Standing on stage at the Vacation Rental World Summit in Lake Como, Italy, in October 2019, Vanessa de Souza Lage, then chief marketing officer at Rentals United, wore a black tie loosely fastened around her neck and addressed the audience.
“Usually a tie is a status symbol, right?” Vanessa began. “But you can also see it as a noose around your neck. I’m wearing it as a protest that there are not enough women on stage at vacation rental events.”
While she sounded bold and confident, Vanessa recounted feeling nervous as she confronted the entire vacation rental industry on this issue.
“Those three minutes on stage were the most nerve-wracking of my entire career,” she said. “It was my first go at being an activist, and I was worried about the audience’s reception. Would they perceive me as a radical feminist? Could this label negatively impact my company?”
In fact, her protest resonated with the audience and drew immediate applause before she had even finished expressing her thoughts. The next day, the three other women presenting at the summit – Henrietta Kiss, Kati Ruotolo, and Tammi Sims – also wore ties in unity with Vanessa.
“A movement was born, and the hashtag #tieonstage was created immediately afterward to help us spread the message,” Vanessa said.
Gender equity in the vacation rental industry
Vanessa’s stand at the Vacation Rental World Summit was a visually powerful moment in the industry’s dialogue on gender equality. It coincided with other developments in the industry that helped turn the focus to women’s voices.
Earlier in 2019, Amy Hinote, recognizing the absence of women’s voices on conference panels, organized the inaugural Vacation Rental Women’s Summit in the US.
“The majority of the vacation rental industry is made up of women – almost 60% of people who work in our industry are women,” Amy said in a 2020 interview with Heather Bayer at the Vacation Rental Formula Business School. “So, if we go to conferences where 70% or so of speakers are men, we’re not getting the full picture.”
The State of the STR Community Survey in 2022 also found that nearly 58% of vacation rental professionals are women.
Gender equality is important to the industry because studies show that teams inclusive of different genders, races, and cultural and economic backgrounds are more successful. According to a study by Northwestern University, inclusive teams are 87% more likely to make better decisions than those more homogenous. A team of different genders, races, and backgrounds brings up more questions, more critical thinking, and more careful information processing.
The power of women’s conferences
Organizing a conference with only women speakers was empowering to women, said Michelle Marquis, who conducts sales for the Vacation Rental Women’s Summit.
“We have quite a few first-timer speakers,” Michelle said. “People would submit things and go, I’ve never done this before; this is scary. I kept close to a couple of them, and they just did fantastic, which is so exciting. Every year, more women are getting involved, and more women are being vulnerable and kind of going, ‘Okay, I’m gonna do this,’ and then they’re different the next year. You see their transformation once they … get out of their shell a little bit.”
Michelle has regularly helped Amy organize the conference and participated in panels. At the last conference, Amy asked her to give a deeply vulnerable keynote speech outside Michelle’s comfort zone. The topic of the speech was changing the adjectives used to describe women who exhibit leadership qualities.
“I never would have given that speech if I had not grown through the exposure I had to other women at the women’s conference,” she said.
“I got on the stage and said, ‘Today, I’m letting you know what my imposter syndrome has me telling myself,’” Michelle recounted. “…And then I said, ‘I’m bossy. I’m aggressive. I’m abrasive. I’m stubborn … and I’m a bitch.’ Then I asked the audience, ‘How many of you have been called this or felt like you called yourself this?’”
“My whole session was about changing ‘bossy’ to ‘great leader,’” she said. “You’re not bossy; you’re a great leader. You’re not difficult; you hold people accountable.”
For similar reasons, Stacey St. John, a real estate agent, launched the first STR Virtual Summit for Women in 2022 – to help women build their confidence and find their voices. She held the virtual summit again in 2023 and 2024 with 100% female speakers.
Stacey also hosts only female vacation rental professionals on her podcast, The STR Sisterhood Podcast, which she launched in November 2022.
