Professionalising Short-Term Rentals with Merilee Karr (UnderTheDoormat)

Jessica
Merilee, thank you for joining me on the Pillow Talk Sessions podcast. I'm, I'm really excited for this conversation and I mean you are a real pioneer in the industry and I was looking at everything that you've kind of done and do and have, you know, and are doing for the industry and it's, it really is very pioneering and it covers across so much. So operations with UnderTheDoormat Group, and then you are a pioneer in legislation and advocacy through being from the Short Term Accommodation Association, a pioneer in technology with Hospiria and your own kind of PMS that you've developed, a pioneer in distribution through TrustedStays and the global GDS, and then also a pioneer in markets as well.

Like looking at you obviously in the UK, but with your Veeve merger, looking at France and Paris as well, but also in the Middle East and then we've got the US and I know you've got, you know, activity there as well. So that real. And also innovation as well. I can't forget that bit. A real kind of pioneer innovation. So you've got so much that you've not only kind of brought to the short term rental sector and then also the flexible rental sector, but you're also kind of helped the industry so much as well. So just with that kind of starting point, could you give our audience two things? So first, a sort of an overview of UnderTheDoormat Group and your background.

And then what is it that you're most kind of excited about that you're doing or have done for the market?

Merilee
Oh, wow. I mean, that's a tough intro to follow, but I will do my best. UnderTheDoormat Group, our mission is to help every property fulfill its potential every day. And I think that's really important because across all the different properties, parts of the value chain that we work, it is really about taking properties that exist and helping create value for those owners and for the guests who come to stay. And as you mentioned, we have several different companies within the group. Our Veeve business, which was a combination of the UnderTheDoormat managed business and Veeve, where we merged just about two years ago. In that side of the business, we do everything end to end and we work with B2C owners, so individual owners who have, you know, four and five star luxury properties, and that is across London and Paris.

But we also work in what we call the B2B side. So we work with institutional real estate asset owners, the likes of Cadogan Estates or Long Harbor, and help to bring those portfolios also to the market in a fully managed way. Our Hospiria business is about providing the technology to people who can operate on the ground, but they need the technology to be able to do that. And often we're working with institutional real estate who may not necessarily come from a hospitality background, they come from a long term rentals background. And so not only do we provide a PMS system, the Hospiria technology, but we also provide a suite of services to help with reservations management, optimization on platforms and everything up to the point that the guest is ready to check in.

And that actually helps more institutions, more assets be able to come to market. So Hospiria is across Europe, it is also in North America, in the Middle East, and I'm sure we'll talk more about that as we go. And then finally, of course, the part of the business which came out of the pandemic and out of all the work that we have done as an industry was that access to the global distribution system. And that came because we worked together as an industry to help house NHS workers during the pandemic.

And out of that came an opportunity to win government contracts for the very first time for our industry and also to land a deal with Amadeus and the other global distribution providers to be able to push short term rental inventory and vacation rental inventory into the global distribution system at scale globally for the very first time. And so those are the different parts of our business. And I think what often people find is that if they want to do short term rentals or flexible rentals, it often starts with a conversation about, well, what do you really need? Can you operate on the ground yourself? Do you already have your own system and have your own delivery? And is what you're looking for a new channel to market? What is it you need?

And then often we're able to think about what we could do to help them across the various different parts of our business.

Jessica
So all in all, also it's a real, like you've been really at the forefront of professionalizing the industry, the short term rental part of the industry as well. So. And also through the, you know, I know you've been a real kind of forefront of in the UK, certainly legislation and advocacy through your work with the association as well.

Merilee
Yeah. And look, I think for me, I'm a big believer in this industry, that the industry has so much potential. You know, we've known that, you know, there's all kinds of reports from SKIFT and Focus Wire and all of these publications. Recognize that our industry has so Much potential. You know, if I think about when I started in this business, God is back in 2014, I now feel a little bit old. But you know, back then the industry was just in its infancy and you know, fast forward in Europe, according to Eurostat, now more than 20% of accommodation nights are in short term. And vacation rentals, well, that's a massive maturity curve. But from the very early days I always believed that the sector had to professionalize if were going to be able to grow to the scale that we wanted to achieve.

