VRS668 - Purpose Before Polish: AI in Business and Hospitality

VRS668 - Purpose Before Polish: AI in Business and Hospitality

This Episode is Sponsored by Lodgify If you have been thinking about building your own direct booking channel and reducing your reliance on the OTAs, Lodgify is worth a serious look. It brings your booking website, channel management, guest messaging, and unified inbox into one place. VRS listeners can get 20% off yearly and bi-yearly plans with code VRS-20, valid through to the end of June. Visit Lodgify and use code VRS-20 to get started. > Click here to visit Lodgify.com [https://get.lodgify.com/pricing?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=creator-collab&utm_campaign=vacation-rental-formula] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Heather has just returned from a week in the UK - visiting family, catching up with old friends, and speaking at the Scale AI Summit in Brighton. In this solo reflection episode, she weaves together two very different vacation rental experiences, a hospitality revelation on a delayed Virgin Atlantic flight, and the core teaching from her conference session to land on a single, unifying idea: purpose comes before polish, and foundation comes before execution. The episode moves from a functional but story-free farm conversion cottage, to a 300-year-old Hastings cottage that felt like it had been created specifically for her friends, to a conference room full of STR operators at every stage of their AI journey. The thread connecting all of it: knowing who you are, who you serve, and what you stand for before you pick up a single tool - whether that tool is a £200 kettle, a booking platform, or an AI assistant. Heather also walks through the core framework from her "Building Your AI Business Brain" session, giving listeners a practical, actionable foundation they can start building this week. Key Takeaways * A pilot who told his delayed passengers "I am the host of this flight and you are my guests" changed the atmosphere of an entire departure lounge with one sentence. Purpose, clearly stated, changes everything. * The difference between the two cottages wasn't price or quality - it was whether the owner knew exactly who they were creating the experience for. One was built for a specific person; the other was built for anyone passing through. * Before you touch a single AI tool, you need five foundational pieces in place: your vision, your mission and values, your business profile (including avatars, brand voice, and workflows). Without these, AI will produce generic output for a generic audience. * The fastest way to capture your brand voice isn't to write it - it's to talk it through using voice-to-text. Most people think out loud more naturally than they write, and the result is closer to your real voice. * At the Scale AI Summit, fewer than half the room had a documented client or owner avatar - which means their AI has no idea who it's writing for. If it's not documented, it doesn't exist as far as your AI is concerned. * Strategy before execution, every time. Paul Anderson's RAF officer training insight maps directly to AI adoption: the operators who slow down to build a foundation first are the ones who get useful, consistent results. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 📣 The AI Ambassador Program This episode is also brought to you in part by our AI Ambassador Program [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/ai]. If you're curious about using AI in your business - whether it's for guest communication, operations, or even marketing - check out our AI Ambassador Program [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/ai]. It's designed to help you learn, lead, and get hands-on with the tools shaping the future of hospitality. 🌐 Learn more and join us at VacationRentalFormula.com/AI [https://vacationrentalformula.com/] Are you listening to this podcast on the move? Get to the show notes here: https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/VRS668 [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/vrs668-purpose-before-polish-ai-in-business-and-hospitality]

VRS667 - Two Ways to Make More Money This Year: Private Chef Upsells and Smarter AI Use

