Curated Hospitality with Cathrine Reimann (Landfolk)

Jessica
Cathrine, welcome to the Pillow Talk Sessions podcast. It's really great to have you here and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. But before we kind of kick into our discussion, could you please give an introduction to Landfolk and to yourself as well for our audience that may not be aware of the platform?

Cathrine
Yes, for sure, Jessica, and thank you so much for having me. So my name is Cathrine Reimann and I'm co-founder of a platform called Landfolk. And Landfolk is for handpicked holiday homes. We started five years ago. We just had a big celebration with 33 handpicked holiday homes in Denmark. And now we have, I just looked it up this morning, 1,538 holiday homes across seven markets. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, and the latest Spain as well. And our concept from day one has been to hand pick holiday homes. We wanted to be an alternative to the OTAs, who have this massive amount of supply on their platforms. And we wanted to make it a lot easier for our guests to find these incredible, beautiful, lovely places to spend the most important time for them, which is their holiday.

And I would say we have been really successful. We've from day one also worked a lot on our host community, so made sure that, you know, the owners of these special personal places feel connected to Landfolk as a company and as a brand and always really valued the transparency with them. And we see them as our partners more than just suppliers. Yeah. So a lot of really exciting things have happened the past five years and I'm looking forward to digging into all of it together with you.

Jessica
And that is a huge growth from 33 to over 6,000, from one market to now seven markets. And I know that you've got lots planned as well for the future, but I just. One of the things, you know, looking at your website and looking at the homes, which are all absolutely gorgeous, but they're gorgeous but not luxury, as in they're not sort of out of range of the normal person as well, which is, you know, really an interesting kind of approach you've taken.

Cathrine
No, for sure. And I think we actually, we have a lot of times where, you know, we've welcomed a new colleague or something and then they're using the expression luxury and everyone in the room is just like, no, we're not luxury. That's not what we stand for. We don't want to be, you know, relevant for so few people. We much more want to have personal homes and quality homes and homes, you know, that have the best locations and have hosts behind them that understand the role of hosting. So those are kind of more, you know, down to earth almost criteria that we have.

Jessica
Yeah, no, it's quality over luxury. Feels, you know, it's not, I wouldn't say bucking the trend. Absolutely not. But luxury, you know, everyone wants to be luxury. Very few actually are. But it is also a market that is growing hugely in terms of demand and all that sort of side of things. So to have a platform that is proud in its fact that it is for, you know, it's beautiful homes for normal people, I would kind of presume. But one of the things I want to explore with you, Cathrine, is growth and how you do scaling by holding on to your values and also the quality of your inventory. Because that is a difficult thing to do. Like it would be really easy to just sort of take on all the kind of properties everybody.

I'm sure you have tons of people that want, tons of owners, hosts that want to be part of Landfolk. But having that sort of hand picking, if you like, as your operational philosophy, how does that play out with you guys? And how does that then impact your scaling?

Cathrine
Yeah, so it's, and I think we've had this conversation so many times, right, because from a commercial perspective, you know, where historically we've said no to 50% of the hosts or potential hosts who are applying with us and you know, for us, I think it's just become really clear that it is possible to scale. Like you were saying. I think we've had almost 3x growth every year on our supply since we started. And it is possible to scale but with constraints. So we can see that by saying yes to the right houses for our brand and for our platform that, you know, are qualifying from the criteria that we've set, we're able to get much better inventory. Right. It's much higher quality houses and we would rather have, you know, 10 of those instead of a hundred of low quality houses.

So from a GPV perspective and, you know, from a really strictly business perspective, it makes a lot of sense for us because it's a high quality houses that we're getting and, you know, we're also able to just the experience for our hosts that they are chosen already, you know, sets the bar for a really beautiful relationship with them where they can really see, okay, you know, I am chosen for because my house is as it is, you know, that just sets the relationship off. Right. So not only are we scaling with better high quality houses, we're also getting better relationships with the hosts that we're accepting onto the platform. And at the end of the day, you know, all of this is of course for our guests as well.

It's, you know, to make sure that our guests are, you know, have an easy, lovely time finding the place that they should spend their holidays. And then when they arrive, you know, they should also think that this is a lovely place and they should leave again, having refueled and having the exact right frames for them to have a really wonderful time. And that means that they'll be returning to us again because we're keeping that quality so high. So, you know, it's, I think with almost 3x growth a year, you know, we are really scaling well and putting our quality as a constraint is actually only helping us.

