So when I first started with vacation rentals, Phocuswright said only 11% of the US population even. knew Where to book a vacation rental. a lot of it was really weird and archaic and, there was a time where people would be mailing catalogs to people, about, you know, booking a vacation rental and, then there were places like VRBO and Craigslist.

Steve Milo: But now most people know they can find vacation rentals. Uh, Airbnb have,you know, has helped with that, and Expedia buying VRBO has helped. and then booking.com. So, you know, category awareness has increased, but it's still only 60%, which lags far behind hotels, which, you know, are in the high 80's So there's more room for category awareness. But the other thing is that the younger generation, millennials and younger. They prefer vacation rentals over hotel rooms because of, in, part the experience aspect. and you know, that group is very much into experiences, photography, individualism, and, you know, they can kind of showcase what's unique versus a hotel room, which is fairly generic.

So, you know, there's a lot of opportunity in the vacation rental as a result. And there's so many different levels of areas of opportunity you could go into luxury. you could just do niche. so the first question I ask people is, what is your goal? And if their goal is, they wanna make a healthy amount of money, but they don't wanna kill themselves.

You know, they don't wanna manage a bunch of people. you know, I tend to talk to 'em about, Hey, look, you know, quality over quantity will get you there, right? So if you wanna be a high touch, owner, And you want to have 20, 30, 40 properties that are luxury. You can make really, really good money and not have all the headaches that you would have if you expand too much.

And then you have to have a lot of employees. So it's just really first and foremost, and David's probably had this conversation since he's advising entrepreneurs, is asking him, What are your goals? What do you want to do? What makes you happy? What's gonna make you happy? Yes. it's not always, you know, you have to grow.

Steve Carran: That's great. That's great. So, you mentioned kind of the, the guest experience of the vacation rentals side of things, how millennials and the younger generations kind of, are leaning more towards that way than than staying in hotels. is there anything else that vacation rentals are doing that hotels should be taking?

Steve Milo: We're getting close. So, as hotel standards, Right. So I don't know if you've been in hotels. I, I still do a lot of business travel and one or two nights for one person a hotel makes more sense than a vacation rental. But standards have really dropped in hotels, right? So you don't even know if you're gonna get cleaning.

You don't know if the gym will be open or the ice maker will be working or unplugged or the restaurant open. Vacation rentals have the opportunity on the, um, kind of amenities and concierge service. And so we're really exploring things like guest portals, and offering amenities to the guests before they arrive

to really enhance their experience.

I do think Brian Chesky is right in one aspect, not necessarily is execution, but the aspect that the experience is very important. On this road. And if you can, provide guests a better experience by allowing them access to amenities before they arrive, that's a 

win-win for everybody.

Steve Carran: Absolutely. I actually just was having this discussion like during the booking process, If you're able to add any experiences onto your stay during that, I mean, that's a, win for everybody right there.

David Milili: So you touched on it earlier about, you know, some of the vacation rentals being worn down. what's the biggest issue facing the vacation rental space right now?

Steve Milo: Well, that's one of 'em. That's not the biggest issue, David. but certainly standards. the fact that a consumer. Can book one vacation rental even in the same complex, and it's different from another, the next year. And it's based on the fact that you have individual owners. The individual owners are decorating the property differently.

the individual owners may have one unit that's renovated, one that's not. Now VT trips is trying to help by creating a rating system where the properties are rated. If you get to purpose build and you actually have exclusivity, you can then enforce furniture, packages and furniture standards, which, you know, at least creates, a better experience.

Steve Milo: You know, it's, it's just not a great experience. if you're in a property where it's not been professionally decorated or professionally

constructed in a, in a manner that's gonna, give you the. Vacation experience so that those standards are, are important and, and we're working on that. but the bigger issue right now, and it's all over the news media, is, vacation rentals being operated in areas where they really shouldn't be and really impacting the quality of life for residences in those area.

And, and we're starting to hear more and more how they're affecting affordable housing. Right? So this. Component which kind of peaked last year. But, there were actually conferences where people were talking about, buying quote unquote Airbnbs and, you know, the return on investment. And they were basically, people were paying money to go and, hear people who were, know, their tips of where to buy and, essentially people are buying in marginal areas, right?

So, we could all probably agree that, down. areas where vacation rentals would be, pick an area, Chattanooga or Nashville, but they were going into NA neighborhoods outside of those areas where they could 

buy stuff cheaper. And sure they could rent them a little cheaper, but they were creating friction with people who actually lived there.

So they moved from the downtown core, Terry's outside the downtown core. And they were recruiting a lot of disruption for residents. And then conversely, which is what people are, really upset about, is they were taking away housing and affordable housing and driving prices of housing up. And so in some of these areas, this has become a flash point.

Hawaii is certainly, the biggest example where Honolulu is almost effectively banned vacation rentals, partly because of this, and in part, there is a very, very strong hotel lobby. but you know, Hawaii is kind of the flashpoint of, all of this. Maui now is, is moved into this and, and there's discussion.

Zoning out vacation rentals again because, people were going up and buying places, not on the ocean or across the ocean or even a block from the ocean, but up in the hills where the residents were living and, and they never, that was never where vacation rentals should have been. That's not where the, tourist.

Were designed to be, they were designed to be in those, ocean beach areas and the residents were up in the hills. And, if you go up in the hills and you start buying all the housing, you, drive prices of housing up. And so that's created a tremendous amount of friction. And, uh, you know, that's, where all the zoning stuff is coming from.

Is, is the friction that's been created. In part, either legally or illegally going into neighborhoods where vacation rentals didn't deserve. That's why vacation rentals got sewed outta Chicago, New York, a lot of the bigger urban areas. Uh, and that was really, in part because Airbnb, at least initially was blatantly allowing, properties to list on their site that were completely illegal.

they've changed some of that. that's part of what's happened?

