LIVE from Nashville: Key Takeaways from Track NEXT 25 – Innovation, Insights, and Industry Shifts

Alex Husner  
Welcome to Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals. I'm Alex, and I am not joined by Annie. Today, there's only been a small number of episodes, I can say that. But I am joined by an amazing guest, Justin Panzer, who is the VP of Marketing for Track and TravelNet Solutions. Justin, so good to see you. Yeah, great

Justin Panzer  
to be here. Glad I could make it on after a long week on the road. Yeah, it was

Alex Husner  
a long week for everybody, and so Annie's a little bit under the weather. So typical, you know, fashion that we come back from these shows, sometimes it's like, you know, you're going to the events, You're up early, you're out late at night, you're, we're talking all day long. And sometimes it really does take a toll on you, Annie's not feeling well that she's she's she's on the mend, but she literally has no voice. So as a podcaster, not having a voice was kind of a pretty big problem, but this actually worked out great, and this was Annie's suggestion for me to ask you to come on, Justin, because we did not get to interview with you last week, but we were set up at your conference and right in the middle of the fender Hall in Nashville at the Omni Hotel, and we got to talk to a bunch of your staff and a couple of your partners, and just kind of get their take on the event. And it was, you know, from our perspective, it was, it was a great conference. We met a lot of people that we had never met before, which is always interesting, because you kind of feel like when you go to a lot of these same shows, you're seeing a lot of the same people. But a lot of the property managers that wandered up to us as we were set up with the podcast, they they did not know about our podcast, and we had never met them before, and it was just it was nice to see some fresh faces there. So I think you guys did a great job of just trying to expand that circle a little bit. But wanted to have you on today. First part of this episode is gonna be Justin and I kind of talking about the event, and then we're gonna jump into some of the short clips that we had from the interview interviews that Annie and I did conduct together. But from your perspective, just curious, what do you think made this year's event stand out like what made this event a true success? 

Justin Panzer  
Well, I think we try to align this event with a lot of what our industry is doing right now, which is creating experiences. And obviously when we talk about that in the context of what our customers are doing, they're creating experiences for guests. In this case, they were our guests, and we wanted to do the same thing. So the things that people heard me say over and over again in planning the event and during the event were that we wanted it to be interactive, immersive and actionable. Those were the three adjectives that we wanted everyone to take away, and also the things that we asked everybody to consider when they were planning their content. And so I think we made it a real experiential event, one that wasn't just lecture style sessions, but a lot of engagement, like you said, meeting new people, a lot of conversations that we were trying to facilitate in a lot of different ways, and I think that's what really came together when we hosted the event last week.

Alex Husner  
Yeah, no, I agree with that. And for me personally, I had never been to one of the property management systems user conferences before. I think Annie's been to maybe one of the track conferences in the past, in a streamlined event. This was my first one, but what I found to be the most interesting was just meeting all the staff and like all your developers and your your team that's behind the system that you know, typically they might probably don't go to all the events. Maybe some of them do, but a lot of them that are like product developers, that's they're working doing the heavy lifting while everybody's out here doing the selling and networking. But it was really fun to talk to several of them that are going to be coming in the next few or interviews that we have coming after our portion, that they were all so passionate about what they've built in track and like, getting to show it to your customers. And like, literally, Annie and I were just like, their faces lit up and we asked them about what is the thing that you're working on in track, and that was really exciting to see, because, you know, I've noticed with other companies, too, that if you're behind the scenes and like, you don't get to see that feedback and talk to the customers, it's not nearly as fulfilling as a job at the end of the day. It's not like but when you actually get to hear from people that are using what you've built, and it's changing their lives, like, you know, there's nothing that could be more motivating than that. So for us to see those people that were literally shouting stars, and every single one of them had exceptional interview skills, like just did so well chatting with us and just sounding so professional that it was, it was exciting to see you guys have an amazing team. 

Justin Panzer  
Yeah, thanks. It was actually, I mean, two of those things really were big parts of the conference. First of all, having you guys there, as well as a couple others who we consider media in our industry, or influencers, or however. You want to categorize it. You know, that was something that we did this year. We made it a point to invite people in a media category that may not otherwise get invited to a user conference. Because one, we think it's valuable content for our industry, but also it's a great opportunity, like you said, for some of those people that are normally behind the scenes, to get out in front of the camera, get out in front of customers and just have those conversations. But there is no one better than our product team, some of our developers, some of the engineers, the technical people who were at the conference and who were running Sessions, who were part of the interviews with you and a number of other things to present that content. They know it like the back of their hand. Like you said, they're very passionate about it. Is their their job, but when they see it, connect with customers and with our industry, it takes it to another level for them, and it helps them be that much better, which as a marketing person, when they're doing things on the technical side of our business that are directly taking customer feedback into account. It makes it that much easier for me to put it out there and get engagement with it. 