This Episode is Sponsored by Lodgify If you have been thinking about building your own direct booking channel and reducing your reliance on the OTAs, Lodgify is worth a serious look. It brings your booking website, channel management, guest messaging, and unified inbox into one place. VRS listeners can get 20% off yearly and bi-yearly plans with code VRS-20, valid through to the end of June. Visit Lodgify and use code VRS-20 to get started. > Click here to visit Lodgify.com [https://get.lodgify.com/pricing?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=creator-collab&utm_campaign=vacation-rental-formula] _________________________________________________________________________________________ Siddhi Mittal has one of those backgrounds that makes you wonder how a single person contains all of it. She grew up in Agra, studied computer science and AI at Columbia, landed on an asset-backed mortgage securities trading floor in New York, moved to London, spent six years in finance, had a full-blown existential crisis, quit to build a startup, stumbled into the vacation rental industry almost by accident, had a baby, got lost down an AI rabbit hole, nearly derailed her marriage, and is now running two businesses while teaching women worldwide how to use AI to earn more and work less. And it seems like all that happened without her taking a breath! Yhangry is a private chef booking platform she co-founded in the UK. It started as a consumer product for anyone who wanted a chef to cook at home. Then Siddhi discovered that 50% of her users were vacation rental guests and property managers, and everything changed. Yhangry is now one of the most interesting upsell opportunities in the STR space: property managers can generate a simple affiliate link, share it with guests, and earn commission whenever a chef is booked. No operational overhead. No coordination. The platform handles everything from booking to payment to quality assurance. The conversation covers all of that, and then it goes somewhere else entirely. Because Siddhi is also the founder of SheCompoundsAI, a live AI education event series focused on helping women build practical AI skills. She brings the same direct, jargon-free energy she uses on stage to this conversation, and what comes out is one of the most accessible explanations of prompting, agents, and reverse prompting I have heard anywhere. If you have been hovering at the edge of AI adoption and not quite sure how to get started, this episode gives you the simplest possible on-ramp. And if you are a property manager looking for a genuinely low-effort upsell revenue stream, the Yhangry conversation is worth your attention. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 📣 The AI Ambassador Program This episode is also brought to you in part by our AI Ambassador Program [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/ai]. If you're curious about using AI in your business - whether it's for guest communication, operations, or even marketing - check out our AI Ambassador Program [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/ai]. It's designed to help you learn, lead, and get hands-on with the tools shaping the future of hospitality. 🌐 Learn more and join us at VacationRentalFormula.com/AI [https://vacationrentalformula.com/] Are you listening to this podcast on the move? Get to the show notes here: https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/VRS667 [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/vrs667-two-ways-to-make-more-money-this-year-private-chef-upsells-and-smarter-ai-use]

VRS666 - The Seven Deadly Sins of AI in Your STR Business

This Episode is Sponsored by Lodgify If you have been thinking about building your own direct booking channel and reducing your reliance on the OTAs, Lodgify is worth a serious look. It brings your booking website, channel management, guest messaging, and unified inbox into one place. VRS listeners can get 60% off yearly and bi-yearly plans with code VRS-60, valid through June 9th and 20% off yearly and bi-yearly plans with code VRS-20, valid through June 10 to end of June. Visit Lodgify and use code VRS-60 to get started. > Click here to visit Lodgify.com [https://get.lodgify.com/pricing?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=creator-collab&utm_campaign=vacation-rental-formula] _________________________________________________________________________________________ Episode VRS666 arrives with purpose. Rather than sidestepping the number, Heather uses it as a frame for something worth naming: the very human patterns that undermine AI adoption in short-term rental businesses. Drawing on her own experience, conversations with property managers, and the collected wisdom of fifty experienced operators featured in Brooke Pfautz's book Vacation Rental Secrets, she maps seven recognisable failure modes onto the classical seven deadly sins. These are not abstract warnings. They are patterns that show up with remarkable consistency across different markets, business sizes, and experience levels. Heather has lived several of them herself. And because they are patterns, they can be recognised, named, and redirected. That is the point of the episode: awareness is the first step toward a different choice. If you have been accumulating AI tools without connecting them, automating your guest communications without thinking about what that does to the relationship, or chasing the latest model release without going deep into the one you already have, this episode is for you. And if you recognise yourself in any of the seven sins, Heather's message is not judgment. It is: now you can make a different choice. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 📣 The AI Ambassador Program This episode is also brought to you in part by our AI Ambassador Program [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/ai]. If you're curious about using AI in your business - whether it's for guest communication, operations, or even marketing - check out our AI Ambassador Program [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/ai]. It's designed to help you learn, lead, and get hands-on with the tools shaping the future of hospitality. 🌐 Learn more and join us at VacationRentalFormula.com/AI [https://vacationrentalformula.com/] Are you listening to this podcast on the move? Get to the show notes here: https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/VRS666 [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/vrs666-the-seven-deadly-sins-of-ai-in-your-str-business]

