Heather Bayer

Today I'm talking to Daniela Derin from Skol Apartments, Marbella. So we're heading to Spain for this episode, as I will be heading to Spain in a few weeks' time. And Daniela is going to be talking about booking direct and how she does it at nearly 100% book direct for her apartments. We're also going to be covering WhatsApp and how she uses WhatsApp to generate engagement and promote bookings. And she's going to bring us some tips to help hosts and managers build their direct book business.

Heather Bayer

This is the Vacation Rental Success Podcast, keeping you up-to-date with news, views, information, and resources in this rapidly changing short-term rental business. I'm your host, Heather Bayer, and with 25 years of experience in this industry, I'm making sure you know what's hot, what's not, what's new, and what will help make your business a success.

Heather Bayer

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of the Vacation Rental Success Podcast. This is your host, Heather Bayer, and as ever, I'm super delighted to be back with you once again. And if you're listening to this as we publish, we're just less than four weeks out from the Short Stay Week in Barcelona.  And if you have not yet signed up for Short Stay Week and the Scale Rental Show and the Book Direct Show and everything else that's going to be packed into this amazing week of immersion into the vacation rental business, then you can go to the show notes and get a link to go get your ticket. Just go to Barcelona – I am.

Heather Bayer

I'm heading out to Berlin, then Barcelona, then back to the UK. I'm making a real vacation of it. I know people are booking last minute for everything at the moment, so why should it be any different for you? Just make that decision, go and immerse yourself in vacation rentals for a week in the beautiful city of Barcelona.

Heather Bayer

Leading up to Short Stay Week, I'm interviewing as many people who are going to be there as possible. You've already heard from Mark Simpson and Evan Dolgow and over the next couple of weeks, you're going to be hearing from my guest today, of course. We're going to be talking to Vanessa de Sousa Lage and Neely Khan about storytelling. It's going to be great. I can't wait.

Heather Bayer

I want to move on over to talking to Daniela Derin of Skol Apartments, Marbella.  Daniela started way before Airbnb, so she has seen the rollercoaster of marketing vacation rentals, from direct booking all the way through to everybody getting excited about the OTAs, to coming out at the other end where we are now and heading back into direct booking strategies. But she has stayed the course and has been just about 100% book direct for a lot of years now. So we're going to explore her marketing strategies. We are going to ask her about what makes her business such a success. And she's going to share some tips to help you build your book direct business. So without further ado, let's go straight on over to my interview with Daniela.

Heather Bayer

Well, I'm super excited to have with me today Daniela Derin, who's calling in from Spain this morning. And of course, I'm so excited because I'm going there, going to Spain in three weeks' time, and I'll get to meet Daniela face- to-face. But for now, she is sitting outside in the sunshine in Marbella and I'm sitting in my basement. So, hi Daniela, welcome to the show.

Daniela Derin

Hi Heather, thank you so much for having me. And yes, it's beautiful. Having the sun warming my backside is amazing, my old bones appreciate it. So yes, quality of life.

Heather Bayer

Absolutely. Well, actually here in Ontario, we are on the same latitude as Spain. So I'm thinking where is this sunshine? We should have it.  But you…

Daniela Derin

Marbella has a micro climate. But yes, definitely south of Spain. And we have Morocco just 20 kilometers that way. So yes, south of Spain has  amazing good weather.

Heather Bayer

Well, you look absolutely wonderful. You are obviously enjoying all that sunshine. So we're going to talk to you about a whole load of things to do with vacation rentals. And I'm excited because you and I have been in the business for a couple of decades. I mean, I certainly been in there a couple of decades, but I know you've been in the business since what we call pre- Airbnb, and you have maintained a direct booking strategy for all those years. So we're going to be covering all that. But I'd like to start with, how did you actually get started? It's a question I ask everybody, and I love these origin stories.

