A lot of people stumble into the vacation rental industry by accident, and Alex Husner's entry was no exception — but what happened next was anything but typical. Over nearly two decades, she's built marketing engines, launched one of the industry's longest-running podcasts, and now leads marketing at Boom, a PMS built by property managers who got tired of the limitations in existing systems.
In this conversation, Alex shares what she's learned about building brands in a crowded market, why the "direct vs. OTA" debate misses the point, and how AI is finally making it possible to deliver the kind of guest experience that converts one-time visitors into repeat customers.
If you manage properties — or sell to people who do — this is worth your time.
Alex moved to Myrtle Beach in 2007 to work at an advertising agency. The timing was brutal, with the recession making it almost impossible to sell anything. But she found one client who bought everything she had to offer: Condo World, a 300-property vacation rental company in North Myrtle Beach.
"We built a great relationship," Alex recalls. "And at some point they came back to me and said, we actually need somebody to come on full time. Would you be interested?"
She said yes. What she didn't realize was how much she didn't know.
"I was probably about two months into the job when I realized that we didn't own all the properties. I did not know that," she admits. "I remember my mentor and the CEO Roy said, 'we can't just do this. We have to ask the homeowners first.' And I said, 'What do you mean we can't do it? Why not?' He said, 'they own the properties.' It was like a flashlight went off in my mind."
That realization — that vacation rental management involves balancing the needs of guests, owners, and the business itself — became the foundation of everything that followed.
At Condo World, Alex helped build something unusual: a vacation rental company that generated the vast majority of its bookings direct, not through OTAs. But the strategy wasn't what most people assume.
The company faced a specific problem: they were getting calls from people who wanted to stay in Myrtle Beach, but Condo World managed properties in North Myrtle Beach. To serve these leads, they built partnerships.
"We partnered with one of the biggest providers in Myrtle Beach that had about 5,000 properties across the destination," Alex explains. "We used our brand, Condo World, and our marketing and we made it into like a co-op. We were kind of like a hybrid OTA."
The model worked because it aligned incentives: Condo World got to monetize demand they couldn't otherwise serve, and partners got access to a marketing machine they didn't have to build themselves. And guests got a consistent brand experience across the destination.
The key insight: Direct bookings weren't the goal. Building a brand that controlled demand was the goal. Direct bookings were just the outcome.
"I wouldn't advise any company these days to try to be 95% direct," Alex says now. "I think if that's the case, you're likely missing a lot of business and you're spending too much on advertising. But with our goal to take Condo World and turn it into an OTA through that partnership program across many more destinations, that made sense for us at the time."
After 13 years at Condo World, Alex moved to Casago as CMO, then started her own fractional CMO business before joining Boom full-time. That journey gave her a perspective most people in the industry don't have: she's seen the business from the property manager's side, the franchise side, and now the technology side.
One thing she's noticed: the "direct booking" conversation has become almost religious. People treat it as an inherent good, without doing the math.
"A direct booking is not free," she points out. "There's resources for sure that you're putting into the technology and the people who run the technology that are going to generate those direct bookings. And then if you start doing paid media, it really does add up."
She recently spoke with an operator who's taking the opposite approach: he sold his previous business and is now starting a new one where you can't book direct at all. Everything goes through OTAs.
"He's trying this theory that the OTAs' algorithms will prefer his properties because they can't be booked anywhere else," Alex says. "It's interesting. I'm interested to see how it goes. And he's probably right on that. But the problem comes when the OTAs make big changes that are going to affect your bottom line or how you operate and you have no say."
The right answer, she believes, is somewhere in the middle. The best-performing companies she sees are around 65-70% direct in major destinations — enough to control their brand and customer relationships, but not so much that they're missing new customer acquisition or overspending on marketing.
When one of Boom's founders first approached Alex about joining the company, she wasn't interested.
"I had no intention of wanting to work for a PMS because everybody hates their PMS," she says. "The concept of working not with Boom, but just for a PMS was not exciting to me."
What changed her mind was seeing what Boom was building, and understanding where it came from. The founders had run a large property management company in South Florida and built Boom to solve their own problems. When they realized what they'd built was good enough to take to market, they separated the companies.
Alex's first move was to interview five Boom customers. One word kept coming up: love.
"I've never heard anybody say that they love their PMS," she says. "And that's when I was like, okay, this is worth sticking around with this company because they're onto something."
That insight became the foundation of Boom's marketing. Their first conference campaign featured t-shirts that said "No More PMS Drama" on the back, with a heart and the Boom logo.
