Within the vacation rental industry, opportunity abounds as operators lean into consolidation and professionalization.

During an interview in the PhocusWire studio at The Phocuswright Conference last week, Sharad Sunderesan, founder and CEO of Homescreen, and Eric Goldreyer, CEO of Savvy, shared their thoughts on these trends.

“You’ll see consolidation bring about that degree of consistency across the board, which helps with dealing with those increased guest expectations,” Sundaresan said.

According to Goldreyer, short-term rental (STR) guests also want standardization, but, more importantly, they want to forego travel anxiety and have a reliable point of contact if something goes wrong.

“They want a professional. They want someone that they can call,” he said. “If you’re in a vacation rental, you’re taking a group, and there’s higher pain points. You want to make sure that you can minimize those to the best of your ability.”

Conversation shifted to artificial intelligence and how it may address significant challenges such as persistent manual processes and fragmentation.