Jessica
That's excellent. And having moderated quite a few panels with OTAs and sat in at conferences, you know, a lot of conversations with the big OTAs, especially over the last year or so, the conversation's all around quality and the kind of, I guess the frustration for them that a lot of their inventory, maybe 25% of their inventory isn't really bookable or if it is, it's, you know, it's not a good kind of experience, shall we say. So I feel like what you guys have done from the beginning is knew that like that you're solving that quality inventory issue right from the beginning by making sure that's part of that operating philosophy, if you like, that you have.

But it must be a difficult one to stick to, you know, as you've got ambitions to go elsewhere. So how do, like, what are the sort of the practical ways that you make sure that any property and new host fits your philosophy?

Cathrine
Yeah. So I mean, I think the first practical thing is hire the right people to onboard our hosts. Right. So it's, you know, we are incredibly AI and tech enabled, of course, but we really value having people go in. And in Danish you have an expression, smagssans, which is kind of, you know, a judgment call kind of thing. And we believe that is going to be humans that are able to make that right now anyways. And I think, you know, so hiring the right colleagues to do this, we have a pretty intense onboarding sessions where, you know, we go through why is this house a good fit, why is this house not a good fit, and so on. And I think that makes a really big difference that this is something that's human dependent. The qualification.

Then we also have, you know, we have five years of expertise and experience doing this now, so we can really quickly see, okay, if we, you know, there are only photos of half of the house or only in some corner, you know, it's a really quick indication for us. Okay, we need more photos of this place before we can validate whether it's going to be a good stay or not. And then we have conversations with the hosts, you know, just talk with them. Understand, are they, is this a place that they're, you know, enjoying their own time at? Is this a place, you know, where they go to unwind themselves and enjoy spending time with their families?

And if they are, it's a super good indication for us that that means that this house is going to be really, you know, thoughtfully designed and a good experience. Yeah, I think those are some of the main guidelines that we have. And then I will also say, you know, one thing that we're really seeing has been efficient for us is host growth. So where we have our hosts recommending other hosts to join the platform and just, you know, once a host has become onboarded with Landfolk and is starting to share their place and then they understand the brand and our values and everything, you know, and if they are recommending someone, then they also feel almost a sense of pride of like, okay, I'm going to keep the quality up. Right.

And then so we have really good experiences with hosts recommending other hosts because we can see that those are the very best because everyone is interested in keeping the quality high.

Jessica
It's interesting because you've put a lot of focus on your customer experience, whether that is the guest or whether it is the host owner as well. Now, I've been talking to property managers recently. Over the last weeks, I've had a number of conversations with property managers, which is a different model, but quite a few of them were saying to me that their biggest issue is churn of owners and properties. How is your churn? Because it sounds like you really are mitigating against churn from your hosts and owners. But. And you will have a natural attrition there. Absolutely. But how is your churn? Like, you don't need to tell me the exact numbers or anything, but how is it, you know, are you proud of the churn that you have? Like, how is it?

Cathrine
Yeah, I mean, that is, it is I think almost our number one KPI, right, or metric that we look at because it is such an easy way to spot platform health and community health and host health, basically. And it is very, very low. We have natural churn in the sense that sometimes our hosts sell their holiday homes. We have all of it. We're seven co-founders of Landfolk and we all had, we worked together at Airbnb before. So, you know, a lot of the good flexibility that is one of the main strengths of Airbnb is also something that we believe is the best way forward. So we don't have long contracts for our hosts. We don't tie them to the platform legally, all of these things.

So for us, if a host comes and says, oh, I need to sell my holiday home, you know, then we say, okay, that is totally fine and acceptable. Tell the new owners about Landfolk as well kind of thing. So that obviously brings some, I think we usually call it healthy churn or valid churn or something like that. And yeah, so it's, we have a very low churn. I think it's something we take immensely seriously. I remember talking with one of our competitors colleagues a while back, you know, and I was actually like, so what is your churn generally? And he said, 100%. And I was like, what? Like what do you mean?

And he was saying like, yeah, well, I mean, they bring in owners and then they have a contract for a year and then they end up really unhappy and then they have to find a whole new set of owners the next year. Right. And it was just mind baffling for me because our setup is so different. Like, we invest heavily in each and every holiday home that we accept to the platform. It would be a terrible business model for us if we say goodbye to them after a year already. Yeah, I actually just looked into the 33 houses that we started with five years ago and we have 60% of them still part of the platform actively sharing their houses. And the 40% were because they've sold their houses.