David Milili: And what are some, some ways that Vacation Rentals can use technology to, to generate more, more revenue?

Steve Milo: Well, distribution's the biggest one, so, Right. So distribution is, meaning getting, your properties to sites like booking.com, Expedia, vrbo, Airbnb, Google, Google Meta. there's Hopper now there's homes to go. There's, we're probably distributed to, 14 different, sites. So technology can do that.

we use pricing tools, which create some dynamic ability to kind of take a look at supply and demand and, and create better pricing algorithms, smart home locks, which is, you know, you go to a property and you dial in the lock. And it only works for the time that you're supposed to be there. And, and then after you depart, you're not gonna be able to use that code again to get back in.

that's been a game changer, for everybody. you know, those are some of the areas that really have helped,the vacation rental industry and, and operators within it.

David Milili: Yeah, it's amazing how, we've done several family trips and. You know, you always are in essence, for lack of a better term, using mobile key or digital entry, for a vacation rental. But hotels still can't get it right. I still go to, I won't name the brand. I still go to a brand and they ask me when I check in on their app, do I want a mobile key?

I say, Yes, get to the front desk. They have no clue what's going on, and I still get the plastic key. 

Steve Milo: Yeah, it's, it's. Kind of crazy with the hotels, how far behind they are. And then even if you do go digital, you're not guaranteed that the digital key will work on the gym, or the elevator. so unfortunately I have to ask for, one of those VIN cards just because I'm not guaranteed to get into the gym, with the mobile, access.

You know, you would think the hotels could get this right, but they just have lagged so far behind and you know, those Incar readers are just so outdated.

David Milili: Well, and we talk about it. We, we, you know, beat a dead horse. But you know, it's funny, Hotelers have this impression that, hey, I use my app to get my Uber. I use the app to check in for my flight, and then I get to a hotel and hotels like, Oh, nobody wants to use an app. Nobody wants to use mobile when they're on property, but they've used it through the whole journey.

and I've actually had people tell me that, that, you know, our guests don't want to use an app or don't want to use mobile, and it's. It's mind blowing, but, so what's, what do you think's next for vacation rentals, whether it be technology or, I, I like what you were saying about actually building to actually, for a vacation rental, what's next?

Steve Milo: Well, I think, you know, the supply is the biggest. next step for the industry is to build a whole new generation of supply. and that doesn't mean just leisure. It'll also be, urban markets. and you're starting to see that in some of the urban markets where towers are going up. and you know, I'm, I'm pretty close to Miami, and there's 20 different projects that are.

500 feet or more, including the, the biggest, building south of, uh, New York City. think it's gonna be a Waldorf Astoria project, but it'll have, um, a huge component of living, space and all that stuff is zoned for vacation rentals. And, and the sales people are talking about, you know, the ability when you don't stay in your place to, to rent it.

and so, you look at a place like Miami with all these skyscrapers going up and, what they're basically communicating to the buyer is, Hey, you know, when you're not using it, run it as a rental. and they're really purpose built. you know, you're typically seeing smaller bedrooms, smaller bathrooms, but you know, bigger living spaces, which is typical of, you know, the typical vacation.

Model is, is you don't, you don't put as much, emphasis on the bedrooms. That's also somewhat, what we're seeing in some of the newer hotels, like Moxi is a good example of a Marriott brand where. the rooms are quite tiny, but they've put all the emphasis on the, uh, common space and getting people to socialize in those common areas.

And I think that's a, you know, that's where vacation rentals are heading to as well, which is why they've been so popular. you know, you don't want people to spend a lot of time in the bedroom. You want 'em out in about, socializing with their friends or.

Steve Carran: Do you think is a metaverse gonna play a role in the, in the vacation rental side of.

Steve Milo: Well, we do a little bit with social media. I think Google is, the bigger,elephant in the room. You know, Google, Travel, potentially is bigger than all the OTAs combined. So Google Travel is Google Air, Google Hotel. Google is right now in the, uh, beta version of, uh, testing, vacation rentals, and it's been so for a couple years now, but I think once, Google figures out how to distribute an unbranded category, it's gonna be extremely powerful because, you know, Google has, geo maps.

Google has reviews. And it's an unbranded category. So, at the end of the day, if somebody can bypass Airbnb and go directly through Google and save 10, 20%. They probably will, because, you know, they want to know where's it located, what are the reviews like, you know, what do the photos look like? Is it a trusted source?

Google's verifying it's trusted. Okay, I'm gonna book it, via Google, which is, you know, effectively what they've done with air, what they've done, uh, with hotel. And I mean, Google has virtually unlimited resources, right? I mean, as big of a market campus, Airbnb, I mean, Google's just gigantic. between all the different, components of the company, they can just pour money into r and d that these other companies can't even keep up with.

you know, and Barry Diller has been at the forefront of complaining about it, but unless somebody breaks up Google, I would say Google is going to be a big, part of the future of the vacation rental.

David Milili: Steve, we're at the end of the podcast. Um,We covered a lot of great. areas, anything that we missed? Any questions that we should have asked you that we missed?

Steve Milo: Yeah, you guys have been thorough, so appreciate the, research for prior to the interview.

David Milili: if you could, let the audience know, um, plug away anything you wanna, share or where they can, you know, where they can find out more.

Steve Milo: Our website's, v trips.com. so they can find 7,000 properties there and hopefully, uh, they've enjoyed vacation rentals and if they haven't, time to try.

David Milili: All right, great. Well, that wraps it up for another episode of the Modern Hotelier. You're presented by Stayflexi. We thank you for your time and we'll see you again soon. Thank you.

Steve Carran: Awesome.