Daniela Derin

I was in real estate. Real estate here in Marbella, as well as rentals. And here is very well connected with holiday rentals. Because back then, the last Millennium which was 1998, in real estate, when it was Easter time or summer time, we would rent for holiday rentals for two weeks or a month, which was the usual back then whatever we had available. For example, if we had an apartment on the market in June, the owner would say, Okay, let's leave it for holiday rental, and then we go back to selling it in September. So that really made sense. So yes, this is how we started, and basically, the only rental period was just summer and Easter. People would walk into our offices and say, What do you have available? I will get the keys. And basically, they would come with the suitcases and they would arrive in Marbella with no booking. And some of them would ring up and say, I'm coming tomorrow, or I'm coming in two days' time. But I would say 80% of them were just walk-ins. This was the origin of our business in holiday rentals.

Heather Bayer

That is crazy to just walk into the office. When you think about it now, the way that reservations and bookings are taken now, instant bookings online. Back then, and I too started back in the late 1990s, it was a very different world. But now, let's fast forward to now. How many properties do you manage now?

Daniela Derin

Fast forward to now, we have 90 units on the beachfront in Marbella. Studios, one bedroom, two bedrooms, the biggest are three bedrooms. They're all, as I said, on the beachfront and right in the center. People can walk everywhere. Some of them drive here, but the majority arrived by plane, taxi. Once they're here, they walk everywhere, they go to shops, they go to restaurants, of course, they go to the beach and the pool. This is how we do it. Basically, we build the businesses around our lifestyle because we live in the building ourselves. It's a community of repeat guests and repeat owners. We really enjoy being here and being around them all the time.

Heather Bayer

Let's talk a bit about your owners, where do they mostly reside?

Daniela Derin

I would say 50/50, Ireland and UK, some of them Scandinavians, and a few Spanish. But the majority, UK and Ireland.

Heather Bayer

Okay, so they're remote. They're not coming in to manage their own properties.  You do all that for them.

Daniela Derin

No, they sit at home and do nothing. They let us do what we want. They trust us completely. Some of them have been with us for 20 years, so we all know each other. Going back to owners, actually, I'm going to say something I never say. The owners are your most important guest avatars, because it's the longest relationship you're going to have. If you don't like a guest, you just tell them that you don't like them and they won't be back. But if you don't like an owner, it's a big loss. So having the right type of owners is basic for this business.

Heather Bayer

Yes.

Daniela Derin

Or at least the way we understand it.

Heather Bayer

I've talked to a few people recently and talked about how they select their owners. Because I know when I started in the business and probably with you as well, when you start, you just want everybody and anybody just to build up that inventory. And then after a while, you become more selective and then realize that being selective is actually a much better business decision than taking on owners who are going to become a drain on resources.

Daniela Derin

Those I dislike most, and in fact this morning, this is why I'm saying, because I have it fresh in my mind.  I was called in to see an apartment in a nearby building and the guy said, I've just spent €700,000 on this apartment. And the apartment was dreadful. I mean, it was completely old with holes in the wall. I said, Okay, if you want to rent it for a holiday renter, you don't have to spend a fortune. Just go to IKEA, furnish it nicely, give it a coat of paint and get rid of the old tatty furniture.  Oh no, for rental it's okay. I'm sorry, we're not going to lose each other's time anymore. I don't like this approach. People pay good money and they deserve to have good properties. I understand that not everybody can have the five star luxury furniture some of our apartments have. I understand that people need the income to live. I understand everything. But this idea that it's just for rent, no. So yes, I pride myself to be in a position to say no to people.

Heather Bayer

I love that. That's so well put. So talking about target markets, so who is your target market on the guest side?

Daniela Derin

On the guest side, we have families on one side and digital nomads on the other side. Families all year long. Digital nomads, mainly in the winter or in the spring. There are singles or couples that come for a month or two and work from our ‘offices with views' that are these terraces that are amazing. And then families, we have basically all the same family coming and repeating and repeating year after year.  Families grow, we have grown ups who were children 20 years ago. Then they got married and had children. Some of them even organized their weddings. So it's all very familiar, very nice. These relationships that grow with the years.

Heather Bayer

That is wonderful, because we had lots of repeat guests in our properties in Ontario, because it was a domestic market and they could just drive two hours, three hours out of Toronto. So they would come back to the same place year after year, but we never got to meet them. But I think that whole idea of creating those relationships is just wonderful. And it is key, isn't it? If you're there, you can create those relationships with your repeat guests.