And I think that just goes to show, you know, if you invest in your host and you have a good relationship with them and they feel that they are part of something, I think that really goes a long way along with also, of course, getting them bookings and getting them bookings with guests who really understand that this is a personal space that they're entering. And it's something that, you know, you have to take care of and be mindful of and appreciate. And I think that really helps on any churn issues.

Jessica
It's, you're really highlighting the importance of emotional collateral. Not just the commercial relationship, which is obviously very fundamental, but having that emotional collateral, that emotional connection with your host customers is so important. That feeling part of. Yeah, I want to talk to you about tech actually and humanness. And you talked about it one level around how human judgment when you're picking properties, you've obviously got automation for part of that journey. But then it's human judgment as well.

But in our prep call, you used the most lovely phrase. I'm not going to say it in Danish, but in English you translated it as warm hands. So talk to me about how you use in other parts of the business technology, but then you've also got that part of it. And please say the expression as well.

Cathrine
Yeah, so in Danish we have an expression which literally translates to warm hands. And it is that human touch that only humans can bring. And I think, you know, one of our advantages and also possibilities in this AI enabled day and age is figuring out where can we place these warm hands, these varme hænder, in the most optimal and also the wisest positions in a flow that either a host or a guest will enter.

And I think it's so difficult and it's so much fun to see. You know, where is it we can make a difference? We have, I think our two biggest. We have three big teams. It's our product, of course, they do a lot of really important things. And then we have our supply or our host experts team, which is also one of the biggest, along with our guest and host care team. And these are teams that would traditionally be big. And what we're trying to see is okay, how can we make sure that we're using these warm hands in the right spots and how can we make sure that tech is enabling these warm hands instead of overriding them.

And I think a host will care less about what email they're getting more than they'll care that they can talk to a human being and share the story of their holiday home. So the telephone conversation is something that we really prioritize. And just the same as a guest who is having trouble locking themselves in or has a frustration and just needs to talk to a human. They need to be able to get access to a human right away. Whereas the Wi-Fi codes and a lot of information about the holiday home, they can just as well get sent with technology.

So we're really trying to map out where are these pain points or opportunities where warm hands can make a difference. And then that's what we're doubling down on and using our teams for.

Jessica
Yeah, and I guess this is a journey that many in hospitality, or actually in any customer-facing industry, are working out. Where do we place the warm hands? And maybe that'll change as technology evolves. But I think you made the point there that the phone, making sure that it's human on the phone, is a place that might never go.

I want to talk with you a little bit about AI and LLM discoverability. It's changing how people research and buy travel products. So what is your philosophy at Landfolk to mitigate risk but also capture opportunity?

Cathrine
So I think we actually started with the realization that there are right now two types of guests. There are guests who love to do thorough research on their travel and spend hours digging into it. And then you have guests who want things quickly and simply.

So what we've done is use AI to make it a fun experience for everyone. Traditionally, you either use ChatGPT or filters. But we've developed a visual search engine which is AI powered, where you can describe the feeling you want. For example, a family holiday with preteens, a nice coffee corner, a large shared space.

And then we match that with homes that reflect that vibe. You can search emotionally instead of just using filters.

Jessica
It's a real shift from search being search to search being storytelling.

Cathrine
Exactly.

Jessica
And is there anything else with LLM discoverability you're thinking about?

Cathrine
I think what we are realizing is that quality is really important. Good photos, good descriptions, strong reviews.

Jessica
Yeah, consistency too.

Cathrine
Exactly, and good reviews really play into that.

Jessica
And then Cathrine, what's next for Landfolk?

Cathrine
We are doubling down on our existing markets and strengthening our position. But we are also launching a pilot in Copenhagen as our first urban destination.

We'll allow hosts to share their primary homes in a controlled, compliant way. For example, respecting the 70-day rental cap. We want to do this responsibly while maintaining quality.

Jessica
It’ll be interesting to see how that differs from holiday homes.

Cathrine
Yes, we’ll learn a lot. Starting without all the answers is part of our DNA.

Jessica
And finally, what’s the one value you’ll never let go of?

Cathrine
Quality. It’s the umbrella for everything. Without it, we’re just another OTA.

Jessica
And that ties back to your “warm hands” approach as well. Cathrine, thank you so much for joining.

Cathrine
Thank you so much for having me. And I’d encourage everyone to try our inspirational search. It’s a fun way to explore travel.

Jessica
Wonderful. Cathrine, thank you so much.

Cathrine
Yeah, thank you so much.