Alex Husner  
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think another thing that Annie and I joined about it too is in her role at next packs and my role as a fractional cmo marketing consultant. I work with clients that use track, and so does she. So it's like, the more I've been able to learn, you know, in this new phase of career for me, of like, actually seeing how these companies are using track on the back end, you know, it just, it really kind of brings things full circle. So being there and actually getting to be part of those conversations was was really good, and just excited about all the things that we heard at the show. And there were some big announcements, so I wanted to make sure we give credit to some of those that came out. But there are some different things on payments and owner portal and AI. So just want to get your take on what was announced. And if you if you can share a little

Justin Panzer  
bit for audience. Yeah, there were so many things, but the highlights, really, I think, were our owner portal mobile experience that was unveiled in a number of different sessions, as well as on the main stage sessions, and our product manager, Rosita Hernandez, did a couple of on site demos that I think were really well accepted. Really seemed to like that mobile experience of the owner portal, the guest communications, which is really a suite of products or functionality that are built into the PMs, and they're going to be rolling out in a number of different phases over the course of 2025 and Emily rickers, who's our product manager for that, was in standing room only sessions, delivering some updates on on what that's going to look like. Relaunch track revenue, which was previously under the rented brand, and we've incorporated that into track fully, and just did some refresh of that, I think is the best way to describe it. But we've, we've really made it applicable to, I think, a wider cohort of our customer base, from small customers all the way up to enterprise. And you mentioned payments. So ACH for owners is an exciting development and payments that's going to be rolling out just over the next few months. Here quite a few AI features and functionality, so just a ton of things that are demonstrating some of the innovation that we've got in the pipeline. Yeah,

Alex Husner  
that's super exciting on the payment side. So we talked with Kelly, and she was just, you know, beaming with excitement on on what that you guys have coming there. And really, to me, I think the interesting thing is, I mean, your clients are going to end up saving a lot of money on this too, right? I mean, like, you're able to get a much better rate for them than if they were going through a third party processor. So that's awesome.

Justin Panzer  
Yeah, there's obviously a financial benefit to it, but also just the integration of the payments platform into the PMs and the total track portfolio makes reporting much more consolidated. It's it's a lot of additional insight and just valuable reporting that you can get out of having all of those things in one place that

Alex Husner  
makes sense. Well, we definitely enjoyed talking with everybody, and we're excited to share some sneak peeks into those interviews. But before we sign off, maybe tell us what you're excited for next year, and if you can announce we're track next 26

Justin Panzer  
will be all Yeah, well, a couple of exciting things on that front. First of all, we're going to be taking it to Austin, Texas. We're going to be doing it in February again, so we're excited about that. Austin is a great place for for events, maybe as much so as Nashville, but little bit of a different vibe. The other thing that we're doing, though, is we're. Rebranding the event, and we're calling it the track meet, and we were really embracing our roots with the track brand name, but we also think that the rebrand of the event kind of embraces all the things that people love about track and about travel net, but also delivers a little bit of something new, which is what we're always striving for. So there's a lot of themes that we can play with that we certainly will be so stay tuned for all of that. We've got some really exciting things, but not ready to unveil all of the details just yet. We're going to have a lot of fun with it, and we think that all of our people attract stars, so we're looking forward to showing them off a little bit. Yeah,

Alex Husner  
no, that's really cool. You know, one closing thought for Manny, and I will say that if you have a property management system that has a user conference, you really should go to it. I think that it is highly valuable to have. I mean, the PMS is essentially the lifeblood of your company. And if that organization has an event you should go to it, because anything that you can't figure out at home on your own or through support tickets, when you have people right in front of you, you can get things fixed or figured out so much faster. And I think that's you know, for the people that we've met last week and that Annie's met at other user conferences, that's kind of the biggest takeaway. So sometimes it's worth prioritizing those, the user conferences over perhaps the larger conferences each year, if you have to make that decision, and some that you can get video recordings, obviously still are in the mix, but definitely worthwhile to be able to get the most of the functionality. But without further ado, we will now head into the interviews that we had live in Nashville last week, area, and we're back here live in Nashville at the track next 25 conference. And we have Michael Ohanian, who is the VP of Product Management with track. Michael, so good to see you. Good

Annie Holcombe  
to see you too. So head of product for track, we've been following track for a couple years. You guys have built out a lot of tools and a lot of great things for the property managers in our business, a lot of the enterprise size managers, what is your favorite product that you've got out right now? And maybe give us a little hint of what might be coming.

