Meet Nitin Sood, Vice President of Innovation at Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy. Nitin and his team launched the first AI-powered search experience of any travel site so I invited him to come on the show to talk about how they built the tool, how folks are engaging with the experience post-launch, and what they’ve got cooking up behind the scenes to improve the product.  Tune in to hear Nitin and I discuss: How Marriott built their Search with AI tool  What they’ve learned since...

Meet Cameron Weeks — a former coast guard rescue swimmer turned hospitality entrepreneur. From a young age, Cameron dreamed of owning his own business — he used to listen to audio books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad with his father in the car when he was in elementary school.   After high school, Cameron enlisted in the coast guard and became a rescue swimmer — yes, like one of those guys who jump out of helicopters to save people stranded in the middle of the ocean.   In this conversation, Cameron...

In just a moment you’ll meet Antonio Bafia, a 23-year-old entrepreneur who dropped out of college to pursue his dream of building hospitality businesses.  Growing up, Antonio was a competitive hockey player — he dreamed of one day playing in the NHL. And while that dream never came to fruition, the discipline he learned playing hockey equipped him wonderfully for the exciting and taxing journey of being an entrepreneur.  In this episode, Antonio and I discuss: how he built a portfolio of...

Meet Bella Linchenko, a muralist, STR investor, and creative finance community builder. Growing up, Bella wanted to be a dog groomer…or an olympic gymnast…or both. And while neither of those dreams panned out, she does get to apply her love of art, form, and problem solving to the work she gets to do each day. In this conversation Bella and I discuss: How murals can elevate the value of your STRWhy Bella started a creative financing community for women real estate investorsWhat she’s learned...

Howdy friends!  In this episode Zach sits down with Ben Wolff, Co-Founder of Onera and Oasi — two of the most innovative brands in the experiential hospitality space.  Ben Wolff is an incredible entrepreneur who has built some of the world's most unique and social-media-famous Airbnbs — if you haven't checked at his work, it's time to change that.  In this episode, Ben announces his latest project, Oasi Hill Country, a $39 million luxury landscape resort that he's building in the Texas Hill...

One of the newest and hottest industry events, Level Up Your Listing, host by Natalie Palmer and Tatiana Taylor-Tait, just wrapped last week — and we wanted to know what people thought about the event!In this episode, Zach sits down with Sage Nathan (Head of Partnerships at Minoan and a sponsor of the event), Tyann Marcink, an industry veteran and one of the most respected voices in vacation rental management, and Bella Linchenko, a designer and muralist who is new to short-term rental...

In this episode, Zach explores what Google Trends says about where to buy or build your next unique Airbnb. Zach shares fascinating insight into how search behavior for unique stays like treehouses, container homes, yurts, and A-frames has changed over time and where these searches for unique stays are most and least popular.  You're not going to want to miss this one folks! This episode is brought to you by our friends at AirDNA Want to see if a Treehouse resort in Dubai pencils?  You can do...

Meet Elam King — founder and CEO of Kingly Vacation Renta;s, a collection of short-term rentals and soon to be motels located across Pennsylvania and Maryland. Elam grew up in the Amish community and it was here that he learned the importance of discipline, hard work and craftsmanship. After leaving the Amish community as a young adult, Elam began to learn everything he could about real estate investing.   Elam has a knack for dilapidated homes that others have looked over and being able to...

Meet Fred Boothby, Founder of Enjoy Unique Stays, a collection of 100 short-term rentals across Chattanooga, Michigan, North Carolina, and North Georgia. Fred was a banker — it seemed like a safe and stable way to build a nice life for his family. But there was something about the “safe way” that never felt quite right to Fred. One day he got a call from a friend who was looking for someone to help scale a landscaping business in Central Florida.  And while he didn’t know it at the time, that...

Meet Landon Wilkinson, Co-Founder of Hostshare — a new platform that enables short-term rental hosts to trade unbooked nights in exchange for free travel. Growing up Landon wanted to be a spy — he went so far as to write a letter to the CIA asking them to recruit him …he even had a code name which you’ll hear about shortly! And while Landon never wound up pursuing a career in espionage, the boldness he had as a child has followed him along his journey of becoming an entrepreneur. In this...

What’s up friends got a special episode for y’all today featuring my friend Hans Lorei one of the best if not THE BEST designer in the short-term rental space. While I am a real sucker for the traditional, interview syle pod, I also know that sometimes you need content that is short, sweet, and super practical. So, once or twice a month,  I’ll be dropping episodes on the pod that are slightly more tactical.   Each of these episodes will featuring an industry expert andbe just 10-20 minutes in...

Meet Matt Whitermore, a  hospitality entrepreneur who buys, builds, and manages RV parks.  In this engaging conversation, Matt shares how he got started buying RV parks and why he believes there’s huge opportunity to disrupt and reimagine this category of travel and real estate investment. Tune in to hear: - The lessons Matt learned after buying his first RV park - How he see experiential hospitality and RV parks intersecting in the near future - Why camping is getting younger and cooler and...

Meet Kyle Tibbitts, Chief Marketing Officer at Wander, a network of smart, luxury vacation rentals that’s on a mission to verticalize the short-term rental experience.  If you were to have asked Kyle as a 10-year-old what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would have told you a lawyer, which, today, Kyle would tell you would have been a huge mistake. But if you were to have asked Kyle what he wanted to be just a few years later, he would have told you an architect — from a young age he had a...