Daniela Derin

Yes, it's great because it's very enriching, very fulfilling. And for me, being able to make them happy is my reason of living. I mean, what do you do for a job? People ask me. I make people happy, because I like being around people. I like to make them happy. I like to welcome them into our homes. And it's a very nice job if you like people, of course. If you don't like people, you automatise everything and out of the way. But you won't have repeat guests.

Heather Bayer

That was a little discussion we had before we started recording was really about the new breed, I guess, of managers and owners who don't do that. They aren't meeting their guests. They really don't care. It's money coming in and that's it. I feel that there is a big divide now between the type of… What it's all to do with the hospitality, isn't it? It's hospitality on one side and just pure income on the other. And you run a hospitality business.

Heather Bayer

I want to just touch on something you mentioned about digital nomads, because I'm doing my session at the Book Direct Show in Barcelona on niche marketing.  It's on finding…., not going for the macro niche, but honing down to a smaller group. So how do you get the marketing out to your digital nomads? Or do you need to even?

Daniela Derin

To be quite honest, we've become so popular that just avoiding to kill [short of killing] our guests, they will come back because we treat them so well. They are so satisfied and we get them basically everything they want, they will just come back. For example, talking about digital nomads, we had one girl just came last year through Airbnb.  She booked a month, she stayed here a month and after two weeks she said, this was, I think it was in January, and she said, Daniela, I want to stay on.  I say, Okay, this apartment is occupied, I've got another apartment for two months and another apartment for two months. So she ended up staying until the beginning of July, at which point she said, Now, I will go because it's too cold. But I will be back. And now she arrived on the first of November and she's going home on the first of June again. So it's the weather, the hospitality, the community of people, it's everything.

Daniela Derin

So how do I get digital nomad? All this started as a joke, because when the pandemic hit, we would go around the apartments, closing them up and putting all the terrace furniture inside. And it was weather like this. So when people kept ringing me constantly, can I cancel? What do I do? So I would sit on the terrace and take out the laptop and blah, blah, blah, blah. As Vincenzo was with me and our children were locked up at home, he would take pictures of me and say, Look at your mother, what she's doing. She's using the terraces as an office day after day after day. Because, of course, we were coming down here to give them a bit of space because we live in a two bedroom flat here in Marbella, you don't need big houses because we live on the street all the time. So when lockdown came, we felt a bit crowded, so we were trying to keep away from them as much as possible so they could study. So I started putting this picture on Facebook, on Instagram, and on LinkedIn, and people say, Oh, Daniela, your office with the view is beautiful. And I started with this hashtag, #OfficewiththeView; it went viral. And then the second lockdown, which was October to March, I knew lockdown was coming, so in September, I started marketing these ‘offices with the view'.

Daniela Derin

I said, Lockdown is coming. You can fly to Malaga, we'll get you a transfer. And once you're here, you can just work from here, go for lunch midday, because we still had bars and restaurants. Go for a walk and then at night you just stay inside. We had about 60% occupancy that winter. And when January, February came, that people were really up to here with lockdowns, we started to get the digital nomad family, which is mom, dad and children. And the children would do homeschooling, the parents would work and then at lunchtime, they would all go out to the beach and enjoy themselves and have a sandwich. So this was the focus of the beginning of the digital nomad family, and of them, we usually have three or four little children.

Heather Bayer

It's a great example of seizing the opportunity.

Daniela Derin

Oh, absolutely. This is what we've done all our life. We started with one business, then pivoted, then pivoted, and basically seeing what people were asking of us, and we started giving them. Six, seven years ago, people started to ask us for weddings. We started organizing weddings. Now weddings have died down, because there's money around so people go to get married in the Caribbean again. So Marbella has become low class again. So basically, we just follow what people ask.

Heather Bayer

That is great. So you have a book direct strategy. You always have been book direct because that's what we all started with pre-2007 or 2008. How has it changed over the years? Because I know with our company, when I started ours in 2003, although I've been renting my properties since 1998, but my management business started in 2003. So we were still using paper catalogs that went out to the local Toronto community. And then we had our first website and that was so exciting. But people had used local listing sites. But then when Home Away began to advertise more to managers and then Airbnb came along and then the online booking came in, we thought, well, this is the next best thing. And tried it for…. I don't think we got beyond about six months, actually. Did you do that? Did you go through that wave of thinking, Wow, this is going to be working for us, or did you do something different?

