The Modern Hotelier #40: Solving Problems, Creating Demanding & Building Brands in the Vacation Rental Industry | with Dale Smith 
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Dale Smith: You can have say all the tech, but if you haven't got the housekeepers, you haven't got the process, the underground people really well trained, you're not gonna be able to grow your brand and not gonna be able to scale the business.​

David Millili: welcome to another episode of The Modern Hotelier. I'm your host, David Mulli.

Steve carran: I'm your co-host, Steve Karen.

JOn Bumhoffer: I'm the producer, John Boomer.



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

Steve carran: Yeah, David. Today we have on Dale Smith, the founder and c e o of the S D D E Smith Group. Dale's a successful property entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in residential, commercial, and holiday home property investment, property development, and property management. Welcome to the show, Dale.

Dale Smith: hi guys. Thanks for having me. Uh, really looking forward to being on the show.

David Millili: Thanks Dale. So we're gonna go through three sections. We're gonna ask you some questions to get to know you better. We're gonna go through your career, and then we're gonna get into some industry topics. Sound good?

Dale Smith: Perfect. Yep. Looking forward to it.

David Millili: All right, so, great. So first question is, what's the worst job you've ever had?

Dale Smith: Worst job I've ever had. Probably being a car vale. Car cleaning. So back when I was younger, my family background was in the automotive sector, so out on the forecourt cleaning cars.

David Millili: Are you a morning or a night person?

Dale Smith: Definitely a night person. Definitely a night person.

David Millili: If you could only leave three apps on your phone, what three apps would you leave? You gotta delete everything else except

Dale Smith: okay. Uh, LinkedIn, my whoop and Google Drive.

David Millili: What's the most used emoji for you? What do you use the most?

Dale Smith: probably smile the smiley face, I think. Yeah. The fan, the smiley face.

David Millili: What's your favorite song? You got one song you can listen to, you're chilling out. What's the one song you like?

Dale Smith: one song, probably an Arctic Monkeys track, which I dunno whether you guys might have heard of Arctic Monkeys, but yeah, we're an Arctic 

monkeys track player on the dance floor, something like that.

David Millili: Cool. What's the favorite place you've ever traveled to?

Dale Smith: San Diego is still my favorite place I think.

David Millili: Wow.

And if you had your own talk show. Who would your first guess be?

Dale Smith: who would it be? Michael Jordan.

David Millili: And so now if you had a time machine and you could go into the past or into the future, which way would you go and what year would you go to?

Dale Smith: Oh, I would go to the past and I'd probably go to. Something in like the 16 hundreds. I'm a, a, you know, medieval type fan. Yeah.

David Millili: Cool.

Steve carran: Awesome. Awesome. That was great. That was great. Now we'll get to know a little bit about you, where you came from, things like that. So, so you're from the uk. Where did you grow up?

Dale Smith: so I grew up in the northeast of England, a small town called Saltburn, uh, that's right in between Newcastle and Leeds, but on the coast. so yeah, so, so grew up, born and raised there, and then, then moved away to the US actually for college, when I was 18.

Steve carran: so how did growing up there kinda shape who you are today?

Dale Smith: love being by the sea, to be honest with you, kind of, uh, we are really lucky salt burns right on the coast. Really good access to, um, north Yorkshire Mus, which is, you know, beautiful mulland and hills, rolling hills, hiking, that type of thing. so off the back of that, quite naturally, um, really, kind of sports driven outdoors or outdoorsy type person.

Uh, and I really love that about where we're from,

David Millili: So you got a golf scholarship to the University of San Diego. What was it like for you coming from the UK and living in the US

Dale Smith: loved it. David lived, literally lived the dream for four years for me. So, was really keen when I was looking at universities, at going to either kind of south to east coast or west coast. Again, being from Saltburn, being used to being by the beach, that was a key factor for me. so it was really set on, on kind of Florida, also in California.

ended up choosing San Diego, and absolutely loved it. Like, you know, being honest, being from the UK going to the US I. You guys are distinctly more positive and upbeat about things, and I, I love that like you are like, versus, versus we can be a little bit dour from time to time in the uk. So, um, I, I really love that.

And, uh, yes, San Diego was a, a special place for me. Not only, you know, people I met there and a big part of my life, but just as a place, it's, it's fantastic. It's got so much, so much to offer great people. so yeah, I loved it. Really, really great part of my life.