VRS665 - Bionic Not Robotic: Steve Schwab on AI, Integration, and Community

This Episode is Sponsored by Lodgify If you have been thinking about building your own direct booking channel and reducing your reliance on the OTAs, Lodgify is worth a serious look. It brings your booking website, channel management, guest messaging, and unified inbox into one place. VRS listeners can get 60% off yearly and bi-yearly plans with code VRS-60, valid through June 9th and 20% off yearly and bi-yearly plans with code VRS-20, valid through June 10 to end of June. Visit Lodgify and use code VRS-60 to get started. > Click here to visit Lodgify.com [https://get.lodgify.com/pricing?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=creator-collab&utm_campaign=vacation-rental-formula] _________________________________________________________________________________________ A year ago, Steve Schwab closed one of the most talked-about deals in the short-term rental industry - the acquisition of Vacasa by Casago. At the time, he described it as surreal and exciting. A year on, the headline has given way to the hard work: integrating systems, transitioning markets, reshaping a culture, and doing all of it while holding onto the belief that this is, at its core, a relationship business. In this conversation, Heather catches up with Steve to take stock of that year - what has worked, what has been harder than anticipated, and what the ongoing Casago-Vacasa integration has taught him about leadership at scale. They also get into AI: how Steve is approaching it inside a franchise organisation that spans everything from small, locally owned operations to private equity-backed enterprises, why he talks about making Casago bionic rather than robotic, and the very real challenge of bringing people along when the pace of change is so fast that even the most enthusiastic adopters are missing fundamentals. The episode closes with something genuinely new for the industry: a free, community-based AI learning network on Circle, built for STR professionals at every level of familiarity with AI. Steve and Heather are both actively involved, and this conversation is part of the launch. If you have been curious about AI but not sure where to start, or looking for a place to ask questions without feeling foolish, this community is worth knowing about. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 📣 The AI Ambassador Program This episode is also brought to you in part by our AI Ambassador Program [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/ai]. If you're curious about using AI in your business - whether it's for guest communication, operations, or even marketing - check out our AI Ambassador Program [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/ai]. It's designed to help you learn, lead, and get hands-on with the tools shaping the future of hospitality. 🌐 Learn more and join us at VacationRentalFormula.com/AI [https://vacationrentalformula.com/] Are you listening to this podcast on the move? Get to the show notes here: https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/VRS665 [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/vrs665-bionic-not-robotic-steve-schwab-on-ai-integration-and-community]

VRS664 - Building Two Businesses With a Small Team and a Smart AI Habit

This Episode is Sponsored by Lodgify If you have been thinking about building your own direct booking channel and reducing your reliance on the OTAs, Lodgify is worth a serious look. It brings your booking website, channel management, guest messaging, and unified inbox into one place. VRS listeners can get 60% off yearly and bi-yearly plans with code VRS-60, valid through June 30th. Visit Lodify and use code VRS-60 to get started. > Click here to visit Lodgify.com [https://get.lodgify.com/pricing?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=creator-collab&utm_campaign=vacation-rental-formula] ________________________________________________________________________________________ It has been over two years since Kerri Gibson was last on the show, and a great deal has changed. The Chalets Hygge brand has expanded into Experience Hygge, an umbrella that now also covers a roadside motel four hours away from the original property. It is a seventeen-room hospitality business with daily turnover, walk-in guests, and an operational rhythm that has almost nothing in common with the chalets that built the brand. Kerri and her partner Philippe Pichette took on the motel in 2024 and have spent the past seventeen months renovating it while keeping it operational. In this conversation, Kerri talks honestly about what running two very different businesses with a small team actually looks like, how she has stepped back to let her chalet team grow into their roles, and where AI has earned a permanent place in her week. She also speaks plainly about her seven-year history with Lodgify, her direct booking strategy across both businesses, and the move she has been quietly making from ChatGPT to Claude. There is something here for anyone running a lean hospitality business who is curious about AI but does not want hype. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 📣 The AI Ambassador Program This episode is also brought to you in part by our AI Ambassador Program [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/ai]. If you're curious about using AI in your business - whether it's for guest communication, operations, or even marketing - check out our AI Ambassador Program [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/ai]. It's designed to help you learn, lead, and get hands-on with the tools shaping the future of hospitality. 🌐 Learn more and join us at VacationRentalFormula.com/AI [https://vacationrentalformula.com/] Are you listening to this podcast on the move? Get to the show notes here: https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/VRS664 [https://www.vacationrentalformula.com/podcast/vrs664-building-two-businesses-with-a-small-team-and-a-smart-ai-habit]