Michael Ohanian  
 It's a tough one. It's kind of like asking someone who's your favorite kid. But if I had to pick one, I think we've seen a lot of really impressed customers with track distribution and kind of challenging economic times you want to optimize your revenue and the opportunity. So having a really high performing distribution manager in house has been really powerful. A lot of customers really like

Alex Husner  
that. Yeah, having everything in one platform obviously just makes life a lot easier for everybody, right? So maybe tell us a little bit about the channels that you connect with. And I know some pmss have stronger connections than others, like kind of what you guys have built that have made it so special

Michael Ohanian  
booking.com, Airbnb, we actually just achieved verbal elite certification, and as we go through the year, we bring you on Expedia as well, hvmi, so some really nice, strong channels, and we'll continue to build those as our customers want them. So

Annie Holcombe  
I want to get deep into channels, but since we're on that topic, how do you help your partners optimize the channels? Because I, you know, I in my day job, I work in channel management, I think that's one of the things that managers are really challenged with, is that, you know, following through on every channel and every connection really making sure that they're optimized by what the channels algorithm wants. So you have a team that will help with that.

Michael Ohanian  
Yep, we have managed services as well. And then the solution itself is really user friendly, really easy to work with to optimize things. It's all about visibility and workflow. So if you can see it, then you could take action on it, and if you can take action on it, but it's not really a scalable action, or it's really clunky, it doesn't work. So we've made a lot of things that are like bulk or like you can do a lot of things with just a couple clicks. So even that visibility, plus that user workflow, is really strong for us. That's how we do it. In addition to that, we have staff on board that help people out, some channel managers and so forth,

Alex Husner  
so VP of Product Management, so you're across all different aspects of the software, correct? What are some other things coming down the line? I've heard while we've been here that you guys are starting to implement some AI capabilities within the system. Yeah.

Michael Ohanian  
And to be clear, while I might be VP of product, we've got a wonderful team of product managers that each also oversee individual product lines, and that's just, it's a great position that they own, that they live and breathe and eat it, and they talk to customers, collect feedback, and put out the best products. But some of the really good things coming down the line, I mean, you've seen the launch here of our worst guest communications, the unified guest inbox owners portal is a really neat enhancement that we're doing. They're really excited about and those are just kind of the first step. But on top of that, putting a lot of scalability tools, we're also expanding like it's channels even more payments is gonna be a lot more enhanced in the dashboard. You could do more ACH transactions. So it's kind of neat to say there's a lot of different projects all over the place, but at the end of the day, I think that we're starting to see a. Us really get at the forefront and moving forward with technology that like, it's not just one specific thing we're now doing. We're actually juggling a lot of balls in the air, a lot of things our customers want. But I really think it'll really all come together. Like I said, getting a little bit more mobile friendly, and the last thing you alluded to is AI. We've seen some great successes with the AI Review Management. I don't know how many people have seen this. It's so cool where you can actually change the tone and the empathy level in the one click, send that review back out and address the customer's reviews, and we're looking for more ways to incorporate that in the

Annie Holcombe  
product. So I think AI is, like, on everybody's mind, it's a great tool, but it's like, how far do you how far can you go with it? I think it's almost a limitless space to be in, right?

Michael Ohanian  
I think one of the interesting challenges of the AI aspect is, in any other technology field, AI can really help you scale. But we're in hospitality. I've talked to a lot of users, especially because I came from hotels that say, look, cap this off. My users, my guests, they want a human touch. So it's always about trying to find that really effective balance, where AI can be really focused to the operators and where applicable to the guests, but doesn't kind of dilute that awesome guest experience that they're looking for. Well,

Alex Husner  
a lot of exciting things revealed here this week, and it's nice to finally meet the person behind all the products that are coming out. Yeah. And, of course, your other teams too, but very nice to meet you. And we hope that you have a great rest of the show. And best of luck for 2025

Michael Ohanian  
yeah as well. Thank well. Thank you so much.

Alex Husner  
We've got Kelly McNeil, who is the Senior strategic program director here at track, Kelly, it's so good to have you. Thanks for having me,

Annie Holcombe  
Kelly. So we were talking to your team a little while ago, and one of the vocal points of track over the last, I would say, year and a half, maybe two years, has been payments. So implementing a good payment processing system for partners. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and what that means for your partners? Yeah, absolutely.