And I've also always been, I guess at my very heart, a collaborative player in the industry. I love working with all the other businesses in the industry, founders of some amazing businesses in our sector and looking at how we can actually grow our businesses together. Because my belief is always, let's grow the pie and there will always be really good opportunity for different businesses within it. And I think there's a lot that we've done on the regulatory side. You know, Trusted Stays is a great example where we're trying to create something that actually helps everyone in the industry get access to new markets and new channels.

And so a lot of what I do, both in strategies as our business, but also in supporting the industry and chairing the association for seven years, is all about how we raise the bar for the entire industry with the view that if we can achieve that, then the industry and the size of the opportunities is going to be so much bigger for all of us.

Jessica
So it's a real approach of a rising tide, raises all ships. So, you know, one for all for one mentality, which is great. What I'd love to explore with you, Merilee, as we go into this conversation is the hotelization of real estate. So it's a topic that we talk about in different guises on this show and with people coming from sort of different parts of living or hotels or short term rentals. And it can kind of look, we look at it in different ways. So the hotelization, if you like, of real estate might look like the fact that services experiences are becoming so much more important as the value that can be brought through from real estate.

It might also look a little bit like the growth in flexible rentals where there's no longer just a sort of a building that is a long term rental building, but also might have flexible stays in there that look a little bit more like hotel stays or short term rental stays. It's also around looking at how short term rentals, part of that needing to kind of become more professional is also the experience that gives to guests. That's more standard, more like a hotel, you know what you're going to get. Which we all know in short term rentals can be one of the joys, but also one of the challenges of the industry. There's no conformity that you might have in a hotel. So what are your views on the hotelization of real estate?

Do you think it's over egged a little bit or is it something that you're seeing that you're. That we're still on path towards that?

Merilee
I mean, look, I think we are absolutely on a path to that. And I think that's for two reasons. One, because as a sector matures, you naturally are not just having customers who are, you know, innovative and wanting something quirky and different. You actually have to attract, you know, a much broader segment of the population to be your customers. And I think if we consider the past few years more and more people in a post Covid era in short term rentals, the whole segment had, you know, a real boom time. And I think what that meant was that you had to be able to offer more consistency. I like the word consistency better than conformity because I actually think that sometimes it is those small differences.

You want to be able to provide something that they can trust and that meets expectations, but you also still want to have some authenticity at the same time. And I think for me the tough balance that our industry has to strike is not becoming like hotels because actually the authenticity and the uniqueness of our industry is part of its character and part of its value, but at the same time ensuring that we do meet standards. And so I think that's the journey that we're on. And a slight irony is that I think as governments more heavily regulate our sector and they go into things like planning and you know, much more heavy licensing structures, they actually force the industry to be more conformative. And I actually don't think that's a good thing.

I mean, obviously, you know, coming from the industry, but also knowing a lot of the regulations around the world, I think that the markets that get it right are the ones that allow some of that uniqueness and don't overregulate the sector. Because not only does it mean that our sector has the chance to grow and that more people can participate, but it also means that consumers get more choice. You know, if you look at a place like New York now, the only way you can really stay in a short term rental is actually in a building which is licensed. And so all of the uniqueness is gone. You got to go and stay in New Jersey if you want that now.

So I think that's the kind of example, but I also think in a funny sort of way, that whole piece around service and hospitality is also really important because of course, if you think about peer to peer, that's where it all started was, oh, someone's going to open up their home and you might have a glass of wine with the person you're staying with and then people realize, yeah, that's fine if you like the person, but actually you don't necessarily want that when you're traveling with your family or your friends. But people want a sense of friendliness and hospitality, even if they don't necessarily want to be your best friend.

And I think that is also the danger on the other end of the spectrum is that if everybody moves to lockboxes and everything is done in too standardized a way and you take out any component of hospitality, then I also think, well, you know, then it just becomes a cheap version of a hotel room. And so I think that hospitality aspect of our sector is again an area where there's a lot of value and the people who do that well are some of the people who tend to succeed most. So, you know, I think there definitely is convergence between short term rentals and the hotel sector.