Steve carran: were there any growing pains moving from the UK to the United States

or, or was it pretty seamless?

Dale Smith: No, it was, it was relatively seamless, serious, honest. I'm a, I'm a, I'm always looking for different things and relatively opportunistic, I suppose. So I, I, I love that challenge of that move, don't get me wrong. The first, that kind of first six months of, you know, moving over in probably the August time, I was kind of ready to get back home and see family that Christmas.

that period was getting up to Christmas period was the first time I really felt okay, I'm maybe a little bit homesick and wanna get back and see the family, but after that first Christmas I was like, every, I was raring to raring to come home, but get, get back as soon as possible, to be honest. So,

Steve carran: was there any food you missed or any, anything you really missed about home?

Dale Smith: um, no, not, not really. I, I guess just the US is so big a thing with England and the UK is you feel. A little bit freer to a certain degree, if that makes sense, because things are closer where in the US conceptualizing the fact that you're in one city. But that city's arguably as big as like the region I grew up in.

And then to comprehend, to get to the other end of the state is like a 10 hour drive, which is the entire length of the uk. That was a really weird feeling, knowing, well, yeah, I don't how to describe it, but that, that was probably one of the, the real differences. But from a food point of view, before I went to the US I would've said I was quite a fussy eater.

But the moving to the US really opened up again, different culinary experiences, really different fast food opportunities. Like back then in 2006 in the uk, like fast food for us was Burger King, McDonald's, like, you know, we didn't have Mexican takeaway and all that type of stuff, which you guys have, so, so yeah, real different experience, but I loved it.

David Millili: Yeah, that's what's great. I mean, I think that's the not biggest misconception, but a lot of, you know, people I've worked with in the UK or in Europe, like they don't, they, they can't fathom how big the US is and how the distance between New York. To LA and how different New York, Florida, Texas, California, how different the people are.

They think it's kind of this, maybe it's a movie or TV thing. They think it's kind of, everyone's not the same, but a lot closer than actually we are and, and obviously our politics show you that.

Dale Smith: Yeah, no, totally. The one biggest difference I see on that is like from a dialect and accent perspective in England, like we can travel 30 minutes in the car and the accent is entirely different, where you don't get that same. Really rapid variants in, in the us where, and I suppose the UK's maybe a little bit different to quite a lot of, countries from that point of view is literally 30, 60 minutes.

And the dialect and, and tonality and everything changes so, so drastically, which is makes us unique, I suppose.

Steve carran: Awesome. so now we'll get into your career a little bit, kind of find out how you got to where you are today. But, your dad wa he was actually the one that got you kind of un interested in the property side of things, right? Can you tell us more about that?

Dale Smith: Yeah, absolutely Steve. So, so yeah, my dad, um, started investing in property, probably around 2004, I think it was couple of years before I left the university. and that, you know, that really piqued my interest in the property side of things. Obviously we were, you know, riding the wave kind of preception at that point in point in time, so you could, you could make money in property quite easily.

but yeah, certainly that piqued my interest. And then I bought my first. Property, just before I left for, for the US in 2006, just as aide to let, properties. So not really in line with what we do as core in our operation today. but yeah, so that, that, that kind of started my property journey. and then when I left uni and came back to the UK in late 2010, I ended up going into the automotive sector.

So, as I touched on earlier, family background is in automotive, automotive, retail. I always thought I wouldn't go into automotive retail, but you know, in 2010 wasn't the best time to be graduating for, work experience opportunities. So ended up getting into the automotive sector, and built the early part of my career in that sector.

David Millili: Yeah. So you're involved in, it looks like about 10 companies, one soccer club, most of them your founder or owner. So what kind of drives you as an entrepreneur? How did you kind of get that entrepreneurial spirit about you?

Dale Smith: probably more problem solving David, to be honest, that's the bit I really like the challenge of, of solving a problem and whether that's a. You know, whether that's just actually taking something that's existing and trying to find a better way of, of doing it, um, or whether it's actually a, you know, a fundamental, issue that needs fixing, you know, within an industry, within community, whatever it may be.

And, and a challenge of trying to fix that. I think problem solving and creating solutions and deploying those solutions is really the part that, that I enjoy. And, you know, that was the bit. Kind of going back to my early career in automotive, I started in the marketing department, worked my way through to being commercial director over a seven year period.