Kelly McNeil  
So when we were implementing payments, it was really important for us to have it fully embedded within Track. You can't book reservations without taking payments, right? So why would it be outside of the PMS? So we wanted to make sure that it was embedded fully within it, so that you could have your reservation details tied to the transaction details. So whenever, if everything flows, great, everything's fine, but we all know that's not how the world works, right? So when you have your chargebacks, when you need to process refunds, anything of that nature, it was very difficult to have to manage two separate systems, so we were very thoughtful of how we did that, and making sure that it was all within the system, so you can now manage all of those things directly within Track. Wow.

Alex Husner  
So you don't need to use a separate payment processor anymore. Wow. 

Kelly McNeil  
You don't need to have a separate gateway or a processor. So it eliminates those fees as well, because we were needing to pay a gateway fee, and oftentimes those other processors are charging all kinds of ancillary fees that we've also eliminated as well.

Alex Husner  
And when did this get rolled out?

Kelly McNeil  
So we rolled it out in october 2023 is when we launched our first customer. So

Annie Holcombe  
one thing that I know I have experienced with property managers and different property management systems is the problems that ensue with fees. And I think that there's always been people will say it's kind of the Achilles heel of our industry, is we have so many fees and they change. And so how to present your partners with flexibility to be able to manage those fees? Fees? Can they do, like, the stay fees? Like, how does that work for the partner? 

Kelly McNeil  
There's a couple different ways with credit card processing to do the pricing with that, right? There's only so many things that we can control over credit card processing fees, because those are managed by the networks, Visa, MasterCard, they handle all that. But we've done it in a way that it's called cost plus, right? So there's either a flat rate pricing or cost plus. So we've gone with cost plus because it allows the property managers to manage their pricing as best as they can. So we've done that, and we've also eliminated a lot of those ancillary fees. As I've mentioned before. We don't have any of those, so we've taken that all out as well.

Alex Husner  
Wow. Well, we're super excited to be here this week and get to talk to more of your clients that are using this new feature that you have, and just hear, you know, from their perspective, how much it's either made their lives easier. They've saved money doing this. It's just made operations, the whole business, flow better. So excited to hear more, but Kelly, so good to chat with you. And so nice to be here. Yeah, awesome. We've got Lui King with Safely and Ashley Ching with Inhaven. Guys, it's

Annie Holcombe  
so good to see you too. Yeah, so you guys are putting together something pretty cool, insurance for linens. I'm really fascinated by this. I think it's got a lot of legs to it. Tell us about it? 

Lui King  
Yeah, it's an amazing program. Our biggest claims are sheets. Processed over a million dollars of sheet claims last year. And well, who comes to mind, but Ashley didn't Haven because that's her main business, is sheets and stocking of sheets, right?

Ashely Ching  
Yeah. So in our biggest question that we get from our property management clients is how to manage linen program. And so. Making sure that you're picking linens that are super durable to reduce those claims, and making sure you're pricing them correctly and restocking them in an efficient manner.

Annie Holcombe  
Yeah, so insurance. How do you ensure so? You insure it by the tonnage. Like, how do you insure linens? What does that look

Lui King  
like? Yeah. No, it's, it's a simple matter of a guest comes in, they soil the sheets. Maybe in any we've had sheet claims for maybe 50 shades of gray party. We've had a couple of murders in so replacing those sheets, yes, and ironically, they just wanted to change the sheets. They didn't need to change the mattress. The mattress. They said that a hell of a mattress cover. Oh my goodness. But also just just to other just a makeup is a very common one as well. And so for us, it just, they submit a claim, they send a photo in, and we replace the sheets. So it's for the very simple Yes, or is it for the property? No, the property, because the property manager is replacing the sheets after the guest is there. So they are replacing

Alex Husner  
the sheets. Yeah, you know, I think one of the things that we all love about this industry so much is just the collaboration that happens between all of the suppliers in the space. They've all known each other for a very long time now. It's cool to see two companies that I would have never even guessed you guys would have a program together, kind of on that note. So we are here at tracks next 25 conference. You both are connected through your businesses with track. Maybe tell us a little bit about that relationship, sure. So we are in the process right now of integrating with track. We have several large track property management companies that we work with, and we really just helped them set their standards to the bed bath and kitchen, and so we'd be working with them to push owner invoices back to the track system and to be able to pull some of their data so we can make better forecasts and recommendations in terms of their purchases.