And you know, not least in that we start to even see some of those intersection points around branded residences, apart hotels, serviced apartments, and you see operators like us who are actually working in those spaces, you see technologies like Hospiria helping to power them. And you know, even I would say that CRM systems like alliance, who we've partnered with from the hotel sector, actually working together with a PMS like Hospiria to be able to unlock new inventory from multifamily and branded residences and things like that. So you definitely see convergence across these two spaces. And I think we'll see even more of that in the year ahead.

Jessica
Talk about the convergence in a moment. But I just want to reflect something back to you. Is that what I'm sort of hearing also from you? There is a difference between the hotelization of, let's say real estate or short term rentals or whatever and hospitality, they're not the same thing. So hotel doesn't necessarily mean hospitality or, and a service driven culture, you know, service driven culture or putting the customer at this front and center, we can sort of see it maybe in a more cynical way that it is that conformity and it's just you know, you get a hotel room, you don't know if you're in Miami or Shanghai. Whereas with a short term rental, it is the beginning, you know, it's what it was.

Let's just say Airbnb in the beginning said it's like live like a local, you know, you get to be in parts of a city that isn't right by Trafalgar Square, that is in a lovely bit like Richmond or you know, wherever other parts of a major city could be Brooklyn or, you know, I was in Brooklyn in September for the SKIFT Global forum and you know, there's no Airbnb. You can't, you can't rent in Brooklyn. There's not really many hotels, not like there is in Manhattan. So all the tourists, I presume, are now being sort of shoved into back to Times Square and Manhattan rather than dispersed across a city where, you know, everyone else is. It's a very nuanced and difficult kind of topic to talk about.

But the other thing that you also mentioned is that with traditional vacation rentals, the money that's made is split or it's again dispersed because there are multiple, you know, there's individual owners that might own a second property that they rent out. There is also the communities where homes are located in that would get money that are not necessarily all going back into a hotel and a hotel restaurant, it's local restaurants, that kind of thing. So it's, they are very different. But you help me kind of think about how hotelization and hospitality are not necessarily mutually the same thing. I want to talk to you about the convergence because you're also, as you mentioned, involved in build to rent and helping build to rent operators.

Asset owners come into the short stay in a flexible way and having a different kind of business model or different kinds of asset classes within their building. And one of the things that I want to ask about that is we know that short term rentals have legislation coming in that makes it harder to operate in. There's more that will no doubt come in. Different cities have different, you know, have different things. But if we look at the UK build to rent market, the renters reform bill that's coming in this year, will that make an impact on the short stay sector, do you think?

Because in my kind of view, I sort of think as a landlord, it's going to become much harder or more, less sort of flexible to rent out your property for long term rents now because of, you know, everything's going into the renters. How do you think that will impact the supply into the short stay sector.

Merilee
So I think it's a really interesting topic and in some ways I'm not sure it's really limited to the UK. I think fundamentally, whether it's driven by regulation or whether it's driven by consumer demand, especially younger generations are actually seeking out flexibility. And so I think in many ways the regulation is kind of catching up with the fact that just locking people into contracts is not the way to have loyal customers. Tenants will want to stay because it's a great building, it's a great asset, it's a great community, it's well managed, all those types of things.

But of course, when you have legislation that comes in and forces that shift in a really short period of time, what we are seeing in the UK is a lot of institutional real estate owners and operators who recognize that the flexibility that tenants are going to have means that the security of tenure that they were essentially guaranteed historically isn't going to exist anymore from the first of May. Now that of course can mean a couple of different things. I think there are some sitting on their hands going, oh, it's not going to affect me. Everybody loves one that lives in my building, is happy. And then you've got others who are quietly going, oh God, this is scary, what if. But they don't know what to do.

And you've got others who are actually ahead of the curve thinking, wow, okay, I've got a risk here. And what I can do is look at short term and flexible rentals as a way to solve for that risk and to mitigate it. And so we're talking to a lot of institutional real estate players, be that owners or operators around, how to get live their inventory now ahead of these changes for the 1st of May. So that whatever the impact is, because quite honestly, no one can really quantify it because it's a once in a generation shift, that they're prepared for it and should come the first of May they have 10, 20, 30%. I've even actually heard that some build to rent developments have 50 to 70% students.