And that was very much built on, building processes, finding issues in the business, fixing them, you know, developing the process of all them, deploying them, then moving onto the, to the next thing. and then when I went into property full-time in 2017, That's where we've now evolved into, as you say, 10 different, uh, 10 different brands, all of which serve a purpose to our core client or all of which solve the problem to that core client as well, ultimately.

and yeah, I think that's ultimately where it comes from, and that's certainly what gets me excited is, is those challenges, find those problems, right? How can we fix it and how do we take that to market?

Steve carran: Awesome. I gotta ask about the soccer club. How, how did that come about you? It's, it's the, the Red Car Athletic Football Club. Tell, tell us more about that, how you got involved with them.

Dale Smith: so when I was much younger, my, my sporting career actually started out in soccer. Um, so from being eight years old through to 14 years, I played for Middlesborough Football Club who are, uh, Championship football team. So they're one tier down below the Premier League, the Ffl.

and obviously similar to you guys, I suppose our, our system in the uk you any kids who are good from a sporting perspective end up getting picked up quite early and going that, that route through from a sporting perspective and our. Our educational BS with sport is nowhere near as strong as what it is in the us.

so I played in the Middlesborough Soccer Academy from being eight to 14, and I actually brought my leg playing, which is then how I ended up switching to

golf. so when I was much younger, from four years old to eight years old, red Car Athletic was actually the, the team that I played for. So, uh, at that point in time, they were mainly just a junior football club.

They were not as advanced as what Red Car Athletic is now. and then when I moved back to Saltburn in 2017, a couple of years later, I then started getting involved in Red Car Athletic again, mainly from a sponsor point of view, and, getting involved in, you know, supporting the team and the club from that perspective.

and then last year, I was talking to the, the then chairman, who's now the club president who's been around, you know, has developed the club over the last. Almost 30 years and, and taking it to a point, we decided right, we'll, we'll get involved, we'll take the club over and, and invest in it and, and try and build it and move it forward.

And it probably has, it has two main things for us. Right. You know, soccer's massive, massively passionate about it. You know, soccer's still my number one spot, although golf is what I went on to, to do at a high level. Soccer. Still, the, the kind of the core, which I suppose is, um, is right being an Englishman.

but also the foot football clubs in a society in the UK carry a lot of weight, right? So they're, they're a real core to a local community. So the football club for us is that vehicle to drive, to drive change. From a community point of view we wanna create. Facilities that bring people together. We want to use the, the football club to, you know, again, amplify where, we need to promote good in society.

So that might be economic challenges, it might be education challenges. We are using the football club as a vehicle to, to help. Drive the community forward and solve some of those things comes back to that problem problem solving piece, right? There's, there's lots of things where we are that we need to do better at and we need to fix.

As a society and a community, we believe football clubs are at the used do.

Steve carran: That's awesome.

David Millili: Yeah, and if we pissed anybody off, I'm making. You use the word soccer, Steve writes the question so they can send any comments directly to Steve. Uh, so alright, we'll go to the next question. So one of your companies, uh, the S D D E group, uh, Smith Group, it's a group of six client facing brands, in the real estate sector.

explain to us how those all work together.

Dale Smith: so what we've got David done under the s d D Smith group, which is effectively the, the holding company if you like. we've got multiple different brands. I think we're actually, we've got, as of today, we've got 11 customer facing brands. So everything is within the real estate sector.

and at the core of that, our, our largest brand is, is Host and Stay. So, host and Stay is a vacation rental management business. we manage just under 900, vacation rentals at the moment. and the vast majority of what we do is, is around servicing those properties and those clients. So, uh, um, to go back to the early days in 2017 when we, we started with one vacation rental.

So, Between, uh, March, 2017 and launching that vacation rental in December, 2018, we'd, we'd grown the portfolio to nine vacation rentals. Two of those we owned, and seven of those we just managed for friends, family, friends of friends. You know, there was never really. anything more than that to, to try and push that volume on.

We were still doing our own investments in, in residential property and commercial property as well. but with my background being finance and marketing related, what I loved about vacation rentals was the fact that you could. Drive performance on a daily basis. You know, you could change the imagery, you could change the description, you can change pricing.

You can actually affect that investment and what revenue you could drive from it. Whereas residential and commercial property, it's set and forget, right? You set your rents and then your contract runs, and you might have rent review periods every three or five years, whatever it may be, but you can't really drive that.

It's not a, it's not a, a true operational business. And again, that's where I, you know, that's where my passion lies. So in December, 2018, with those nine vacation rentals, we said, right, we need to drive this forward. We think we've got a good product. We need to take it to market and start and drive volume, uh, in this management service.