Lui King  
Yeah, we've been integrated with track for, I think, two or three years. This point, we have large percentage of customers. They're all the larger. They range in size from about 50 homes all the way to up to about 2000 homes that we're managing. And we have some exciting new programs, and that works for them to help with the operational efficiencies, with filing claims from directly within Track platform. So it's exciting going forward. Yeah.

Annie Holcombe  
Well, I love this creativity. This is really incredible. So is there anything else, as far as being at this conference, the track user conference, that you guys are looking to announce, or going to be part of with track moving forward, besides this program?

Lui King  
Yeah. I mean, this is one of the things we're working on, probably about as much as I can say right now. But, yeah. But you know, it really across the board, with all the problems with all the property management systems, they've all have their base programs of guest communications and reservations, and now you see it across the board, whether it's insurance or dynamic pricing, they're all starting to build it within the platforms, yeah, and that's

Ashely Ching  
what our customers are looking more most forward to, is just the integration, the efficiencies that will come with not having to work in two separate systems.

Annie Holcombe  
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, great to

Alex Husner  
see you both. We have been chatting about an idea for a future episode that we're going to do a deep dive into linens and protection and how things can be rolled out differently. It's definitely a hot topic, and it's maybe not the most sexy thing, but

Unknown Speaker  
everyone's asking. Everyone's asking,

Annie Holcombe  
well, thank you both for being Thank you.

Alex Husner  
We've got Rosita Hernandez, who is a product manager, here at track. Rosita, so good to see you.

Rosita Hernandez  
Yes, you too. Great to be here.

Annie Holcombe  
 So Rosita, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do for track and what you're looking most forward to for this conference? Yeah.

Rosita Hernandez  
So what I do for track is, I'm a product manager. I look for problems that our property managers are having with the software, or even how they want to alleviate problems for their guests or owners, and then collectively, we look at the majority of that, and then we prioritize it, and that's what gets added on a roadmap, and what goes to engineering to actually get solution. The thing that brings me here, what I'm most excited about is the fact that we have a new owner portal. So this is like a complete redesign, and we have a mobile app. So this is tracks first venture with for into a mobile app.

Alex Husner  
Yeah, and is it a mobile app just for owners or for guests? So

Rosita Hernandez  
it's just going to be for owners. We do have a mobile first experience guest portal app that will be coming out, but it's a little different, because our owner portal app is strictly just an app. We did this because, you know, we put a survey out last year, and one of the things that came back was building relationships with owners. So this was our way of solutioning for that, you know, giving bridging that gap between property managers and owners, and especially being able to convey important information to their owners, right? Owners want to know how their property is performing, stuff like that, so it's giving them that visibility. I think some of the key things that came up were visibility, transparency. I mean, we're trying to solve for all of that with this. Yeah, no, that's

Alex Husner  
great. And. Yeah, what would you say from where it was to where it is now? What's maybe the biggest improvement? Oh,

Rosita Hernandez  
yeah. I mean, look and feel is huge. I mean, we kind of divided this into three phases. With the first phase we looked at redesigning and then adding the mobile experience. So with that, it's just all the same basic functionality, but we were able to make some improvements. So for instance, we added tool tips to all of our metrics to let owners know what these metrics mean to them. We added slash indicators on the availability calendar, because right now, when you're looking at availability, let's say you have Airbnb booked four times in a row. Now it just shows us, like one big block of green. But now, with what we've like implemented, they'll be able to see four individual reservations and then slash indicators for check in and check out. Um, so other things we did was with owners, when they're making reservations, they just took a stab at what dates were available, or they had to cross reference with another page to see what dates were available to them. Now, yeah, it was, it was horrible. So, you know, like, one or two things happen, you know, they had to play the guessing game, or they just dropped off in that process, and they would just contact, you know, their property manager to make the reservation for them. But now, when they click on the check in and check out, it actually shows dates that are available to them, so no more guesswork. Another thing we had fixed was the availability and reservations. It was kind of redundant thing, and people were using it to cross reference information, so we just combined everything into one. So that was like fixing a disjoint and navigation situation. But I mean that pretty much sums it up for like, phase one, but now phase two, that we're actually getting into, and what I'm doing a lot of sessions here at track for, is pulling that feedback we're looking at, you know, enhancing the current functionality, so aligning metrics, improving metrics, adding visibility for rates on the calendar Foreigners to see work orders. Again, it all aligns with property managers being more transparent with owners to build that trust to, you know, just build that relationship with them. And then phase three, we're actually introducing new features, and this serves as two purposes. One, it's self service for the owner. So we're actually doing a payment tool feature so owners can make payments through the portal. And then also we're doing custom content to kind of, again, bridge that communication and build a relationship gap between property managers and owners, and it kind of functions similar to what the guest portal is. So people would be able to use that as an area to post webinars, newsletters, stuff like that. That