You know, whether it is a high student population, a transient population that uses it as an opportunity to do different things that come summer they're not going to end up with a bunch of inventory sitting there waiting for September to be able to lease up again. And so I think that's a massive opportunity. And I also think that because you're not going to end up with big cycles of renting like you had in the past, that ability to manage voids. Of course we work a lot with lease ups, but you know, through the asset life cycle to have the flexibility for seasonality, for void periods, for different unit types, to make sure that you're able to maximize them on the long term rental market.

But whenever you need short term rentals to sit alongside that as a key part of your strategy to optimize your NOI and your yields, that is something that I think the smartest asset owners and operators are looking at now with a lot of urgency for the 1st of May deadline.

Jessica
So it really is about mitigating risk.

Merilee
Disappointingly, because actually if you really think about it, if it weren't for the regulation, I'm not sure people would be acting with such a sense of urgency. But in reality, if you offer your customers flexibility and they stay because they want to be there and that you can even offer them product like resident hosting where you have an operator that manages it, but you allow your tenants if they go away for two months to rent it out when they're away. You know, innovative owners and operators of assets have elements of what they can do, forget regulation or risk, that can actually make them some of the most attractive developments and portfolios in the market. And so personally we love working with people who are thinking ahead and thinking how to get ahead.

Of course we always work with people who also want to reduce their risk. But I think it really should be about innovation and driving the best outcome for your developments because at the end of the day you actually want to be leading in order to be the most successful development overall. So I hope that it's a mix of both and you know, no doubt there will be some that are much more proactive and others that are more reactive. But I really do see this as part of a strategic move, which is why I don't see it as unique to the UK. The UK just has legislation which makes it a more acute decision to be made for many owners and oper.

Jessica
It's really interesting that bit about making a tenancy attractive to tenants because we no longer, they're no longer sort of tied into a year's contract, they can leave whenever they want with notice period. But actually making your building, your community as a living operator attractive is the number one thing. And again, I guess that also ties us into that hotelization. If we look at, if we did look at it as experience and service and how does it feel to be within a building and brand and we're looking at all those things. So it's, you know, it's operators who are not traditional hospitality operators having to think in a different way. And one of the things you mentioned there is around allowing tenants to rent their apartments out to make income for themselves when they may, you know, when they're not in the property.

So I guess their reasons could be they're away and they want to make income, or they could go and stay somewhere else and make extra income in their property. Is this something that you're already doing or is it part of your roadmap and how well does it work in practice?

Merilee
So it's something we've absolutely done and it's an area that we see that works really well where it works well. Because to be honest, you speak to any portfolio landlord and whether that is BTR and institutional or whether that is just a portfolio owner, they all know that there are people in their portfolio that Airbnb their properties and in the worst cases things go wrong and they end up in legal battles about it and everything else.

I think the big opportunity is that what I guess to avoid the risks that come along with people trying to do it on the sly is actually being open and letting people do it, but doing it in a controlled way so that there's a management company that is available 24 by 7 that you're able to call if there's any issues to make sure that, you know, guests are vetted and checked in properly and, you know, all of the things that could go wrong are actually managed for. Because let's be honest, you know, when people own their own property, they love the ability to make choices about renting it out for periods of time.

And if people see the property as theirs and they see it as a long term home, giving them the ability to rent it out for periods of time is of course a great way for them to keep that tenure in that development much longer. But what you don't want is them going and doing it on the sly and all these things, because that's exactly when things go wrong. So, you know, our Hospiria technology enables the owner of the building, it can even be the owner of a portfolio of institutional real estate at any level can actually see all the activity that's going on. And then of course, the owner or the tenant of a particular unit can see exactly their own profile and open and close that as they choose.

And then of course, it's always the building's choice as to whether they want to have some kind of operational support on the ground themselves so that it's all managed within the building and controlled by the operator, in which case we can support them technology wise. Or indeed whether they just prefer a plug and play solution where everything is operationally handled as well. And so all of those things have been done and to be honest, it's really, it's quite simple. But it is all about whether the building wants to keep control in the sense of we don't want people doing this and we want to shut it all down, or whether they actually see that as an innovation. They see that as a retention tool and they see that as something to offer that actually adds value.

