1,200 People in One Room: The Best Advice from Bali Villa Connect 2026

Hey everyone, we're here with Kadek at BBRMA in Bali. How's it going? Yeah, Bali has been great today. The weather is good and the environment is also supporting.

we have like 1,200 people here at this event at the moment. That's incredible, isn't it? Because we were talking about it. You said 1,000.

I was like, you don't have a long time to have that many people come. And yet you managed to pull it off. Two and a half months. Everything has been difficult.

But after all the support given by the members, everything, yeah. We got there in the end. Look, I'm asking everyone that I interviewed today, just a quick question. What do you think the number one secret to success is for 2026?

If you were to give someone some advice for their villa business or short-term rental business. I think this time 2026, I think the strictest networking because when we have the networking, everything can happen there. So when we have the networking, we have the ecosystem. the ecosystem will bring us more business.

Yeah, I love it. Networking. Your network is your net worth. Yeah, that's it.

Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for being here, Bart, and really appreciate what you have supported us here in this Bali Villa Connect to 2026. Just the beginning.

Thank you very much. Hey, everyone. We're here with Dipanshi from Price Labs. How are you going?

We're doing well, Bart. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, always. We're all the way in BVRMA Bali, which is really exciting.

I'm running around talking to everyone saying, hey, what should we be thinking about for the rest of 2026? What's your number one tip for a short-term rental owner, property manager? Well, we know the market's been volatile. The economic climate around the world is something that everybody's been watching extremely closely.

So be it a Bali market where supply has been going up or a Middle East market where tourism is drying up, it's becoming extremely important that you are acutely aware of not just what your market is doing but exactly how the different trends are impacting you so be ahead of the curve by informing yourself by keeping aware of how your current performance of you market looks like versus the same time last year and then be at least proactive in making those decisions faster enabling them faster and enabling your team to be able to take a decision that actually turns the tide around because with this volatility comes a lot of uncertainty.

And you and I very well know how people can be really fearful in these times. Yeah. So look, what we're saying is that we expect things to be volatile moving forward. I think that you've got all the political situation, but also economic situation in many countries.

And then what we're saying is make sure that you're watching the data in the right way so then you can make the right decision for your business. So being even more aware than you normally would. And then also you said to allow your business to react quickly and not have any blockers within the business to actually make those decisions and make those changes. Have I summarized that well enough?

Absolutely. In fact, just a small addition on that is a lot of times it's the early bird that catches the worm. And in times like this, that is extremely true for people who are taking the decision a lot faster because then they're leaving the ones in the dust who may have really been catching up late. yeah that makes a lot of sense uh depends you thank you so much it's so nice to be here in another country once again um we'll uh we'll see you very soon yes absolutely my friend take care all right folks we're here at uh bvrma i'm here with the wonderful julie george uh friends reunite in another country uh good to see you again julie oh how amazing that we get to travel the globe and talk to incredible operators and today we with the balinese so over a thousand operators listening to us up on stage Yeah that was super cool It was really nice to you come to Bali you really learn about hospitality And it so important in the short rental space to understand that they start with hospitality first, whilst a lot of other businesses think about profits first, right?

But here it's the other way around, which I really enjoy. It's all still face-to-face check-ins. No smart locks in Bali. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

All right. Now, I'm running around because we are coming into, I guess, the later ends of 2026 and asking everyone what they think is that operators should be thinking about in terms of success for the end of 2026. What should people be looking at? Look, I think it's really about getting smart with their systems, their operating systems.

Really, you know, making sure that if you've got a repeatable task that you've got a process in place. we've got to lighten the load you know folks we all want to have our time back and if that sounds like you if you need a little bit of a break look at the systems that can be implemented into your business today and and i think we've seen it here at barley connect that that's what needs to happen yeah and there's a lot of new systems coming out there's a lot of new ways of doing things so taking a moment to review all those systems when there's a lot of kind of volatility in the mark where everything's a little bit crazy we want to make sure that we take that moment to actually assess and then see what's working, what's working for our guests and the experience and looking at our tools, basically.

Automate, don't complicate, I think was the tagline from the conference. And it's really, don't feel the peer pressure to take on, you don't need to all be clawed experts, I think is the takeaway. Yeah. Amazing.