Annie Holcombe  
was actually going to be, my question was, Is this going to enable the property manager to have more touch points with those owners and not have to be reactive, like, so they can actually be more proactive about giving information out? And so with this, with this, these, this roll out, these three phases, where are you at? Like, does everybody have access to it now, or is it? Yeah, so

Rosita Hernandez  
it's still in testing. So for phase one, we're still in progress. Right now, we're kind of doing a little bit of a crossover for the beta phase, because usually beta phase will take place after developments happen. Right now we're doing, while we're still in development, we're doing a beta phase. So this has been gone up to a number of people, and we're kind of releasing it this way, so that we're able to fix things faster, so that we could release it faster. And our phase, like, especially with the mobile app, we're doing it in four phases. So the first phase is we're going to get people on sandbox to test this, then we're going to roll it out to production. So then people will be able to do that, and then we're going to roll it out to like, a broader audience. So that means not just property managers, but your owners. And then after that, we'll do like a full release. Yeah, it is. I'm so excited, and it looks so good.

Yeah, I'm just so happy, like, through the process, that we finally have something to show.

Yeah, right. It's not just the thing we ever managed. We

Alex Husner  
don't want to miss the launch of it and just like, take it to everybody right away, and then it's like, it's chaos. Yeah, your approach of how you're rolling it down makes no sense. Well, super nice to me. Yes, no problem. Justin had just told us who's going to send us a video overview. Yeah, it looks really good. Sure to include that as part of this episode so everybody can check it out. Cool. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. We've got David Stephens, who is the lead data scientist at track David, so good to see you. Yeah,

David Stephens  
good to see you, too. Thanks for having me

Annie Holcombe  
so David. I joked with you, data scientist equals chief nerd to me. You know numbers. You love numbers. How did you how did you come to join track?

David Stephens  
Well, I always had some sort of gravitation towards data, just because there was, there weren't so many people in the company or the organization who understood it. So I would always try to find those answers first and. Then when I find those answers, I moved between companies, but then I worked for track because they needed somebody who could improve the dynamic pricing model. And since then, I have been working on some of the coolest projects and hardest problems to solve in the industry.

Alex Husner  
I love that. And you know, at the end of the day, it's like, I feel like a lot of the systems within our space, that's really one of the biggest pain points is that managers can't get easy access to data. They can run reports, but the reports take too long to get. It's not the information that you really want to have. And you know, the managers that have really excelled, I feel like are ones that have either they built their own systems or they built something on top of a system. So for maybe tell us a little bit about, like, what you've infused as far as being able to give managers access to really be able to understand what's going on

David Stephens  
in their business. Yeah, so you're right. One of the hardest things is really getting that data, but not just getting all data. You have to get the right data right. And once you get that right data, well, then it's still confusing. What do you how do you make your tails? So what we are trying to do is we're trying to make the right metrics accessible to our customers. And how do we do that? Well, we are actually we're working with KPIs that are very prevalent in the hotel industry, for instance, market penetration index or average rate index or revenue generation index. So you can really compare yourself, not just to your own history, but also to the market and to the comps in your sub site. So what data sources

Annie Holcombe  
are using? I think you guys have a partnership with key data. Is there anybody else that you guys work with help get that all of that pool together for the managers? Or do you have your own systems in place that you're either scraping or pulling the data in to help analyze all of it to get there? Yeah,

David Stephens  
we're using key data, and key data is our main partner, and they provide two different data sources. The first is the web scrapes from the OTAs, so that's the harvested data. But then they also provide the direct PMS data, so any of the property management systems that come from whatever locations they get that, and then they provide that anonymously to us, so we can find out what the average daily rate is in Steamboat Springs during a certain time period or during a certain week. And we also get their average length of stay, so occupancy rates, ADR, average length of stay, or how much revenue has actually been already currently generated. There's a look back on that as well, and that's just with key data. Then we have our other data sources. So internally, we work with track now we anonymize that data, but we're using that internally to understand how our customers are actually performing. And then the benefit is when we combine those two data sources, so our track customers who use track revenue, and then we have our key data data sets. When we combine that, that's when we really start to start to shine. Yeah,

Alex Husner  
no, that's great. And do you have a team that is working with the property managers to help them implement how they're actually like, looking at this data and explaining it to them too. Yeah,

David Stephens  
yeah. So the track revenue team works directly with the property managers. We have an all. We have a service here, a service called Full service. So instead of hiring a revenue manager at a property management company, you can use track revenue, and we will basically look at that data for you, and we will work with you on a weekly or monthly cadence in order to understand what your rates should be, how the market is responding, but at the end of the day, you're the one who makes the choice, right? So it's not like we are doing it for you, but we do all of legwork for research, exactly. So

Annie Holcombe  
this is your annual user conference. Is there something that you're excited to be able to showcase highlight this week? Specifically?