“Women seeing other women in speaking roles and leadership positions serves as inspiration to them,” Stacey said. “I’m passionate about helping women see that they have a voice. I hear a lot of negative self-talk like, ‘Nobody would find my story interesting.’ And I’m like, ‘Girlfriend, that is not accurate. You absolutely have a story to tell. Everyone learns by hearing other people’s experiences, right?”
Women stepping into the limelight
While there are no industry-wide numbers on the ratio of male-to-female speakers at events, there is anecdotal evidence that the number of women speaking at these events is on the rise.
Rent Responsibly looked at male-to-female speaker ratios at 17 major vacation rental conferences in 2023. Based on publicly available speaker rosters, the percentage of female speakers at each came out to:
- Vacation Rental Women’s Summit 100%
- STR Virtual Summit for Women 100%
- Vrbo, part of Expedia Group’s EXPLORE Fest 52.7%
- Rent Responsibly Summit Spring 50%
- Book Direct Show 50%
- VRMA Spring Forum 46.8%
- Phocuswright Conference 44.5%
- Rent Responsibly Summit Winter 44%
- VRMA International 40.7%
- SCALE France 39.7%
- SCALE Show 39%
- Short Stay Summit 35.1%
- Skift STR Summit 33.3%
- VRMA Executive Summit 30.4%
- STR Wealth Conference 28.6%
- Vacation Rental World Summit 28.1%
- DARM 25.8%
“I’ve seen an increase in female representation at industry events over the last couple of years,” said Becca Glenn, director of vacation rental partner success at Expedia Group. “It was not that long ago that it seemed male-dominated. And now there are consistently strong voices like Merilee Karr, Amy Hinote, Sarah Bradford, just to name a few.”
Becca attributes the progress in female representation in the industry to the visibility of these strong female role models, the influence of younger generations involved in the industry, and research that proves that diverse leadership teams are more effective.
“The visibility of the strong female voices is itself a catalyst for other strong female voices to gain the competence to speak up, which is all the more reason why we need more of it,” she said. “I’ve always liked the expression, if you can see it, you can become it, I think there’s a lot of truth to that.”
“We’ve got some amazing female role models in this industry. But we need more, and we need more forums to give them a broader reach, inspire more people, and create future generations of strong female voices.”
One memorable moment for Vanessa was during the opening of the Short Stay Summit in London where the organizer shared statistics on the number of male and female speakers.
“The stats weren’t at 50-50, but they were closer,” she said. “What if all [vacation rental event] organizers shared their numbers?”
More women organizing vacation rental events
Not only have existing conference organizers included more women at previously male-dominated events, but more women have organized summits and conferences where female speakers and attendees tend to outnumber men.
Natalie Palmer, host of the No Vacancy Podcast, and Tatianna Taylor-Tait, a vacation rental interior designer and host, in February 2023 launched the Level Up Your Listing Summit, a vacation rental conference focused on design and empowering women to speak up in the industry. More than 200 women and eight men attended the first event in 2023. Most session speakers were women, which is expected to repeat in 2024, according to the current speaker lineup.
In September 2023, Annette Grant and Sarah Karakaian of Thanks for Visiting held the TFV Con in Columbus, Ohio, featuring mostly female speakers, including first-timers.
“As a first-time speaker, I can’t imagine a better industry to speak to and be a part of,” said Abbi Booth, director of alliance operations at Rent Responsibly. “The women in this industry are inspiring and supportive of one another. It really meant a lot to me when I was asked to speak at TFV Con, but initially, I was definitely a bit nervous. It’s no secret that I am more reserved and tend to gravitate to behind-the-scenes work, but knowing that [my boss, a woman] had confidence in me gave me the confidence I needed.”
Powerful moments of solidarity and empowerment like Vanessa’s protest at the Vacation Rental World Summit and the rise of women-led conferences mark the strides the vacation rental industry has made in gender equality in a short time.
While progress still needs to be made, these efforts have increased women’s visibility and provided platforms for their voices to be heard, celebrated, and amplified.
Seeing the momentum behind this issue, “makes me very happy and hopeful for the future,” Vanessa said.
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