Wow. Episode 100 and in the same week the Vacation Rental Success Podcast surpassed 100,000 downloads. Its a big week but since I am in New Orleans for the VRMA conference this episode is a little shorter than most and covers some of the highlights from the seminars and the Vendor Showcase. Mike and I will have a bit of a celebration episode next week.

The Vacation Rental Managers Association (VRMA) conference is 3 days of quality education, networking and an enthusiastic collection of vendors all wanting to explain their products and encourage attendees to try them out.

Tweet: 100 #VacationRental Success episodes. Yippee! @VRMA round up, @BookMoreNights meet up http://ctt.ec/pe621+ pic.twitter.com/0dQ11YYAW5

I kicked off the conference with a meeting of managers who have been impacted by problems with Trip Advisor. Everyone felt it was valuable to meet in person and share experiences. TA are beginning to step up and have contacted all the managers in question to arrange one-on-one meetings, so watch this space for an update.

Since we are in the early stages of integrating our new rental management software and have commissioned a new website, I was able to avoid getting over-excited about many of the products on show. However, there were several that intrigued me in their innovative approach to the industry and I spent a little time talking to each of them.

A future episode will be devoted to these in more depth, but I cover one or two of these in today’s shorter show.

A highlight of the weekend was the one-on-one time I spent with my friend Matt Landau. This guy is a dynamo and an inspiration to many, and he brought together 12 of his Inner Circle to ‘mastermind’ around a very delightful dinner table. Matt posted a summary of many of these conversations here.

I mention:

Smart Host
Guest Hook
Vacation Rental Professionals (Linked In) group
Matt’s Inner Circle