Daniela Derin

No, I saw the Airbnb and Booking.com were really the answer to our prayers. I thought, now we can stop working, they will do all the job for us. But no, because I still got our direct booking, people would still ring, email, send WhatsApp messages. And then what they [the OTAs] did, when they did what they did in the pandemic, I said, that's it. We didn't lose a lot because our Airbnb is probably 10%, something like that, 10%, Airbnb and 5% Booking.com. So it wasn't a big deal for us. But people lost the businesses. All these Airbnb gurus ‘get rich quick'. They lost it. They lost it all. So it's always better…., who said “Build your house on your own land”? Well, many people say that they just keep saying, I said it first, so we just leave it at that.

Heather Bayer

Yeah. Who would build a house on rented land?

Daniela Derin

Yes, exactly. So yes, and your own land is your own website, your phone number, your mailing list, your WhatsApp list.

Heather Bayer

Well, we're going to come on to WhatsApp in a minute, but I just wanted to explore your repeat guess business, because it is quite amazing. Tell me about your Canadians.

Daniela Derin

My Canadians. So we had the first couple of Canadian that came, that must have been 2012 or 2013. We don't know how they ended up here, probably through Tripadvisor or HomeAway [now Vrbo]. So they rented an apartment for a month and they were so satisfied and so happy with my area they told all their friends, all their relatives and we kept building the Canadian repeat guest up until this winter then we had 70 Canadians. So in nine, 10 years with three of them pandemic when they didn't come, from two to seventy.

Heather Bayer

That's amazing.

Daniela Derin

This is just the score. This is just our building. I know there are Canadians all over Marbella.  Do you want to know why they come to Marbella or what they tell us?  It's very politically incorrect.

Heather Bayer

Do, go ahead.

Daniela Derin

They say, We'd rather fly six hours to come to Marbella than fly four hours and end up in Florida with all the Americans.

Heather Bayer

I'm the one that spends my five months of the year in the US.

Daniela Derin

There you go. I will talk you into it, you'll see.  After Barcelona, you will be booking Marbella next week. The food, the people.  And from here you have three hours from everywhere in Europe and Andalusia. You can visit all the ancient sites, Granada, Cordoba, Seville.

Heather Bayer

So you mentioned you started out with one Canadian couple and now you've got 70 Canadians. How much of that is word-of-mouth marketing? Because I'm so interested in word-of-mouth marketing; it's free.

Daniela Derin

All of it. So if you treat your client well, you give them what they want, you go above and beyond to make them happy, they will scream about you to all their friends. I still have a lot of people that say, Oh, Daniela, I cannot work Google reviews, but I've told all my ladies in the book club, or all the ladies in the Pilates group, or all my friends, whatever. We have an oldish population. So from 60 to 85 and some of them are not very tech savvy. So some of them still cannot put the Google review, but they talk.

Heather Bayer

That is perfect. I've talked to Matt Ward before, I don't know if you've come across Matt. He's written a book called Word-of-Mouth Marketing. It's a great book. Matt has… He did a keynote at the VRMA conference a couple of years ago, the closing keynote, which was wonderful. He talked about storytelling a lot. And I know that you like the idea of storytelling too.

Daniela Derin

When you have nothing to say, just tell a story.

Heather Bayer

Yeah? When you have nothing to say, just tell a story. Can you give me some examples of how you do your storytelling?

Daniela Derin

It just comes naturally. People say, How did you start? And that's a half an hour story.

Daniela Derin

How did you two meet? Because of course, we're two Italians, one from the north, one from the south, and we live in the south of Spain. That's another story. My children were born here, and then so many stories. This morning I met up with two ladies that were here throughout lockdown. They decided not to go back to London. They were here with us until June, so they were locked in for three months. And they wrote all over the portals and told everybody around the pool that have been here a week, Oh, we couldn't have survived lockdown here without Daniela. She was doing our shopping and they were so helpful. And Vincenzo would come and do this. And they have been screaming about this all over the pool for the last week. That is  word-of-mouth marketing. Treat them well, give them everything they need, and they will be your ‘raving fans', I believe they're now called, when you talk about social media.

