The Essential Role of Short-Term Rental Advocacy

Miles (0:00)

Hello, and welcome to today's episode of the Hospitable Hosts podcast. Today, we're speaking about how $2 per stay could transform the vacation rental industry. Today's episode is going to be predominantly focused on US-based short-term rental associations, but I think a lot of the things being said here do apply around the world and relate, I think, to all short-term rental hosts and the associations in their countries. So I think it's worth a listen, even if the exact programs and the exact dollars spent aren't exactly relatable to you. I think that there's a lesson to be learned for everyone. So please tune in and enjoy. And as always, if you do enjoy today's episode, please don't forget to like, share, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Let's get started.

Okay, everyone, thank you so much for joining in and listening to today's episode of the Hospitable Hosts podcast.

So most hosts know regulations impact their business, far fewer know who's actually doing the work to protect their right to operate. Today, we're pulling back the curtain on the organizations, leaders, and funding models that are shaping the future of short-term rentals. So we're going to start off with a couple of introductions, get a little hello from everyone before we fire into some questions. So first off, I want to welcome Julie Marks, Executive Director of Right to Rent Collaborative. Welcome, Julie.

Julie Marks (1:17)

Thanks, Miles. Happy to be here.

Miles (1:19)

Awesome. Maybe you can tell us where you're based as well, just to give a bit of context to our listeners.

Julie Marks (1:25)

Sure. So I am based in Vermont, in the United States.

I also, in addition to running the Right to Rent Collaborative, I also founded and continue to lead the Vermont Short-Term Rental Alliance. So I have been deep into advocacy and association, building for the past five to six years now, and I've been a host myself for coming on nine to ten years now.

Miles (1:56)

Awesome. Well, great to have you all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay.

Dennis, so Dennis Hanks, Executive Director of the Florida Alliance for Vacation Rentals. Welcome, Dennis.

Dennis Hanks (2:07)

Thank you for having me on today. It's a pleasure to be here.

FAVR, as we like to call ourselves, Florida Alliance for Vacation Rentals. We've been around for almost 32 years now. We're probably one of the oldest associations in the country.

26% of the entire vacational market in the US is in Florida. So we have a big chunk of that. And I've been with the Association now for about 13 years. And we're very strong in advocacy. We have eight chapters throughout the state. And yeah, we're super busy down here. And if it's happening anywhere in regulatory heaven, it's here. It's always in Florida every day of the week. It's like playing whack-a-mole. So busy, busy market for advocacy.

Miles (2:53)

Fair enough. Awesome. Great to hear it. Great to hear all the brilliant work you're doing.

Okay. Next up, we have Julia Costa. So Julia is Executive Director of the Colorado Short-Term Rental Association. Welcome, Julia.

Julia Costa (3:06)

Yes. Thank you so much, Miles. Thanks for having me today.

Miles (3:09)

Oh, no worries. Julia, maybe you can tell us a bit more about the state of Colorado and things that are happening there too.

Julia Costa (3:16)

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Miles. We have about 24,000 short-term rentals in the state of Colorado, so a little bit smaller slice of the pie than what Dennis has in Florida. But we are a small but mighty community of homeowners and property managers that are fighting for fair and equitable regulations here with Colorado Short-Term Rental Association.

Miles (3:37)

Cool. Awesome. Thank you. Okay. So we're going to go into finding out a bit more about your organizations and what you do, and then we're going to kind of talk about generally, some of the programs that you're working on collaboratively and kind of what's next for advocacy as a whole.

So Julie, starting off with you and the Right to Rent Collaborative, can you tell us a bit more about what the Right to Rent Collaborative is and what's the organization's mission?

Julie Marks (4:03)

Sure. So let me back up a little bit here. We've already heard that associations for this, you know, vacation rental industry in various states have existed for different lengths of time. Some are very new, some are very mature as is FAVR, but it's inconsistent. And part of that inconsistency stems from the fact that our industry doesn't have any centralized infrastructure that created a consistent system or network of associations to represent the industry in every jurisdiction and in every market. And so it's happening kind of ad hoc and as needed, and off the backs and dollars of individuals who are personally affected. And obviously that's not a really sustainable model for a coordinated and effective advocacy with an industry that's as large as ours is and growing as quickly as ours is. So the Right to Rent Collaborative was established two years ago in late 2024 to address this very issue and the lack of centralized funding and an investment that our industry had for advocacy around the country. And so what the Right to Rent Collaborative really ultimately is setting out to do is to ensure that we have 50 professionally staffed, well resourced vacation rental associations in every state that can be connected and coordinated and working together to share resources, to improve efficiencies, to help each other win battles, fight fights. We know that, you know, while the cultures and the politics can be different from state to state, the conversations that are being had, the pressures that the industry are feeling are the same and everywhere. And so there's a lot of ways that building this network is going to benefit everybody down to the individual operator. And so that's kind of the overall mission of the of the organization. But the mechanism by which we're really focused on now of making this happen is through funding. So we've created a centralized funding pool to basically collect money from the industry and then redistribute it to associations that are just establishing who are in need of funding to grow and maybe hire their first staff, hire an executive director, hire a lobbyist, and then continue to build and grow their professional capacity for long-term sustainability as an association.