So host and stays, a brand has grown from nine to just under 900 vacation rentals in that four and a half year period. that growth has been predominantly organic. We made the first acquisition into Holton state of another vacation rental manager. six weeks ago. Yeah, beginning of May, six weeks ago.

and that was 120 units, so we grew organically to around 750. And then we're just, just the 900. Now with that acquisition, our ambition is to get to 5,000 units by the end of 2025. So, We think we'll grow organically to around two and a half thousand and we'll acquire the other two and a half thousand.

So it's a pretty, you know, ballsy roadmap if you like. But, as we've progressed on that journey, what we've found is owners, vacation rental markets really fragmented. Right. A as quite a lot of the hospitality market is, I guess. So if someone wants to invest in a vacation rental, they need to come, they need to go to a, a real estate agent to find the property.

They then need to come to someone like Host and stay to say, right, how is that property performed? What's the potential, what's my pricing gonna be like? They then need to find someone to do the, the cleaning and the changeovers and the linen. Then they need a maintenance guy to do call outs. so it's really fragmented.

So all we've tried to do all the way through is provide different parts of that process and where. Where we've grown demand enough, we'll spin that out into an outward facing brand. So if you take style, which is our interior design business, we would outsource interior design for our owners. Cuz every owner that comes on board with Ton State or, or not everyone, but nine outta 10 will ask us the question, right?

How do I maximize revenue? Well, if you wanna maximize revenue, you need an attractive property marketed in the right way. So we've gotta get the style right, so we need to make sure the interiors are functional, but they look great. So we need an interior designer to really maximize that. So we built up that demand.

And then once we were, once we had sufficient demand, we employed two interior designers in house rather than outsourcing it. And then when we built the demand further, we then launched it as an external brand service. You know, other holiday homeowners, but also residential and commercial. So every brand within the group has been through that similar journey.

So take our legal business, which, um, handles what we call the UK conveyance in, so the, the, the, the kind of purchase and sale of a property. So again, we had clients and we were referring to another, solicitor to another lawyer. At a certain point in time that lawyer got capped out on what demand they would cope with.

We were starting to have issues on SLA that then had a knock on impact on our client service. So, you know, we had thought, right, well we need to do our own version of this. So Joanne, who did a lot of our own legal work, she started that business with us. Uh, and then we've grown that now into four offices.

So that services host and stay clients legal requirements, but it also, it also brings clients into group at that legal point. And then we know we've got that suite of services we can offer. So all we're trying to do is basically take a client all the way through from. Purchasing. So we've got two real, we've got two real estate agency brands.

So really we wanna find a property for the client. We wanna help them go through that, that legal journey on the actual purchase. Once they've got it, we wanna make sure it's designed right to maximize revenue. We can then refurbish through our maintenance and, and our construction division, the, the conversion, depending how big the work is, or the design and the, the construction of that.

And then it'll go onto the management platform, the horse estate management platform at the backend. So we're trying to join that journey up all the way through, make it, you know, hands free, hassle free from a client perspective, because, If we don't do that, then we have to interact with so many parts of the process where we're subcontracting out to third parties, then we're losing control from an SLA point of view, from a quality point of view, from a customer service point of view, but also from a revenue and margin perspective.

So our model is to, to vertically integrate that margin. So we don't need to be, the most expensive or the cheapest on any of those processes or any of those parts of the process. We can be price competitive. And we can retain margin because we're taking a bigger slice of the pie all the way, all the way through that journey.

Steve carran: Absolutely. You've just created a one stop shop for people.

Instead of 

Dale Smith: Steve. Yeah,

Steve carran: going to different things, they just come to 

Dale Smith: Yeah, yeah, completely. And for us, it's about, it's about sticking, right? We wanna keep as many clients within that group as possible. So anywhere a client has to go out of group to get a service, well, our long, longer term plan is we wanna bring that in. So, Let's take, you know, finance and mortgages and insurance.

At the moment, we work with partners on those, but a certain point in time we'll bring those into group cause it makes sense. We've got a captive market, we've got the client base there to service them. And when we market that as an outward facing brand, that will bring more clients into group at that point.

And then we'll be able to offer them, you know, additional ancillary service through, through the rest of the brands.

Steve carran: A hundred percent. That's awesome. now we'll get into more of the industry thoughts. so what's one of the most exciting things about the, the real estate sector area right now?

