STR Global Unlocked with Simon Lehmann: Unfiltered knowledge for the short term rental industry

031: Beyond STR and Hotels: How Numa's Third Model Uses 100+ Automations to Rewrite Urban Hospitality | Christian Gaiser

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Short-term rentals and hotels are converging into a single operating model.

The real shift is not about category. It is about who can deliver better economics, better experience, and better scalability in urban markets.

In this episode, Simon Lehmann sits down with Christian Gaiser to break down how Numa built a hybrid model between short-term rentals and hotels, and why that model is gaining traction as the industry matures.

Christian Gaiser is the CEO and Co-Founder of Numa, one of Europe’s fastest-growing urban hospitality platforms. With a background in building digital platforms and scaling operations, he brings a product and technology mindset into a traditionally fragmented industry. At Numa, he has led the development of a tech-driven, asset-light model designed to operate across cities with high efficiency and consistency.

This conversation moves beyond the STR vs hotel debate and focuses on operating models, automation, distribution strategy, regulation, and how technology is reshaping both supply and demand in hospitality.

In this conversation, we discuss:

  • Why Numa was built around three structural gaps in hospitality, demand outpacing supply, fragmented assets, and a lack of technology across operations.
  • How the “third model” combines short-term rentals, hotels, and serviced apartments into a single system driven by guest use cases rather than categories.
  • Why capital efficiency and financial discipline became a competitive advantage after the 
    collapse of overfunded STR models.
  • How Numa captures both short and long stay demand while maintaining lower costs through density, standardized units, and lean operations.
  • Why building more than 100 internal tools became central to improving reviews, reducing costs, and scaling operations.
  • How labor shortages, including a projected 8 million workforce gap in Germany, are forcing operators to rethink staffing and automation.
  • Why AI will reshape both operations and demand, increasing travel activity and changing how supply is discovered and consumed.

Explore more:

Connect with Christian Gaiser [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiangaiser/] to learn more about Numa [https://numastays.com/] 

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Podcast supported by Pricelabs
PriceLabs brings automated pricing and market intelligence together in one platform trusted by property managers at scale. 👉 Get started with Pricelabs here: https://shorturl.at/wvKTa 

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SPEAKER_01

Automation will be the next gift to battle uh cost increases and distribution costs and everything else.

SPEAKER_00

We have built slightly more than a hundred applications to either improve, automate or measure physical processes. Ultimately it translates into better reviews, lower operating costs. You will have a shortfall of 8 million members of the working population in the next like 15-20 years. You need to radically invest in automation and efficiency because otherwise you will not be able to handle that operational stack.

SPEAKER_01

You are listening to STR Global Unlock, brought to you by AGL of Today, the show where I speak with the leaders shaping short-term rentals worldwide. I am Simon Lehman, and after two decades of buying, selling, advising, and investing, I've built a network that spans continents and categories. This podcast brings that network to you. Real conversations, global insight, no PR fluff. Let's get started. Over the past decade, hospitality has gone through quite a transformation. Hotels became more tech-driven, short-term rentals became more professional. And somewhere in the middle, a new type of company emerged. Acet light, technology first, highly standardized, yet operating real hospitality product in cities around the world. Numa is one of the most prominent examples of that shift. So the question becomes: is this the future of urban hospitality or just one phase in its evolution? Today I'm joined by Christian Geiser, CEO and co-founder of NUMA. NUMA has become one of European's fastest growing urban hospitality platforms, combining technology and asset-light real estate partnerships to scale across major cities around the world. Before joining NUMA, Christian spent years building and scaling digital platforms, including serving as CEO of Bon Isle, part of the Auxel Springer Group. Today he brings the platform mindset into hospitality, helping shape what the next generation of urban accommodation might look like. Christian, great to have you on the show.

SPEAKER_00

Simon, thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01

I was really looking forward to our conversation today. We do a quick rapid fire together. Sure. So I'll give you a short question and you give as a short answer as you possibly can. Are you ready for this?

SPEAKER_00

Happy to.

SPEAKER_01

AI in hospitality, opportunity or hype?

SPEAKER_00

Big necessity.

SPEAKER_01

Direct booking, strategic priority or industry myth?

SPEAKER_00

I think it's a very important component of an and a yes and not an either or.

SPEAKER_01

Biggest misconception about modern hospitality models?

SPEAKER_00

That there is a very dogmatic separation between the different product lines. I think that's often just an internal misconception of the industry.

SPEAKER_01

One leadership lesson from scaling a company quickly.

SPEAKER_00

As you get bigger, you cannot solve the problems anymore yourself. You have to hire people that are much smarter than you in every field and trust and rely on them.

SPEAKER_01

And one prediction: where will hospitality look most different five years from now?

SPEAKER_00

I would say, especially in this category of uh two and three-star hotels, we will see um quite substantial change because of succession topics and uh automation.

