{"podcast":{"title":"Behind the Stays","slug":"behind-the-stays-3506810","podcast_index_feed_id":3506810,"rss_url":"https://feed.podbean.com/behindthestays/feed.xml","website_url":"https://www.behindthestays.com/","image_url":"https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/image-logo/10635360/BTS-Artwork-1400x1400.jpg","author":"Zach Busekrus","episode_count":383,"summary":"Welcome to Behind the Stays — a podcast that shares the stories behind your favorite boutique hotels, short-term rentals, and hospitality brands and the hosts, operators, and entrepreneurs who’ve brought them to life. Every Tuesday and Friday you’ll meet the military veterans, retired flight attendants, tech entrepreneurs, school teachers, single moms, hoteliers, and real estate investors who are all, in their unique ways, shaping the future of travel and hospitality. Discover how these visionaries — from all over the world — have built stunning landscape hotels in the mountains, designed bohemian bungalows on the beach, erected eclectic off-grid and nature-immersed escapes, and so much more. Behind the Stays is brought to you by Journey — a first-of-its-kind loyalty program that brings together an alliance of the world’s top independently owned and operated stays and allows travelers to earn points and perks on boutique hotels, vacation rentals, treehouses, ski chalets, glamping experiences and so much more. And I’m your host, Zach Busekrus, Head of the Journey Alliance. Alright friends, enjoy the show!","last_synced_at":"2026-09-12T02:22:44.365150+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/behind-the-stays-3506810"},"episode":{"title":"The Real Reason You Can't Build a Vacation Rental Brand (It's Not What You Think) — And How to Fix It","slug":"the-real-reason-you-can-t-build-a-vacation-rental-brand-it-s-not-what-you-think-and-how-to-fix-it","published_at":"2026-08-18T10:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/behind-the-stays-3506810/the-real-reason-you-can-t-build-a-vacation-rental-brand-it-s-not-what-you-think-and-how-to-fix-it","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/behind-the-stays-3506810","url":"https://behindthestays.podbean.com/e/the-real-reason-you-cant-build-a-vacation-rental-brand-its-not-what-you-think-%e2%80%94-and-how-to-fix-it/","audio_url":"https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/9g386kynpkpbr2gm/BTS_3478imwi.mp3","summary":"Explore Inhaven: https://inhaven.com/ Connect with Ashley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-ching-inhaven-b56a843/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ Check out Lodgify and get an exclusive discount: https://www.lodgify.com/behind-the-stays/ — Meet Ashley Ching — founder of Inhaven, former head of global merchandising operations at Tiffany & Co., and the person behind what might be the most important piece of research the vacation rental industry has produced in years. Here's the question Ashley keeps asking: every other hospitality industry — hotels, airlines, restaurants, car rentals — has a language of trust. Quality tiers that tell the consumer what they're buying before they arrive. Vacation rentals don't. And that single missing layer is behind almost every structural problem the industry can't seem to solve — from review manipulation to failed scaling attempts to the reason you still can't build a transferable property management brand. Ashley walks us through the Reasonable Hospitality framework her team developed alongside property managers and Steve Joyce, the former CEO of Choice Hotels. We dig into why service standards matter more than furnishings in determining where you fall on the quality spectrum, this care coverage ratio concept that quantifies what \"boots on the ground\" actually means, and why every attempt to put standards at the individual property level has failed. She makes a compelling case that most operators calling themselves luxury probably aren't — and that's not an insult, because only 3% of US hotel supply is actually luxury, and there's excellence at every tier. We talk about the luxury fallacy, why a Hampton Inn with an 8.2 rating doesn't mean it's better than a Ritz-Carlton with a 7.8, and what this in…","meta_description":"Explore Inhaven: https://inhaven.com/ Connect with Ashley: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-ching-inhaven-b56a843/ Connect with Zach: https://www.linked…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3212,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/behind-the-stays-3506810/episodes/the-real-reason-you-can-t-build-a-vacation-rental-brand-it-s-not-what-you-think-and-how-to-fix-it/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/behind-the-stays-3506810/the-real-reason-you-can-t-build-a-vacation-rental-brand-it-s-not-what-you-think-and-how-to-fix-it.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}