And by the way, they can also earn a small portion of the income for themselves so they don't have to be completely selfless.

Jessica
Have you got any idea of the take up of it? Like what kind of percentage of tenants say yes, yeah, I'm going to do this and actually do it.

Merilee
So the irony of this is, and look, the numbers are not only mine, I mean, you know, there are other organizations that have done this as well. I think the asset owners and operators are scared to death that 50% of their tenants are going to come back and say they want to do it. But in actual fact all you have to do is look at the broader market to know that it's kind of around the 5% mark. It's not that everybody wants to do this, it's not that everyone can. Some people are just not away in order to benefit from it. Others might choose that they don't want to. But it is actually a relatively small portion. But I always liken it to, you know, a gym or a swimming pool at a hotel.

You will book a hotel because it has it and then you might not actually use it. So in the same way for those operators, it's like offer it to people because it might be one of the reasons they actually decide to live there and they might not even use it. But the fact you've given people optionality is often, sometimes the most important thing.

Jessica
Yeah, absolutely. Giving that choice, whether they take it or not is always very attractive. Merilee, I want to move on now and move to the Middle East and talk to you about the Middle East because I know that you have got huge kind of history and background of working across the Middle East and you've been doing some really interesting things over there again on those pioneer levels, if you like, on the legislation, but also the operating and just, and the innovation side as well. Tell me about that market and why it's so appealing for the UnderTheDoormat Group to go in there. And what is it that's sort of quite special at the moment about that market?

Merilee
Well, look, I mean I spoke earlier about mature markets and you know, short term and vacation rental representing 20% of accommodation nights. The Middle East is nowhere near that. It's less than 5% today. And you know, a lot of that comes from history because in the Middle East in most markets it actually wasn't legal to be doing short term rentals until relatively recently, Dubai being the notable exception. And so there's a lot of catching up to do in terms of this product in those markets. And so I think there's a huge opportunity for our sector to play a bigger role in tourism provision and optionality for consumers in those markets. But then you layer on top of that the bold ambitious goals of those markets in terms of tour growth.

I mean, you've obviously got Saudi Vision 2030, you've got Oman with its Vision 2040. So you know, they all have really ambitious growth targets in terms of tourism into those markets. And so if you consider growth of our segment within the mix and you consider the growth of the market overall, it's a huge potential opportunity. But I think it will materialize in a fundamentally different way because of course they have the benefit of the last 15, 20 years of the sector everywhere else in the world. So I think governments there are, I would say, reasonably worried about a kind of free for all where, you know, people can just rent out here, there and everywhere. They want to make sure that standards are in place from day one.

And they also want to make sure that, you know, governments get their share that, you know, tourism revenues also turn into tax dollars and all these kinds of things as well. Again, no one, you know, no one is completely selfless in these things. So with all of that in mind, I think there are a number of big opportunities for us. We are there and we want to be partnering with real estate asset owners and operators. We want to be partnering with other operators in the sector. And one of our big announcements recently is that we are partnering with SAVL in Oman first and potentially more broadly in the region to be able to provide that on the ground operational delivery while we provide the Hospiria technology and service.

And I think that's exciting for me because having worked in global businesses in the past, I mean my background was corporate world and Shell. I really value having local expertise in any market. And I think especially for the Middle East it's really important that SMEs grow up in those markets, that there is a really strong local infrastructure. And so I really want to be coming in, bringing technology, bringing best practice around how to operate internationally to be able to support the growth of that ecosystem in the region. So that's my vision of what I want to do to support. Obviously we did a kind of landmark deal with Visit Oman to help them open up the short term rental market in the Sultanate.

And I think that's an exciting model around how technology can enable the responsible growth of a sector in a market, but also help people in those markets to distribute globally and have the technology and infrastructure to effectively manage and scale their businesses quickly because they need to leapfrog. There aren't enough SMEs in the market. So those SMEs need to grow from 1 to 10 to 30 to hundreds very quickly in order to keep up with the pace of change. And so technology is going to be critical to that. And that's an area that I believe we are really well positioned to support that big change in an entire ecosystem.