Dale Smith: I think the short term rental and vacation rental sector for me is really exciting. I think it's been on a really strong journey in the last five years. even, you know, even with Covid, obviously there was peaks and troughs during, during the Covid period, but I think the vacation rental industry, short-term rental industry, whichever you want to coin it, has come out much stronger.

you know, it's evolving rapidly. We've seen a, big rise from a technology point of view in that space. You know, I mean, there's. I dunno how many, 10,000 different property management systems out there and pricing systems. So I think it's exciting that we're probably gonna go through a bit of consolidation in the next couple of years from a, from a technology point of view in the space.

but yeah, for me that's one of the really exciting parts. I think where it's relatively early, I suppose, in its journey, but it feels like we're evolving and maturing and professionalizing the industry pretty quickly. which I think is great. and for me that's, you know, The excitement of that versus the residential and commercial, which we still, still do little bits of, but you know, that's not why I get up outta bed in the morning.

It's the, it's the vacation rental stuff for me that, really drives me what I love. And, and the hospitality side of it, you know, dealing with guests, dealing with owners, you don't get that in, other, parts of property investment.

Steve carran: what's one trend that either you're seeing approaching or that's happening right now that you think is gonna make a big, make a big splash in the, in the vacation rental SP space?

Dale Smith: I think one of the biggest, whether it'll make a splash or not is, regulation. I think that's one of the biggest things we are seeing. I think that's in every market across the globe really. I think you guys in the US it's much more regionalized. So I know you've got different state and county laws on licensing from a short term rental point of view.

If we look at the UK at the moment, Scotland has just in, uh, just put in place short term rental licenses, England's going through consultation. So I think that's probably one of the biggest, potential, issues coming up in the industry, I guess. And it's just. Kind of seeing what happens with that.

But on the flip side, I also do think it's quite a good thing. I think an element of regulation coming into the industry is a good thing in terms of raising the barrier to entry, right? Because right now it's really easy for someone to list a property on Airbnb and there's, No checks from a health and safety point of view to make sure that it's right.

And we need some of that type of thing coming in so that we raise that bar and we can all be confident that the type of properties that, ultimately families will be staying in are at a certain standard and there's those health and safety precautions in place. cause I think that's our, it's helped the industry grow and evolve, but it's also still for me, one of the biggest risks, you know, that we are really stringent on compliance items in properties and health and safety for any properties coming on.

But I know that there's lots of property managers out there and individual operators that aren't. And, and ultimately we've got families staying in properties. We need to make sure they are right and that we've got, we've got good regulation in place. So, I think that's one of the biggest challenges we face.

But I think it's also one of the, big things that in the next couple of years as we come through the other side of that, I think it will actually turned out to be a really big positive for the industry.

David Millili: Is there one? Thing that on the vacation rental side, that you guys are doing really well that hotels could learn from and implement.

Dale Smith: it's a little bit different. David, I guess, I suppose I'm a user of hotels, right? If I'm traveling for corporate travel, I tend to use a hotel. If I'm traveling with a family, I tend to use a vacation rental. I think probably ex experiences can be a little bit different in vacation rentals.

So one thing we are passionate about plays back into that community aspect is that when guests come and stay in one of our horse and stay properties, we want to be, and we are connected to that local community. So we are driving our guests to spend their pounds or well their pounds cuz we don't have those, spending their money in local retailers, local coffee shops, local restaurants.

And I think from a hotel point of view, they. Miss out on that potential engagement with local communities and local businesses. Cuz you know, ultimately a lot of the hotel chains end up being bigger corporate entities that, that perhaps don't have the underground resource to be able to do that. We've got the opportunity to do that in the vacation rental space.

And I think that's one thing that, sets us apart from hotels is actually we can do that. Our guests can come and stay in our property and we can recommend the five best coffee shops locally. Where they need to go and, try if they're a coffee lover or the best Italian restaurant or, whatever it may be.

And actually we can, you know, and in the reverse, we know we are having an impact on that local community as well and driving business for, that local business. And keeping the pounds and pence in those local businesses. We're not pushing them to. You know, the taco bells and, and the McDonald's and whatever else.

So, 

that's one, of the biggest differences that vacation rentals can have versus hotel chains is that engagement piece, right? We, we can really engage with those guests and we can really give them an experience in the local community that a hotel doesn't do. At the moment, I, think they've got the opportunity to do it, but we don't see it at the moment.