Thank you so much, Julie. All right. Another country, another time. Hey folks, we are here with Max Del Vita.

How are you going, buddy? Very, very well. Thank you. We're very excited to be here.

Yeah, it's amazing. Max, we've been doing some talking on stage about short-term rentals, about the future. And I'm talking to everyone, asking them one question. The question is, now that we're coming into the second half of 2026, what's the one thing you would recommend for a short-term rental operator to do that could potentially improve their business?

Yeah, I think this is all 2026. Everybody says it's the year of the AI agent and AI is coming upon us. embrace it, try to understand it, try to understand how to use AI technology to operate your business. Automate and get time back so you can do what you do best.

So in terms of a practical sort of answer to that, like, yeah, use more AI, what's the next thing they should do? Well, they can actually try to use some of the tools, for example, to learn how to operate their own admin, like Claw.ai, for example, to understand their analytics. Or, of course, they can use tools like Simplehost.

ai that integrates .ai into their STR operations, get a look at all the guest messaging, all the property listings, availability, and give you information that are useful to run your business. Amazing. Thank you very much, Mr.

Max. Hey, everybody. I'm here with Diogo at BVRMA. How are you going?

Everything is good. It's a pleasure to be here, actually. It's fun, isn't it? Yeah, it really is.

And first time in Bali, so we're trying to enjoy as much as we can. Yeah, absolutely. Look, Diogo, I'm running around asking everyone what they should be thinking about coming into the second half of 2026. Something that might change their business, something they might do to be successful towards the end of 2026.

What do you think they should look at? Right. So actually, last week, I was in Amsterdam in a Booking.com conference.

and what people forget is that guests are people. Guests are not machines, they are not robots, they are not PCs. And one of the most important things is, apart from all the amenities that we can have, the most important thing on an Airbnb or a villa in general, it's a good bed and a good bathroom. And even if we try to make everything a bit flashy and a bit like all the details we can create, the most important thing is we guarantee the basics are there and the fundamentals are there in the properties, which actually we don't see that much around the world.

So that's one of the advice I would give is focus on the basis of your property. Make sure your beds are good, your bedlines, your sheets are good as well. Your provider that you using is good as well the quality of your service And overall everything will be fine for your business Yeah I love that I love that So just basically looking at the basics and then everything goes from there Thank you very much It good to see you Of course Hey everyone I here with the wonderful Yoav Terrell.

How are you going? Very good. Very good. Yeah, we're in Bali, BVRMA.

Working, working. Absolutely working. No bintangs, no relaxing. Nothing.

Good. Yoav, I'm running around asking everyone what they should be thinking about towards the latter end of 2026. We've already done the first five months. What do we need to think about or what can we change to make an impact towards the end of the year?

I would pick a topic that is close to my heart and that's compliance. All right. making sure that your compliance all around the business, from trust accounting to the way that you operate to the rules that you follow, making sure that you stick to it because that's going to intensify next year and you need to be ready for that. It doesn't sound very exciting or glamorous.

I think that that's the thing. it's not glamorous it's not sexy it's not AI-ish okay but it's probably the most important thing for the sustainability of your business there are really kind of good companies out there that can assist you with that yeah please consider it yeah awesome so look at your compliance love it thank you Mr. Yoav thank you hey everyone I'm here with Mr. Tejas from Strategy Q's how are you?

I'm doing really well thank you Bart it's amazing to finally meet you we've been talking for a little while and here we are in bali how exciting yeah the middle of uh both our places right yeah that's right i'm halfway mark that's right so you're abu dhabi dubai i i sorry and then uh obviously where come from coming from australia now folks um i'm running around talking to everyone asking them what the number one tip is for the end of 2026 we've had the first few months uh go by and there's only roughly about six seven months to go.

What would you say people should have a think about to really make a bit of an impact for their business? Okay. So automate repetitive tasks. Make sure your listings, your guest communication, your pricing, everything is automated as much as possible.

Take that time away from all these things and concentrate on the guests. Make sure they like to come back to your villa for you. Yeah. Yeah.

I couldn't agree more. And it's kind of actually funny because before we started recording, you said you were going to talk about this. I was like, oh, actually in my business, there's so much more I should automate. Do you think there's things that you still need to automate in your business?