David Stephens  
Yeah. So the panel discussion that we had earlier this morning was focused on artificial intelligence and Boogie Wittenberg, the CEO, actually mentioned in his keynote that we're working on tagging with artificial intelligence. So tagging photos. So you may have 50 different photos for one listing, but then you have to go through and it's an arduous process to tag them. You know, this is a bathroom, this is a bedroom. Here's the living room. Well, maybe it's an open concept, so the living room and the kitchen and the bathroom are all in the same photo. What do you tag? And it's very tricky process. We've actually trained our own model, and I'm going to present that in the next, next 30 minutes. And it's very exciting,

very exciting

and and basically this is, this is our demonstration model, so that we can show, because viral load in the entire model,

Alex Husner  
that would be a very long Yeah, one part at a time. That's right. And this

David Stephens  
is very exciting, because this is really next level, and it's, it's able to help our customers, and it's just one step in the direction of AI and a lot of people, they're, they're threatened. My AI, it is a scary topic, but we've been embracing it, and we're actually feeling very promising. 

Annie Holcombe  
Well, your face lit up when you say, when you very excited about it. Moment to shine. Yeah,

Alex Husner  
that's super exciting. And we'll definitely make sure to pop in there so we can see you live in action, demonstrating it. But thank you so much, David, for stopping by. It's a pleasure to meet you and just to get to see what you guys are rolling out of track. And just awesome to be here

David Stephens  
with everybody. Yeah, thank you for having me. Thank you.

Alex Husner  
we have Daniel Leifield here of key data, Daniel, so good to see you. 

Daniel Leifield  
Good to see you guys. Glad you're here. 

Annie Holcombe  
So we wanted to grab you, because one of the things that you. At a user partner, partner user conference, you find a lot about you know your partners, and you find a lot about people you work with, and the people you know in the industry. And you laid a really big surprise on everybody last night at the party the dancer, yeah, tell us about this, something you've always done. I mean, ballroom dancing, everything.

Daniel Leifield  
I'll tell you a couple stories. But first off, when I was in college, I Well, really, when I was in high school, I met this girl, and I really liked her, and just worked and worked and worked to try to get a date with her, and she never go on a date with me. Then when I went to college, we went to the same college, and she said, Hey, there's this bar. I know you like country dance. And all I knew was one move all right. And, like, it blew everybody's mind in high school, but, like, when I went to college, like, she she was like, Hey, come to this bar. And so we went to this bar, and I tried to swing dance, but there were all these other guys there, and they were throwing girls all over the place, and I realized really quickly, like, especially when one of the guys asked her to dance, and then she danced with him all night. I was like, Well, I guess I need to learn to dance school. So I started going and did that. But I got so good that when I was in college, I worked for a radio station, and my job all summer was to go to street dances and county fairs, where the radio station brand and wow, show up and starts party. So

Alex Husner  
well, you made quite an impact last night. We've heard from several people that you were just cutting the rug and showing everybody up. A couple people sounded more like you, probably when you first got to that bar in college, that they're like, I know kind of had a country dance, but they're like, Dan just took it to a whole nother level. So we are very sad that we didn't get to see it, but I feel like I can picture it in my mind. So we'll have to maybe recreate it at some point another show. The line dances

Daniel Leifield  
are solid Copperhead road we did electors, fun

Annie Holcombe  
data and dancing is what you're getting.

Daniel Leifield  
That's all I have. That's all I have let's

Alex Husner  
switch gears. Yeah,

absolutely. So tell us something

that you are just a takeaway from a conference, something that you've enjoyed about being here. I know you guys work very closely with track and other clients.

Daniel Leifield  
Yeah, because we work so closely with track, we have a lot of relationships with, you know, some of the biggest property managers in this space are here, and it's really cool to hear kind of some of what they're doing from a revenue management standpoint, or, you know, how they're using their tool with interact to just make a bigger impact on their business. And so it's been a really cool opportunity for us to connect with our partners, because we pretty much work with everybody here, so because they're all already working with us, we have the opportunity to really go deep on their data and help them find some little things that maybe can change. Take an hour out of their day here, you know, whatever it is like, save them a little bit of time here, there with some tips and tricks. So we

Alex Husner  
are going to have you on for a full episode one of these days, but we had to just grab you and ask about the dancing. We've heard a lot of great things about you, KeyData at the show too, but the dancing that really takes the game.