David Millili: As we record this, we're pretty much exactly at the midpoint of 2023. Do you have a tip or some insights on how vacation rentals can improve their R o I moving forward?

Dale Smith: two big points for me really on roi. One design of the property, and it doesn't have to be expensive, so whenever I would go and see an owner, I will always be looking for in that property. Right. What's the. first image gonna be? Because ultimately a guest making a booking that's never been to the property before we're selling the photography.

Right? We're not that. That's our product in reality, and I feel like a lot of property managers or owners miss that point. So from a design point of view, you're really looking for what are gonna be the key features within the property? What's really gonna attract someone in and want them to book that property?

And what could be the one point of difference on the experience, it might be something as simple as, your property has a really cool coffee machine. Something like, what's gonna be Something that's really point of difference. And then the second is professional photography.

So for me, we work on, on the fact that within five photographs, that that guest is going to know whether they want to book that property or not. So image number one needs to grab the attention. Because if, image number one is, no good, they're gonna scroll past the listing and not click. So, But we need to have the design right?

Cause no matter how good the professional photography is, if the design isn't right, then we're still gonna be missing opportunities. So if we've got the right design and the right photo quality, that's gonna get the click to then take them through to the listing page. Once you're on the listing page, within those first four or five photos, they're gonna know whether they're gonna go on and book that property, or whether they've already hit the back button and they're back into listings.

So making sure you. Look up those first four or five photos and say, right, are you telling the story in those first four or five photos? Have we sold that, property to the guests within those? and that for me, I mean, you just have to do a search on Airbnb and scroll down and see how many people are missing the point on that ultimately and, missing out on, maximizing what the potential of that property is.

Cuz that quality is, what really drives it. and that's been a big focus for us from, day one is, exactly that right design and right presentation of the property. Because ultimately that's what you're selling.

Steve carran: Absolutely. And do you have any, I guess, advice for those that are thinking about, you know, getting into the Airbnb space, you know, I guess specifically about building their brand, if they should, build their own brand more, or rely on, you know, OTAs more. Do you have any advice for those folks?

Dale Smith: Certainly Steve. So I think, you know, there's, there's a lot of, uh, interesting debate in the space around OTAs and direct bookings. It's getting more and more prevalent, but I mean, look, we, we built our business on, utilization of those OTAs, which, which kind of comes back into my last point. The OTAs, there are a platform to give you the reach.

So it's up to you to then market your property in the right way to maximize that reach. And the OTAs do exactly that. They give us that reach, so, What we have always done however, is even when we had just one vacation rental, that vacation rental had its own website, even in the basic form, so that if someone booked through booking.com or Airbnb, as soon as we had them in, inside the property, all of our communication off platform is to encourage that guest to stay with us directly next time.

And that's not always gonna happen. Cuz some people love to book through Airbnb consistently, or they love to book through booking.com and it's habit, right? But. For some people, we've gotta have that journey. So once, once you've secured the booking through Airbnb and booking.com, it's then look and say, right, well what's the rest of that journey for the guest?

Where are all the touch points I can communicate my brand to them? Or even if that is just, you know, me as a brand, as an individual host, I can tell them why they should come back and stay with me again next time and give them the opportunity to, to book direct and having those tools in place. so I've been a big believer in that from day one.

And then, As we've grown the host and stay brand, in the early days we had individual properties, all with individual websites. And then when we launched the host and stay brand, that got consolidated. So our focus is then being on building that, that host and stay brand. but I think it's a balance.

So currently our, we, we take, uh, 75% of our bookings through the OTAs and 25% direct. We wanna get up to 50 50 cause I think that's a healthy balance. We don't wanna be over reliant on OTAs, but on the flip side, we are never gonna generate the reach of Airbnb and booking.com. So for me, they're, they're fantastic partners at casting the net and generating bookings.

We need to deliver the experience for the guest on the ground and do a great job that makes that guest think. I'll tell you what, next time I'm looking I'm just gonna go straight to Holster's day cuz. I know their properties are on Airbnb, but I know they've got fantastic properties and I, I love what they do and they great experience.

So I'm just gonna go and book with those guys direct. But we also know that you are never gonna get away from those that continue to book through the same platforms. and they're always gonna all Airbnb and booking.com and you know, all the others, other platforms available if you like. gonna bring in guests that we wouldn't necessarily say our core guests.