Heather Bayer

Yes. I've been talking about creating raving fans since 2005, so maybe I coined that.

Daniela Derin

I've been creating raving fans since 1998.

Heather Bayer

But that's it. Your raving fans are the ones that will bring you the business and you don't have to spend on Google ads or Facebook ads.

Daniela Derin

No, those are useless. Google ads, yes. But putting money into Facebook and Instagram is like throwing it out of the window.  Social media works with organic marketing. And so if you have very clear your client's avatar, the way you're going to talk to them, what you're going to say to them. You have a nice content calendar and everything really nicely mapped out and you're ready to have a conversation with them. Being there every day. You have to talk into social media as if you were talking to that person in real life. That is the only way you can grow in social media, organically.

Heather Bayer

Would you agree that you have to have your avatar or persona clearly in mind to know who you're talking to.

Daniela Derin

Very clear. Very clear. And you need to know exactly what they think. Not only it's a family and you're talking to the woman who's thinking about the children. No, I can talk to a woman, to a man. I talk to anybody that likes the sea, the sun, likes coming to Marbella, likes to be in a community surrounded by people, and more specifically to the woman of the family. This is who I'm talking to. And then other people come, but in general, this is who I talk to.

Heather Bayer

So we talked about direct booking. How do you make potential guests aware of direct booking? I saw a wonderful post… Well, not so wonderful post the other day from a host who was trying to go the direct booking route. And she said, How do I deal with the person who comes, finds my website, and then says, But I need to book this through Airbnb because I trust them more than I do you?

Daniela Derin

Yes, I have some of them, maybe two or three a year. And I say, Go online, I have a landing page on my website, it's called Book Direct. I opened it for Book Direct Day. That was a couple of months ago. And it really explains how you can book direct and why you should book direct. First of all, you should book direct for price, because if you go to Airbnb, it's minimum 15% more expensive because there is no manager that can afford Airbnb or Booking.com percentage into their own percentage. And if that manager of that hotel, of that anything, looks pretty trustworthy, they have a good website, they have a good social media presence, everything is cohesive, everything is… It looks good. Well, then there is the trust signal. And then also the review aggregator, that is very important. I don't know if you know Christophe Salmon of Revyoos. That is amazing. You display that on your website and everybody can read everything. And it's from Booking.com from Airbnb, from Google, from Facebook. So that is the trust factor.

Heather Bayer

Yes.

Daniela Derin

And if you're a super host, display your super host on your website.

Heather Bayer

So, yes, I'll just repeat that. That's Christophe Salmon you're talking about, and his site is Revyoos.com. And I'll put a link to that on the Show Notes.

Daniela Derin

Okay, so we'll get Christophe to buy us drink in Barcelona, because we are promoting him. I love him, he's such a great guy.

Heather Bayer

Now, I didn't realize he was going to be there. So I'm going to meet so many people that I've wanted to meet for so long and who've been on the show and I've never connected with. So it's going to be such fun.

Heather Bayer

We've talked about WhatsApp, and it's interesting because I've been introduced to WhatsApp. I mean, Neely Khan said to me a few weeks ago, she said, I only communicate on WhatsApp, really. And so I had to get into it. And it's amazing. Just to send a quick voice message was just, I don't know. I had this aha moment thinking, why have I not been using this more? But it's more popular in Europe and the UK.

Daniela Derin

Yeah. Europe is been thriving for 10 years, I would say, minimum 10 years. And it's amazing because not only the chat, but the free calls. Sometimes people had to ring us from the UK and it was very expensive. Back then, when people would ring us with the credit card details and stuff, it was very expensive. Now they ring on WhatsApp, the counterpart, because it's free. Daniela, how are you? How's life in Marbella? Tell me about the new restaurants. But yeah, that is part of the added value, the extra chat.

Heather Bayer

So how do you use it? How are you using it?