Daniel Leifield  
Nashville is kind of my Mecca, too, so it's a big part. Great to see you, Dan. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on. Good.

Alex Husner  
We've got Tim Schutts, who is the VP of sales with track. Tim, it's so good to see you. 

Tim Schutts  
Good to see you guys. Thank you for coming. It's been a great event so far.

Annie Holcombe  
Yeah, so I mean, what an incredible turnout. And we've been talking to a lot of people, but people within your team and some of the managers are here, and it's really great opportunity for everybody to get together and, like, share learnings. And obviously for you guys, what a great opportunity to sit down with your customers and get that feedback that you need to, like, just be better and progress. So what are your big takeaways from your partners?

Tim Schutts  
Yeah, I think bringing them in earlier, getting feedback earlier, and not, you know, launching something, then getting feedback. And our customer advisory board went extremely well yesterday. It was like, here's future enhancements, but are we really solving the problem that our customers need solved? And so that was a big takeaway. And I think the response of some of our progression with mobile has been really favorable from from the conference as well. Yeah,

Alex Husner  
that's great. We got to talk with a couple of your team members earlier about your new payment system, or not. That's new, new, but it was rolled out within the last years or so, yeah. And also the owner portal that's being rolled out in three different phases. And I think it makes a lot of sense. I think you know, the way that you're very like methodically rolling these things out, and like you said, really using the input from the users that you get at events like this, you know it just it makes a big difference, because you know what you think your clients know, but you need to know what they really want. Also,

Tim Schutts  
they have three constituents, right? They have owners, they have their guests, and they have their employees. And if you can help eliminate friction for employees, they can better serve their guests. If they better serve their guests, their owners are happier. They're getting better reviews. But everything that you always have to be thinking about those lenses of like, what, what area do we need to go attack next? Owner, Portal, guest, Portal, guest comms. Bringing that all together, those are going to be some pretty big launches for us this year. Yeah, so that's I was going

Annie Holcombe  
to ask you, like, from the sales perspective, because I think that's really great. Sales is always looking for the the shiny new penny to show their customers. I mean, we know that that's always exciting. But for you, you know, what are you most excited about from the sales? What do you think is going to be the game changer for you guys this coming year?

Tim Schutts  
Um, from a product standpoint, I think some of the stuff we're doing around guest songs is going to be good. But I also think with just that continued convergence of resorts and hotels like we were talking about earlier, really being able to go in and solve for their problems is going to help kind of chart our next phase of growth as a company as well. Yeah,

Alex Husner  
I'm glad you brought that up too, because we've been saying this forever, that it's like one of these PMS is needs to focus on those condo resort operators that they operate more like hotels, but they are on the old legacy hotel PMS is but they're individually owned properties, and they're kind of in between in that gray area. So I think it's good to see that somebody's finally listened for years.

Tim Schutts  
Yeah, you have this new workforce coming in that's used to everything being super, super modern. Yeah, they're getting f8 and yeah, tab, tab, tab, you get to report, oh, yeah, they just aren't going to function. Yeah. I'm really excited, and I'm optimistic about that space. Yeah,

Annie Holcombe  
I think that that's going to be an absolute game changer for you. I know that in my day job, I work with a lot of managers that are in that space, and they are struggling. They just they need the tech that you guys have, but they still need the tech that the hotel side of the business has. So I think you guys that convergence for you is going to unlock so much opportunity, but I also think that it's another piece of the puzzle that Alex and I talk about in our show a lot, is like these, the two sides of hospitality coming closer together to work together. We've been running separate, but we have a lot more similarities than we

Tim Schutts  
do differences. Yeah, there's not really a lot of conferences, right? Where you go to and you have more of the hotel style operators and the vacation rental managers in the same room. And we're starting to see that here, where we're seeing more of these operators and sharing ideas. That's really what it's all about, is like, how can we all get better together? Right? And I think the hotel industry does some things really well that the VR industry can learn from, yeah. But also the VR side has been way more progressive, yeah. So yeah, I think they can learn

Alex Husner  
from, yeah, yeah. I think so yeah, yeah, yeah. The collaboration has been great this week here, not just even amongst the different suppliers that you integrate with, but also among the property managers, sharing ideas and just really, really cool, but thank you for having us here, and great to see you. All right.