Jessica
It's short term rentals. I always think it's a little bit like parenthood. It's sort of on the outside, looks easy in the inside, it's really hard, you know, so it's like on the outside, oh, it's dead easy to go from 10 to 30 to 200 units to 2,000. But actually there's an awful lot of growing pains as you go through that. And operationally it becomes very complex until you get certain things right like the tech and the kind of the operational management. But it is, it's one of those where it sort of looks easy to. It's like we've had all these Airbnb, you know, mega lords kind of come in and make millions. It's, you know, make your fortune on, you know, renting out Airbnbs.

But in the reality it's actually really difficult job or can be a very difficult business with low margins, et cetera. I just want to reflect something you said about how for the Middle East, how important it is to make sure that standards, because you said something around that, around making sure that they, that the governments there want to make sure that the standards are high. And I guess that if it isn't, it's reputationally damaging to them for tourists coming in and not getting a good quality of place to stay. You know, they're not getting a good hospitality experience and not getting a good unit to stay in is so important.

Is there anything, are you seeing any sort of whispers or any kind of, are you worried or anything around them just sort of saying, you know what, no short term rentals, let's just stick with hotels. We're going to just build loads and loads of hotels and that'll be, you know, our offering. Or is there is still a sort of an understanding that not everyone wants that as a lodging stay, that they would prefer an apartment for all the benefits of an apartment. But what are you sort of thinking around that or seeing that?

Merilee
To be fair, I've got to give a lot of credit to the governments in the Middle East that I actually think they recognize that consumer choice and diversity of product is critical to their growth strategies. So I've not heard of any markets that are like, no, no, we just, we want to shut this down. We don't want this in our market. Now that isn't to say that they don't recognize there are some cultural challenges with it. You know, let's be honest, if you've got some really conservative, you know, local right next to people who are coming and staying on a more transient basis, these are things that need some thought and some care for how they're managed. So, you know, I have heard of governments. I think Egypt, for example, was one where they were looking at zoning as an option.

Whereas, you know, I think we all recognize that for all the reasons you mentioned about Brooklyn, the worst thing you can do is put in zoning. Because actually the reality is spreading the benefits and spreading that tourism across these geographies is actually part of the benefits and part of the beauty of what our industry can provide. But I think what they are much more comfortable with is the idea that you do have minimum standards and health and safety and inspections and all of that forms part of it. You have licensing schemes or like registration and permits. You've got to get in most of the markets in the Middle East and I think that is there to stay. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing for our industry. I mean, we see mature markets that coming in more and more.

How required it is given the other legal protections that consumers have in those markets is therefore debatable. But in the Middle East there is not necessarily the same infrastructure in place as standard within a market. So therefore it is really important, I think for us as an industry that those minimum standards are there because I think it protects the industry from that, you know, bad consumer experience or the PR disaster and all those types of things.

So I actually see that as a positive and certainly we are working with governments to help them understand a little bit how to get that balance right and not to over regulate but to make sure that those minimum standards are in place and that the inventory that you're gets distributed into, you know, all the global OTAs and all these distribution channels can ultimately be inventory that international consumers can ensure they're going to find the quality that they're expecting.

Jessica
Excellent. Merilee, such good points. And I want to move just to our sort of final topic that we can chat about now is looking at technology as an enabler for the industry. And I actually want to look at it more specifically and go back to the flexible renting and the convergence that seeing. So you talked about apart hotels, serviced living, serviced apartments but also the short term rental. The hotel we're sort of seeing, it's no longer less obvious buckets, you know that we used to, a few years ago there might be buckets of accommodation types. Now it's not so much buckets, it's more like a big pond where everyone's sort of coming in.

Merilee
But from the blue glide.

Jessica
Yeah, but from a tech perspective it can be really complicated doing that. So it can be complicated for the operator to be able to and you know, I've spoken to lots of operators, you know, across living, across hotels and across short term rentals where getting the right technology that can help them operate as simply and efficiently as possible within different asset classes and to different types of guests is challenging. How do you see that kind of changing and make it going forward so that it's less of a challenge for operators who are trying to be a bit innovative in what they're offering.