SPEAKER_01

It's been a topic for a while. We've started to address midterm living, furnished finder, we've addressed it with technology providers, and now we're going even a step further uh with your product. But before we go deeper, um I would love to learn more about how this is all came about and where did you start with this idea?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. I mean, I should say in the beginning, Simon, that I actually grew up in a hotel. So for the first 18 years of my life, I actually had a beautiful indirect hotel apprenticeship in the wonderful Black Forest in the south of Germany, not so far from where you're located in beautiful Switzerland. And in between, I built a tech company which was focused on driving foot store traffic for retailers. And when we started Numa, I launched a business together with my two co-founders, one who is a tech entrepreneur and one who is more from the real estate private equity world. And we saw three main problems in the industry. So, number one, that the demand was evolving much faster than the supply could. So think of the mix of Airbnb and hotel demand on the one hand. Secondly, we saw that there was a massive supply problem, lots of fragmented supply that needed CapEx, especially the smaller and mid-sized hotel properties. And then last but not least, uh, from our perspective, a substantial lack of technology that we have also seen in other physical industries and that led all together for us to create Numa. So a new model, a new brand on the supply side in between short-term rentals and hotels, very tech-led. So we built a substantial part of the technology ourselves, and three focused on a real estate component that was quite underserved in that sense. And um, over the past six years, we have seen quite a nice development ever since.

SPEAKER_01

So, was it uh trying to build an operating system right from the start, or was it more the aspect of hospitality that you wanted to tackle?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, look from our perspective, Simon, that's not an either or, it's a yes and. So we it was very clear for us that hey, in order to tackle that market, you need to be very strong on the digital and on the technology side. Um, in order to one, drive efficiencies, be able to operate properties of any shape and size, two, to be very flexible, especially because the existing stack of real estate is so diverse across all over Europe. And then last but not least, three, especially for our target group, millennials and Gen Z, they have been spoiled by Amazon, Spotify. They want instant ratification, they don't want to wait. And every second that they have to wait, it's like leads to dissatisfaction. So ultimately, from our perspective, it was clear we have to do it. Um, and that's the kind of mindset that we have been exposed to also in all the previous companies that we have been uh building or worked in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So you scale this company pretty fast. This episode is supported by Price Labs, a comprehensive revenue management suite for short-term rental operators. From dynamic pricing to market dashboards and listing optimization, Price Labs gives you the tools to make confident uh data-driven decisions across your portfolio. If you're managing growth in 2026, revenue intelligence is critical. You can find more details in the show notes. Can you tell us a bit more about the key inflection points that allowed the company to grow so quickly?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, 100%. I think from my perspective, it's basically let's say three main things. One, we were fairly lucky, I would say, from a timing perspective, right? We started the company right before COVID and we didn't have any legacy, right? So we could build the business right in the new post-COVID world. Um, and that actually helped us also to grab a lot of supply uh at fairly strong terms because during the COVID times, 99% of the industry was quite scared, rightfully. But in our case, as a new kid on the block, we could basically expand um quite in a quite pushy way during that period. So we were able to grow supply fairly fast. Number one. Number two, I think we learned that with our approach, right, Clyde Lean Operations, we were able to open cities in a fairly efficient way that also helped us open across Europe's geography in a fairly fast pace. And then third, um, and I think that's also differentiates us from other players in the space, we uh grew quite substantially also through buy and build. So we made some selective acquisitions uh that did fit very well to our overall geographic portfolio. And the combination of these three led to where we are today. Last but not least, I should obviously mention that you cannot do this without a very strong and uh execution-heavy team. So without our strong both leadership team but also operationally on the ground, we wouldn't have been able to lift this off. And I think it's something that we often hear from our partners that's one of our key strengths to be able to sign a deal, even larger portfolios, and get them live fairly quickly. Because we have made sure that we build a playbook and a tech angle that we can basically onboard a property in an almost plug-and-play kind of version.

SPEAKER_01

So let's go a little bit deeper into this uh Numa operating model. I mean, you could be the devil's advocate and say, well, the timing was actually the worst you could have chosen because a lot of your potential competition went bust. So attracting capital in that time when things become challenging for companies like stay Alfred and Lyric and Saunder survived because they raised capital at the right moment so they were able to serve their debt, which they've taken on the rent-to-rent model. So for our listeners, just elaborate first a little bit on that and say, hey, this is just lease arbitrage, this hasn't this has failed. I mean, Saunder is now so the last one from the big boys out of the North America that has uh now basically gone under as well. How does that compare?

