Vacation Rental Management Association

She is, uh, the founder of Annie and Co.

She does a lot of work with VRMA that we're gonna get into, and is an ambassador for Booking.com, and we have so much to talk about, Annie.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me, and it, it's so f- it's so funny you say that, 'cause I'm always nervous about going on other people's podcasts.

Totally get it.

Yeah.

Um, let me ask you about VRMA, right? This is the Vacation Rental Management-

Management Association

It was, uh, it was nice to chat with you.

I'm sure I'll see you at the VRMA in Nashville-

Yes, yes

...

I look forward to interacting-

Take care

... and connecting with you at VRMA.

Get paid for your pad.

Yeah, we'll pop a link to your LinkedIn on the show notes as well.

Look, I really wish you a really good day and I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing you at VRMA in a couple of months.

Yeah, I'll be there.

Yeah.

They were, but they will be there for the first time.

They were there for the first time, and then they took courage to go on the huge stage, like VRMA or SCALE, you know? So it's something that really it's important to me.

If you start to do a mixed conference, women won't be so safe, I must say.

Uh, something else that's happened in the world that's actually in the last two years, saw a lot of men's club, but they always be.

I mean, we, we are...

VRMA has our annual conference in Nashville this year and, you know, there are people that are bringing large groups, some of the suppliers, large groups, and it's expensive-

Mm-hmm

... to put 10, 15 people in a hotel that costs-

I'm James Varley.

VRMA International is one of the biggest dates in the short-term rental calendar, the flagship event of the Vacation Rental Management Association.

And this year, it's heading to Nashville's Music City Center.

Here to give us the inside track on what to expect is the person who leads the association itself.

Anne Gardner is the executive director of the VRMA at the center of both the event and the advocacy work shaping the future of our industry.

And welcome to the House Planet podcast.

Thank you, James.

Okay then, Anne, let's get started.

And I think we've really... um, advanced things over the years and that technology and data have come, played a very big role in that.

But I think probably the biggest thing that I would say for me personally that I feel differently about, and I know Annie will like that I'm saying this, but that it used to feel like, you know, five years ago when we were at VRMA that, if you are an individual host, you are not professional.

And I don't think that that's necessarily the case anymore, that you can be an individual host and you can be a great hospitality professional that provides incredible experiences for guests.

And I think part of Where I've seen that more in reality is just through my own travels.

Yeah, you know, I can't think of anything that I thought then that I don't really think now, maybe other than I really thought that coming out of COVID, we had a really bright spotlight on us and that we were going to immediately take advantage of it.

So I think that that's where I might have missed the boat is I thought that there was going to be more coalescing around the business in general.

Like people were going to come together quicker and want to like formulate stronger groups and, you know, VRMA would boom and everybody would be on the same page and there wouldn't be this continued divide of STR and VR that sort of happened.

So maybe that's where I think my differences were is I really thought we would be catapulted a lot quicker to where we can be.

We'll put a link in the show notes and people can go pre-order at this point that's coming out and check it out.

I feel like it'll, you'll see it on a lot of tables, maybe at VRMA or future events and things like that, which would be fun.

I think so.

Yes.