Merilee
So look, I would love to say that today you can just snap your fingers and it's easy and I think in reality it's not. Here's why. On the one hand you've got the institutional real estate sector who primarily delivered long term rentals over many decades and in those sectors you've got long term, let's say leaders in terms of PMS, your yardies of the world. And those systems are really embedded but not necessarily flexible enough to do anything other than you know, six month leases and those types of things. On the other end of the spectrum you've got hotels and you've got the hotel PMSs. Your operas of the world.

Again often legacy systems, often not as flexible as the operators need them to be and therefore what we see is in the likes of branded residences, they're trying to shoehorn those systems in to different types of inventory and finding that the second they want to scale that it's not working. And so that's where I actually think having sat in a way in the intersection between real estate and hospitality in short term rentals, we've seen both of those parts of the market. And also, you know, certainly for us having much newer technology, more agile technology, which was built on an architecture which can accommodate both buildings and individual units and actually translate those, it means that we've got architecture which is flexible enough to accommodate those different needs depending on whatever the asset owner wants to do.

But I also think it is incredibly important that the connectivity and the APIs that are now being built that cut across our industry and the long term rental sector and you know, for example, the partnership with alliance and that, you know, technologies that hotels are already using that can cover both things. So from my point of view, it's really exciting to see how sitting in the middle, in between real estate and hospitality, there are technologies now that give that choice to the owners and the operators to operate more flexibly and that whichever asset classes they're trying to manage, they've got technology that can handle the complexity that they need. So yeah, I mean, I think the next few years, particularly with AI and all of the other things that are coming are going to turn upside down.

The systems and the structures that are powering people to go to market, but also powering the operations, the financial management and all of those things. And our job at Hospiria is certainly to make sure that we're at the forefront of that and that we're able to support our customers as they ride the waves of convergence and flexibility and all the things that consumers are increasingly demanding.

Jessica
This brings us perfectly to a wrap up question that I want to ask you as we kind of come to the end of our conversation. And if we're to look back, let's pretend we're five years in the future, 2031, and we're looking back at the industry. What do you think we'd be most surprised about that? We, that we're not necessarily thinking about now or we're definitely, it's definitely not in the everyday now.

Merilee
I think we are desperate as an industry to be mainstream and in many ways we've struggled to get there. And I think what we're going to see if we look far into the future is that people are going to just see us as normal and we're not going to be the punchy teenagers or, you know, the kind of alternative economist accommodation that they always call us in the hotel industry. And I think with being mainstream comes responsibility and comes standards and comes all of these things. But I think as an industry, we're ready for it. And I think that those of us who've been around for a while know this is coming. But I actually think becoming mainstream and boring, a little bit boring is actually part of that maturity curve and it is also part of that growth curve.

And I think getting there, when we get there, it's just gonna seem like that was always the way it should be. But I think people will forget how hard we had to fight to get there along the way.

Jessica
Yeah, that's such an interesting point. It's like getting that seat at the table and forgetting that you haven't always, you've had the scraps at the bottom of the table or you had to do the washing up or whatever is really having that seat at the table, which is where the industry is headed. And that's a really good analogy. So thank you, Merilee, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. As we wrap up, is there anything coming up that you'd like our audience to know about before we kind of close up the conversation?

Merilee
Yeah, well, look, I mean, I think the European event that is kind of the pinnacle of every year is the Short Stay Summit, which is coming up in April. And so I'll be speaking there and really looking forward to getting to see loads of industry colleagues and hopefully a lot of people from adjacent sectors, whether that be the hospitality and hotel industry or real estate, actually coming and learning from our industry. I'll also be out in the Middle East in February and at PropTech Connect. So that is another exciting opportunity where some of what we're doing in that region is going to be a big focus. So looking forward to seeing people over the next couple of months. Months, be that in London, be that in the Middle East, or indeed in North America.

Obviously love having these conversations with people to see what others are seeing and understand how we can all work together to make sure that as an industry, we're well positioned to capitalize on some of the changes that are happening in 2026.

Jessica
Brilliant, Merilee. And I believe I'm moderating a panel that you're on at the Short Stay Summit around flexible rental. So looking forward to expanding the conversation there as well. Again, Merilee, thank you so much. We'll put in the show notes how everyone can get in touch with you if they want to know more about UnderTheDoormat Group. But thank you so much for joining us on the show.

Merilee
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Jessica
Thank you.