Daniela Derin

Everything. Voice messages, text messages. My talk at the Book Direct Show is about WhatsApp Business and everything that can be done on WhatsApp Business.  I started using it about two or three years ago as the new email marketing. I use email marketing, but on WhatsApp people… I mean, on email, people know they are part of the newsletters and they are part of the mailing list. Even so, some of them reply and say thank you. But on WhatsApp, people don't realize they are receiving a broadcast message. So they really feel that message is for them. They feel valued. They say, Oh, look, she sent me a beautiful video of the beach. And like, light bulb moment. But not only do they book, you lighten up their day. Sometimes I get a message saying, Oh, I had such a bad day. I was going through a very bad day, and you've lightened up my day. This is what I do – make people happy.

Heather Bayer

Let's elaborate on that a little bit more about WhatsApp Business, because I'm intrigued about the fact that you can do a broadcast message.

Daniela Derin

You have to come and listen to the talk.

Heather Bayer

Share a little bit with the audience who are not going to make it to Barcelona.

Daniela Derin

They will have to buy the book. No – so you can do broadcast messages even on normal WhatsApp. You open at the very top, it says broadcast list. You have to have the people in your contacts. You add them to the broadcast list and you send them whatever message you want. Now, in the US, it's going to be way more popular because in Europe, we have this thing called GDPR [General Data Protection Regulation]. And broadcast messages are about 95% GDPR compliant, but not 100% because these people have never given you permission to message them. This is why the broadcast list messages need to be always inspiring, educating, never, never sales. You can sell on stories and I'm not going to say anymore before the talk. So put the link to the Book Direct Show so people can come and listen to us both.

Heather Bayer

There will be a link. And after the show, I'm going to do an episode on the best of the Short Stay Week and the Book Direct Show. So I might share a secret or two after I hear from you.

Daniela Derin

Well, I say that WhatsApp is the next big thing, but you need to have very clear in mind your strategy, and especially you need to be prepared to put your face in front of the business, and you need to be available. A lot of people don't like guests to have their phone number, and that's totally fine. But if somebody wants to run a personalized business, be at the front, be the face, it's amazing. Because not only you are there throughout the customer journey, dream, research, book, and blah, blah, blah, you are there all year long, every day. And this is why, after the pandemic, so many people came back to us because we have been in their faces all day long, keeping them happy, keeping them inspired. All this started to keep them happy. Before, I would do broadcast list or email, but just book, book, book, this is what's available, hurry up. Basically 100% say. When I changed from salesy to happy, inspiring, and educational, people just went crazy, and we went viral. Before, maybe we had 1,000 followers. And now, I don't know, we have 10,000, 11,000. And all of them are our clients, our followers, people that before or after book with us, come to Marbella, and so on.

Heather Bayer

I've seen some of the inspiring things that you post on different platforms because you're a foodie as well.

Daniela Derin

No, not at all!

Heather Bayer

You know how you get squirreled by… You come across something, it's like, Oh, this looks good. So I was following… I think it was Facebook, some of your Facebook posts, and you've got pictures of food. And I got so excited thinking, I'm only in Barcelona for three days. I cannot eat this much food.

Daniela Derin

No, but we can try our best. And all these social media strategies can be built around your day-to-day, because it doesn't have to take three hours of your day. I just take pictures and videos as I go along. I put them on Instagram, they go automatically onto Facebook, and then I put them onto WhatsApp.

Heather Bayer

Do you do this all yourself or do you have someone who helps you with this social media side?  Because it's quite the challenge.

Daniela Derin

It's me, myself and I. And this is like one little side of the business. As you know, we have about 25 hats at the end of the day.  But if you're passionate about it and you live, eat and breathe it, then this is what you do.  I love social media and I love people. What I don't like is to do accounts at the end of the month. But that's also another part that has to be done.

Heather Bayer

I honestly think we're…

Daniela Derin

I've been trying to delegate that for so many years and nobody wants to take it on.

Heather Bayer

I honestly think we are sisters.

Daniela Derin

Well, I think, I mean, to be this person, this good in this business, welcoming people and like, you cannot like numbers. I mean, people that like numbers, like my accountant guy, he doesn't like people.

Heather Bayer

Well, I've been building some educational courses recently, and one of them is really about your entrepreneurial style, because we're all entrepreneurs in this business and we are because of that, even though we do do everything, we can't be good at everything. And some of those things that you do have to move on to somebody else to do. And bookkeeping was always mine. My personality style does not include attention to detail in terms of money and bookkeeping. So we're clearly in the same camp here. But doing this business, being an entrepreneur without loving people and without having that hospitality gene on board makes it a challenge.