Absolutely. There are a couple of partners here who are selling to short-term rentals. I'm buying it for personal email responses. Yeah, exactly right.

My own organization. Amazing. Yeah. So really have a deep think about what you haven't automated yet and then get on that train and get it sorted.

So first, identify what you need to automate and then figure out how to do it. Amazing. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Bart. Hey everybody, I'm here with the wonderful Rito from Elevate. How are you going? I'm doing fine.

Thanks, Bart. It's really good to see you. We're here at Bali VRMA, BVRMA. I'm running around.

I'm talking to everyone. I'm asking them one question. Because we are getting into the second half of 2026, I really want to know what you think business owners should be thinking about short-term rental managers what they should be thinking about in terms of changes or things that they should look at in their business or things that are happening in the industry for the end of 2026. Yeah well there are a lot of topics and I've been traveling around lately in a different fairs different countries in Europe but also also now in Bali and I think what I see is a lot of the time the guest is used to doing the the quality assurance.

When they come, they will report and we should say, okay, let's fix that. Let's fix that. But actually it should be done before and we should have processes. We need to have documentation not only also about the quality but also about the regulation which worldwide getting stronger and stronger Amazing So in a practical sense what do you think what would someone do with that tip tomorrow or today like to make that change Yeah, documentation is important.

So maybe even the housekeeping stuff, need to take some photos or need to take some videos. Nowadays if the AI you can run that through a small software cloud or anything and check it out if all is and sits on his plate, on his place. Yeah, that makes sense. So what we're saying is look at our documentation and our process, talk to our staff about what the expectations are, document it better, and get that all done before the guest checks in so the guest isn't the one who has to find those issues.

Exactly. And this is one step and the other one is then looking back again. So take everything serious that the guest mentioned to you and make it better for the next guest so you have a continuously learning process on that. I really like that one as well.

Amazing. That's kind of like two for one. Thank you very much, Mr. Reid.

I really appreciate it. Likewise. Thank you, Bart. Hey, everybody.

We're back at BVRMA with the amazing Adi Guna. How's it going? It's amazing. It's been amazing.

It's been two days and it's a lot of people that's coming in. Over a thousand people, actually, and this is one of our largest events so far. Massive congratulations to you and to the team. I know that it was a Herculean effort.

But I know that there was, I saw the pictures of how many people were involved to try to organize this thing and put it together. Really quite exemplary. And you guys didn't have much time to organize it at all. Exactly.

We have a very limited time. And there's a lot of people is changing in. There's a lot of, you know, agenda that is being changed around. A lot of things, a lot of speakers are being changed around as well.

So there's a lot of challenges. And we are also starting this event with like exactly nothing in our pocket. We're just confirming a lot of things. And I think it's a bold move from VPRMA as well to confirm a lot of things.

And finally, we pull out the shows. And I think it's a massive success this year. Yeah, really well done. And it's great to see this many people coming from all over the place.

And I think it's a really great foundation as well to build something even bigger next year. Or I mean, bigger isn't always best, by the way. It's all about the value that we create. But I'm running around and I'm asking everyone about the end of 2026 and what people should think about within their businesses, something that might improve their business.

I would love to get your thoughts and your take on what somebody could do in their business to potentially improve it for the end of 2026. Awesome. Well, since I'm working on a hospitality business and industries, I think what we should focus on is going sustainable moving forward and also not only sustainable in terms of ecological sustainability, but also as a whole business sustainability. So I will encourage everyone to stay true to your identity because every business has their own uniqueness and unique selling points, and especially with their cultures.

From a tourism point of view, we believe that people fly halfway around the world, go to Bali or go to everywhere, they want to experience something. They don't want to have something that is already there in their home country. They want to experience something different here. And I think staying true to your identity, going to last forever because trans is always short-lived but identity will last forever.

Yeah wow wow what big words I really love it and I think that's really something that you see particularly in a country like Bali where that identity is ingrained in everything that you do and that hospitality is very very well known and then you guys lean into it in terms of that experience that you actually provide for people. Look thank you so much once again really pleasure Yeah. PLEASURE TO HANG OUT AND TO BE WITH YOU. AND WE'LL SEE YOU AGAIN SOON.

Thank you for your support at Strive. And thank you so much for your support, Marvin. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you.