In this episode of Behind the Stays, Zach shares five tangible and tactical ideas for how OpenAI's new Sora model will fundamentally change hospitality entrepreneurship.  Sora is an AI model that can create realistic and imaginative scenes from text instructions. Sora is able to generate complex scenes with multiple characters, specific types of motion, and accurate details of the subject and background. The model understands not only what the user has asked for in the prompt, but also how...

Meet Stephanie Gutierrez, the creator of North Country Cabin Co. — a boutique collection of short-term rentals located just 90 minutes from Minnesota's twin cities in Comstock, Wisconsin. Growing up, Stephanie wanted to be an artist — her grandmother had an incredible eye for art and design and Stephanie dreamed of emulating her.  And while she didn’t become a professional artist, her knack for creativity would wind up leading her to launch a boutique hospitality company in partnership with...

One of the newest and hottest industry events, STR Wealth Con, just wrapped last week — and we wanted to know what people thought about the event! In this episode, Zach sits down with Wil Slickers (emcee of the event), Sean Wilkinson (Co-Founder of Hostshare and first-time conferences attendee), and Heidie Henriksen ( a vacation rental industry veteran, to get their thoughts on the content, the community, and the networking at the event. Let us know what you thought of the event by joining...

Meet Jeremy Gall, Founder & CEO of Breezeway  — the leading property care, operations and messaging platform for hospitality entrepreneurs. Growing up, Jermey wanted to be a professional basketball player. And while he never made it into the NBA, he did make it into Law School. But Jeremy’s professional career as an attorney wouldn’t last long because he was bit by that sneaky, but ever so enticing, entrepreneurial bug. Tune into hear the exciting story of how Jeremy co-founded and built...

Meet Meaghan Moylan, Executive Director of Outpost — a Vacation Rental and Property Management company located in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  If you were to have asked Meaghan what she wanted to be when she grew up, she would have told you a cat, a veterinarian, a nurse, or a lawyer — depending on whether she was 3, 10, 15, or 18.  As fate would have it, Meaghan did not become any of the aforementioned and, after graduating from college with a degree in public relations, decided she was going to...

Meet Chris Stephenson, Vice President of Global Development at Marriott Homes & Villas. Chris has spent his career building new, innovative products and services across travel and hospitality.  In February of 2019, Chris was a part of the founding team of Marriott Homes & Villas and in charge of thinking through how best to bring Marriott’s vacation rental home product to life.  In this episode, Chris and I discuss: What it’s like incubating a new product offering within a legacy...

Meet Taylor Bates, the creator of The Afton House — a stunning, luxury home made for gathering and nestled in the heart of Virginia wine country. Growing up, Taylor wanted to be an architect or a Fortune 500 CEO — she’s always loved the intersection of marketing, design, and business. After working in a few marketing management and nonprofit leadership roles, Taylor wound up starting her own boutique interior design firm focusing on residential and commercial projects. And it was around this...

Meet Scott McIntosh, Co-Founder of Back Forty Glamping, a luxurious glamping oasis on 26 acres of land in Meaford, Ontario.  Growing up, Scott wanted to be a farmer — he loved being outdoors and the notion that you could make a life from tilling fields and harvesting crops was incredibly attractive to him. And while Scott wound up pursuing a career as an educator instead, a few years ago he and his brother Ben had an idea which would enable Scott to trade the classroom for the great...

Meet Dylan Barahona, General Manager at Canyon of the Eagles, a nature resort and preserve on 940 acres of land, located just 1.5 Hours from Austin, Texas. If you were to have asked Dylan at ten-years-old what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d tell you either a professional baseball player or a chef.  And while neither of those dreams quite panned out, the latter, dream set him on path to pursue a career in hospitality, and, over the last decade, Dylan has become a highly-regarded and...

Meet Antonio Gonzalez, President of ÖÖD House — the company behind the instagram famous mirror houses. Antonio is an engineer by trade, but always had a heart for entrepreneurship… So, when the opportunity to co-found Jupe along with past-podcast guest Jeff Wilson and take it through Y Combinator, the world’s most prestigious of startup accelerators, came about, he took it. Antonio learned SO much from the accelerator where the Airbnb founders also graduated from and had an incredible couple...

Meet Garett Brown, the visionary and creator behind Cameron Ranch Glamping, a collection of luxury glamping units on 11 acres just an hour outside of Houston, Texas.  Garrett is a professional music producer and traveling DJ who has always loved dabbling in real estate investing. When he wasn’t performing on stage or out on a tour, he’d find himself scrolling through listings dreaming of what it’d be like to build his own portfolio of homes.   He wanted to learn more about real estate so he...

Meet Brett Deas, a 19-year-old entrepreneur who owns and operates unique stay vacation rentals across the U.S. While his high school buddies were scrolling through TikTok before school and playing video games afterwards, Brett was binging Bigger Pockets podcasts to understand the world of real estate investing. After graduating from high school, Brett decided to try his hand at real estate investing and entrepreneurship before pursuing a college degree. And so far?  That  decision is paying...