Daniela Derin

Well, imagine people that don't like people. How would they do it?

Heather Bayer

I do not know. Well, they get a co host to do it.

Daniela Derin

Well, I know somebody that doesn't like people and he's got everything automatised. I won't say anymore. If he ever listens, he'll know I'm talking about him.

Heather Bayer

Yes. And I think to a degree, that's okay as long as you've got a front person who is doing that meet and greet and doing the communication part of it, because I don't think you can do this business. Well, I know you can't do this business without having the hospitality and communication side of it. And if you are doing it, it's not going to be as successful as yours is for sure.

Daniela Derin

No, you just have… If you're not in the front, you will not have repeat guests, but there are some destinations or some cities, for example, they don't have repeat guests. London, Barcelona, Paris, they have repeat guests because people end up going. But other places, I don't know, for example Canada, I would go to Canada once in my life. If I ever get over there, I won't go year after year. So some destination are repeat. So yes, you have to know to them. But some destination of cities, it's very, very complicated to have a repeat business. So this is why they rely on Airbnb and they automate that issue.

Heather Bayer

There are clearly distinct parts of the business…. And there is a part of the business where automation is fine, because you're not, as you say, you're not going to get the same people coming back over and over again. So you don't have to create the relationships with them.

Heather Bayer

Daniela, as we're coming to the end of this, I wanted you to share some of your best tips to help hosts and managers build their direct book business. Clearly, a lot who are coming into the business now, they don't have the benefits of 20-plus years of experience. But what would you tell somebody who is embarking on a book direct strategy right now?

Daniela Derin

Well, definitely a good three in one system, CRM, PMS, channel manager.  I'm going to give a shout out to Lodgify, who I use. They are extremely good to build a website. It's extremely easy. So if you're not tech savvy, you can build your website probably in a day or two. And social media, Google ads, and start talking to people. Talk to your neighbors, build as many relationships as possible, because direct booking is about relationships online and offline, word-of-mouth, even leaflets. Let's say you're starting a direct booking strategy and you want more owners, print out 500 leaflets and put them all around the area you want to target and tell your owners that you're going to bring in direct bookers that are always better than Airbnb bookers because they're smarter!

Heather Bayer

I always recall from my business taking on new owners, certainly in the last couple of years. And a lot of them came to us because we had such a big direct booking strategy. They didn't want to be on Airbnb. They wanted us to know who was coming into their properties. And that was our unique selling point. We would sell that. We screen guests, we make sure we match the right people to your property, because they are going to look after it. If they come through Airbnb, then you don't have that ability to do that matching.

Daniela Derin

You don't know who comes. Even if they have a good profile, then you see them arriving and it's like, Why did they ever accept this guy? It's only a week. But yes, definitely direct booking strategy and being a pillar of your community will get you the right type of owner. Pillar of the community is basic, because especially in a small destination, you want everybody to talk well about you, about your business. And what we also do with our guests and also with our owners, we try to push them towards a certain type of bar and restaurant promoting small businesses, shops and tapas places of the tourists rather, so that they get a better experience and the restaurant owners, they get more business. And that really ranks you high, high, high in the community.

Heather Bayer

I love that, and I'm glad you mentioned it, that whole idea of being a part of the community and spearheading your business through your community relationships as well. Once again, you see property managers that are as remote as they can possibly be and don't even know the local communities that they're serving.

Daniela Derin

No, absolutely not. And the Airbnb guests have such a bad press. In Barcelona, they've trashed the city year after year. So they have such a bad press all over that.  You're not going to put my home onto Airbnb. No, don't worry. We know our guests, 60% are repeat. All the others are first-timers, but they come here because somebody told them about us. And it's all about families. That's another thing when you do a social media strategy. Marbella is very well known for the nightlife. You will see nothing about nightlife on any of our publications. We go out, of course, we go out. But I never publish anything about us going out. Going out for a cocktail, going out for dinner, but not dancing, going crazy. That is not the right client we want to attract.

Heather Bayer

That's a great point because that does not fit into your guest Avatar.