So in the UK we're 90% domestic travel, so we are never gonna spend our direct marketing pounds on trying to pull in that 10% from overseas. So booking.com and Airbnb gives us that incremental overseas market that we wouldn't get if we were trying just purely to drive direct bookings. so I'm a big believer there's a, a place for every aspect in that marketing journey.

It's about utilizing that and then ultimately it comes then back down to selling your brand and developing your brand around that guest experience and giving that guest a reason to, to rebook you with you again. Once they've, once they've stayed with you.

David Millili: Yeah. So what advice would you give to somebody who's starting out in the vacation rental space? An entrepreneur who's looking to, to get into the space, make an impact? What advice would you give to somebody who's, who's starting out.

Dale Smith: lots of opportunity I think I suppose if, if they're looking to get in and invest, it's kind of back to that, you know, pick, pick their lane of where they want to be. So, if they wanna get into vacation rentals, right? Do you wanna operate in the upper quar of the market so you know, for what I would call four and five star properties?

Or do you wanna operate in the corporate market and it might be a little bit lower. Standard, possibly it's higher volume, maybe lower ADRs. You know, we, we have a market we call a contractor market in the uk, which we don't really play in, but it's, you know, mainly focused around construction, companies and travel and subcontractors.

And they, you know, again, higher volume, longer length of stay, uh, you know, lower margin most likely. So I think really picking, picking the lane that you want to run in and sticking to, sticking to that as well and really getting good at one of those, And then anybody else in terms of opportunities in the sector, I see one of the biggest opportunities and one of the biggest issues we have at the moment is we, we all talk about growth of the industry and technology to facilitate, you know, growth and scale.

And I think we miss a fundamental point, which is the underground team. So as we continue to grow to 5,000 properties, technology is obviously gonna help that. But the bit we can't live without is our housekeepers, our maintenance guys who need to keep on making sure those properties are right and ready for the guests coming in.

and I think every time I go to an industry conference, we all talk about technology and dynamic pricing and which PMs to use, and we don't talk about housekeepers and what's the best process for those guys and how are we training them in development and retention. And these are all the things that if the industry is gonna continue to grow.

This is actually gonna be the bit that holds us back. and for me, there's some of the biggest challenges. It comes back to that hospitality piece, right? It's about are the property gonna be ready? Are they the best standard? And how we treat those guests, it comes back down to the people. and I think we miss a, we, we miss on that, but that's a bit we are passionate about.

And I see the opportunity industry is for someone to really get hold of that because, That's, that's really, really valuable, right? You can have say all the tech, but if you haven't got the housekeepers, you haven't got the process, the underground people really well trained, you're not gonna be able to grow your brand and not gonna be able to scale the business.

Steve carran: absolutely. The people make the business go. So I, I love that. But, uh, so John has been sitting in, uh, listening this whole time. So, so he's got the final question here for us.

JOn Bumhoffer: All right, Dale, uh, you're talking about your, your love of, soccer. I'll call it football for the, for the sake of the conversation. Um, what is your football club? do you cheer for?

Dale Smith: My team. So my Apart from Red Car Athletic, my, uh, my Boyhood Club is Middlesborough Football Club. So that's the team that I support. Yeah, so once we're a 

JOn Bumhoffer: That's awesome. I know it's, I know it's a fierce loyalty.

Dale Smith: Yeah. Oh it is. It is, yeah. Cradle to degree of loyalty. John is what it is.

JOn Bumhoffer: That's awesome.

David Millili: So Dale, that brings us to an end of another episode of The Modern Hotelier You. We'd like to give you an opportunity right now to plug away, let us know where people who are listening can find out either about you or your properties, your companies. So the floor's yours now.

Dale Smith: Cool. No guys, thanks for having me. Um, hit me up on LinkedIn, definitely. That's my, uh, my social, uh, channel of choice. So you'll find me, I think Dale underscore PBLs. My, uh, my handle on LinkedIn. But if you search Dale Smith and. S STD Smith Group, you'll, you'll find me. and yeah, check out our S STD Smith Group website.

You'll see all of our brands. And if you're, you know, if you're interested in the hospitality, vacation rental side, our host and stay business@hostandstay.co uk. but yeah, love guys. Fantastic chatting to you. Thanks for having me on.

Steve carran: Thanks so

David Millili: Thank yous. Yep. So that does it for another episode of The Modern. Hotelier, we appreciate you being on Dale and, uh, thank, thank you to all those who are listening or watching.