But there's a deeper reason why Alex believes Boom, and PMS systems generally, are about to become much more important to marketing and guest experience:
"The thing with the foundation of AI and how AI works the best is when it has access to all the data," she explains. "There's other PMSs out there where they've got some bolt-on different tools that you can use for guest messaging and other parts of the business. But when the AI can't see everything, it's not going to have the full picture."
This matters because the real opportunity in vacation rental marketing isn't just capturing the booking, it's orchestrating the entire guest journey in a way that turns first-time visitors into repeat customers.
Right now, most property managers are using multiple systems: a PMS, an operations platform, a guest app, maybe a separate CRM. Each system sends its own messages. Nobody has a complete view of what the guest is experiencing.
"It's always an eye-opening experience when I've worked with rental companies to say, okay, let's audit your guest's journey. Let's look at all the different touch points," Alex says. "You'll have people look at it and they'll be like, 'oh my God, we're still sending out an email about cleaning protocol because of COVID.' And they didn't realize that was still running because they never see it."
When AI has access to everything — booking data, operations data, guest communications, owner preferences — it can deliver on the promise of personalization. It can know that a guest just got a message about early check-in from operations, so maybe now isn't the time to send a marketing email about booking their next trip.
When asked what marketing channels property managers are underutilizing, Alex's answer might surprise people: email and direct mail.
"Email marketing is not used as much as it should be in most companies that I talk to," she says. "I know this sounds dated, but direct mail still works too. And because when you think about it, you're not getting other mail, you're going to look at it."
The key is tracking. Use unique phone numbers or QR codes that go to dedicated landing pages with special offers. That way you can measure return on investment.
"There's a lot of companies I see that they're willing to make that investment. And as long as you have the tracking, which is all possible now, the return on that is quite good. And it puts you in a little bit of a different lane that if your competition is not doing it, it's a good strategy."
The Condo World team used to produce a 60-page brochure annually. Guests would leave it on their coffee table. When family came over, they'd look through it, then go online and book.
"You've got to be thinking not just all new age," Alex says. "I think you have to think about the principles of marketing in general. And it really does come back to that marketing flywheel of how you're integrating all the different parts of your SEO, your email marketing, your PPC, your social, your trust building initiatives."
Through her podcast, Alex and Annie, and her consulting work, Alex has talked to hundreds of property managers. One consistent theme: everyone wants to grow. But what growth means varies dramatically. It’s not always door count or selling a business after a certain number of years.
"Sometimes it's about how do you get better units and you keep the ones that are actually more profitable for you and you need to get rid of the ones that are not as profitable and maybe the owners are way more work for you and your team."
The multi-market ambition is particularly tricky. It sounds appealing, having properties in multiple destinations, geographic diversification, more impressive numbers. But execution is brutal.
"You can be really great in one location, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can do it somewhere else," Alex points out. "The companies that have been able to do that, they've got really strong leadership teams and they're building cultures within their organization that are based on values. And they're able to instill that to the company as it grows in these other areas."
They also need sophisticated technology that ensures consistency across markets. Without that, the brand promise falls apart.
One thing that makes vacation rentals different from most industries is the level of collaboration between competitors.
"Even in destinations where you’re competing with your competitor down the street, the companies that do the best are typically the ones that are also collaborative," Alex says. "They realize there are some things that are trade secrets, but for the most part, it's about elevating the destination where you work too."
In Myrtle Beach, rental companies and condo-hotels have worked together for years. That's how Condo World was able to approach a competitor with 5,000 properties and propose a partnership.
"It was a handshake deal that we were not going to solicit their owners," Alex recalls. "I know that doesn't exist everywhere. But sometimes the most seemingly unusual partnerships can end up being a game changer for you."
The vacation rental industry is at an inflection point. For years, the technology stack has been fragmented: different systems for bookings, operations, guest communication, owner management. That fragmentation made it impossible to deliver truly seamless experiences.
AI is changing that, but only for companies that have integrated systems. When everything lives in silos, AI can't help you. When everything connects, it becomes possible to deliver the kind of personalized, proactive service that actually converts one-time guests into loyal customers.
"There's so much more that can be done," Alex says. "And really the thing with the foundation of AI and how AI works the best is when it has access to all the data."
The property managers who figure this out first — who build the right technology foundation, who think about the complete guest journey, who balance direct and OTA bookings strategically — are the ones who'll still be thriving in five years.
The rest will wonder why their PMS drama never ended.
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