Daniela Derin

No. The people I meet when I go out dancing in Puerto Banus are not the people I want to host. It's very, how would I say, I don't know, class-ist. But yes, on Airbnb, you cannot do that. You cannot say, I only want over 30. I only want people that want to have a certain holiday. You can't. And Booking.com even worse, they promote us as if we were a five star beach resort. Then people turn up and see, which is lovely because it's lovely, it's not a resort.  So, these portals, they don't display the real essence of you, your business, and your homes.

Heather Bayer

I think you made a great case today for booking direct and for being hospitable and for loving your guests and for being passionate about the business. And I can't wait to get together with you in Barcelona in a couple of weeks and talk more about this because this has been such a great conversation.

Heather Bayer

Before we finish, and you touched on Lodgify, is there anything else in your tech stack that you can share, any platforms that you use that you really love?

Daniela Derin

Touch Stay.  They have the most amazing digital guides. I love them. Our guests love them. And even the not so tech savvy, all these bunch, they know how to use it. And they can get around town and find the hidden tapas places, thanks to the guide.

Heather Bayer

Lovely that you mentioned Touch Stay. I love Touch Stay too. I love the entire team. They're such great people. They're so sweet.

Daniela Derin

And they're also nominated for The Shortyz

Heather Bayer

I know.

Daniela Derin

And I hope they win.

Heather Bayer

So you'll be seeing Tyann and Andy and the team in London. Because we hadn't mentioned that, the Shortyz, which are being awarded next week. So that will be about Wednesday.  That is actually today, if you're listening to  Daniela today on the 26th of April. So she will be hopefully picking up an award at the Shortyz. We will see. She's been nominated for… Two?

Daniela Derin

Yes.  Best holiday site operator and best social media strategy. Talking about WhatsApp and Instagram.

Heather Bayer

That's amazing. Well, we will watch out for that and we will obviously share what the outcome of the Shortyz is after they occur next week…or today. It's always difficult when I'm recording a week earlier and saying today, next week… or in three weeks.

Daniela Derin

People are going to get muddled up.

Heather Bayer

They're going to get muddled up anyway.  

Daniela Derin

Anyway, if we win, you will hear about it.

Heather Bayer

I'm sure we will.

Heather Bayer

Daniela, it's been fantastic talking to you. Just amazing. Really looking forward to meeting you face-to-face and hearing more about your business.

Daniela Derin

Thank you so much. It's been great to be on your podcast. I know it's one of the most listened to of the holiday rental industry, so it's an honor and a pleasure to share with you my little tips and tricks and see you in Barcelona.

Heather Bayer

Thank you.

Daniela Derin

Thank you, Heather.

Heather Bayer

Thank you so much, Daniela. That was fantastic. What a great lady. If I didn't have an 81-pound German Shepherd that comes on vacation with me, I think I would be hot-footing it to Marbella for my winters in the future, because it sounds like a great place to be, and sounds like the hospitality that I would get would be second to none. And I think I would have a great time. But yeah, my big bear of a dog probably wouldn't cope with being shut up in a crate again for nine hours to go across the Atlantic. So one day, though, I will get a house sitter to come and sit with my dog, and I will take another trip to Spain and meet Daniela in person. But of course, I'm going to meet her at the Short Stay Week anyway.

Heather Bayer

So all the things we spoke about on the episode today will be in the show notes. As I mentioned at the beginning, if you get the opportunity to go to Barcelona for Short Stay Week, then I would love to meet you there. It's going to be an absolute blast.

Heather Bayer

So for sure, check out the Shortyz.  The awards are being announced today and tomorrow, the 26th and 27th of April, if you are listening to this on the day of publication. And of course, if you're listening to it after, you can go to the Shortyz website and check out the winners. And I've got my fingers crossed for Daniela.

Heather Bayer

Thank you so much for listening. It's always just so great to bring you these fantastic people. And I'm sure you got a great deal out of that conversation. I'm off now to hone my WhatsApp skills, and I'll be with you again next week.

Heather Bayer

It's been a pleasure as ever being with you. If there's anything you'd like to comment on, then join the conversation on the Show Notes for the episode at vacationrentalformula.com. We'd love to hear from you, and I look forward to being with you again next week.