SPEAKER_00

So maybe before we go into the model, I would just like to say that actually that was a good thing for us that the market saw potential competition diminishing. And yes, it was more difficult to raise funds, but they much rather want to operate in an environment where you're forced to be capital efficient and disciplined with the money that you raised, as opposed to a context where everyone gets tons of money left and right and there is an abundance of spending, because I think that just leads to unhealthy market dynamics. So that's point number one. On your point regarding is it just uh lease arbitrage and what kind of value does the model really drive? If you look at the comparison, right, if we zoom out a little bit, the traditional hotel industry has very well operated on that model in Europe for decades, right? So this is not a new model in itself. What we're just doing is we bring this into the world of short-term rentals and service departments as well. And you just have to follow the same financial discipline and underlying metrics as well. So be prudent when it comes to underwriting your risk. That's something that we're very religious uh about. And then second is uh just do your operations really well from uh both quality but also from a financial discipline standpoint. And I think this requires a lot of attention to detail and discipline. We proved that it works. So we have um over the last year shown consistent profitability in our um properties, and um, I think it's very easy, though, to when you're just short-term-oriented and chase pure revenue growth, that you make some mistakes uh in this context. So you always need to think five, ten, twenty years down the road. And at the same time, I would also like to add that the market has become much more balanced. Real estate partners and their financing banks really watch very closely what kind of business plans you submit. So I think there's like a natural, almost like a balancing force, thanks to that, that has enabled at least Europe to build up a much more stable kind of environment in this context. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So let's go a little bit deeper into the operating model. Uh, Christian, you already alluded to the fact that you're sort of sitting in between different worlds, the hotel, the you know, the corporate housing or service department space, and then obviously the urban STR space as well. So you're not a typical short uh short-term rental operator, but you're also not just a software company either. But before we talk about the tech, I would like to talk more about the actual product. And when we talk about the operating model, you know, I've I've stayed in other corporate housing suppliers, like a Vision Apartment, and where they say, look, this is a combination, or even other operators. I didn't see that as much as a combination from an STR to a hotel operator. Yes, there's a kitchenette in there, two cups, you can't turn yourself, there's no space to sit anywhere. I mean, then I just rather prefer to go into a hotel room than saying, yeah, I can stay there because the rooms are tiny. It's obviously optimized on revenue and everything else. How did you go about the operating model when you think about the actual product you're offering?

SPEAKER_00

So let's maybe take a step back and think about the guests in our target group. We believe that for them, so millennials and Gen Z, the boundaries between what is a hotel, what is a service department, it disappears more and more, and they also don't think really in those categories. Um we do because we are from the industry, but so that's number one, number two. What we see also based on the research that we're driving is that they think much more in terms of features and what kind of use cases they can um they can serve through a stay. So, for example, do I want to cook in the unit or do I want to be very centrally located? What's the sleeping experience, etc.? So based on that, um then depending on the location, we design then how the location should look like. To give you an example, probably the most typical unit that we have would be between, let's say, 19 and 25 square meters with a with a kitchenette, um, and all optimized in a way that you can still fulfill your basic needs that you want to do when you go on a longer trip. Our pitch is basically we do the room, you do the city. So we want you to be able to discover the neighborhood in the best shape because we also believe that there is a lot that the neighborhood can offer to you. And from our perspective, this is what um actually will lead to a substantial demand shift from like traditional hotels into this hybrid operating platform that we're building. So it's neither a short-term rental, but it's also neither hotel room. It's the third weight, basically.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So that's where you structurally differentiate yourself traditionally, like from a traditional hospitality operators, clearly, with the product, but then also then the technology to serve that as well. And before we go there and talking about tech, how does that compare in terms of an economic perspective? Where do ultimately advantages from from from the investment come from?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Uh good, great question, Simon. So from my perspective, to keep it very simple, is basically two things. One, you get an advantage on the top line because you serve more demand pools compared to either one of the two worlds. So you have flexibility in that context, and that's been proven both in in good times, but also in very bad times like COVID, um, where you have the flexibility to both serve long and short stays, as one example. And then on the operational side, you have to be the ability to drive uh longer length of stay use cases than a traditional hotel, and also like an implicit cost advantage versus a hotel because of leaner operations, but then at the same time, and just comparing to the traditional, let's say, more agency-led short-term rental world, right? We have typically density in larger buildings. So you naturally have an operational cost advantage versus like spreading out say smaller buildings or smaller units uh here and there. And I think that's the combination that we're going for. I'm not saying that this is superior to the other models, uh, please for the record, right? They all have their right of existence and they all work very profitably and very well. It's just a new evolution that's driven by the consumer in the end.

SPEAKER_01

So let's talk about this additional pillar of yours, the technology and the automation. I mean, that's the hot topic in our industry, regardless, especially in SDR, where people think that the the especially automation will be the next gift to battle uh cost increases and distribution costs and everything else. And technology is clearly central to NUMA's overall approach. And at the same time, automation um has become a major theme across hospitality for all the reasons we just talked about, from check-in process to guest communication, the operational workflows now is being aggregated and accelerated by AI at the same time. Where do you see with your model, and I think you developed that right from the beginning, as you already said, creates the biggest efficiencies, and where are they coming from in terms of your tech?

SPEAKER_00

If you ask me to rank them, I think uh definitely in terms of uh the biggest efficiency lever that we can drive through automation and technology is the advantage that you have on the operational side, right? So uh just to give you an idea, we've built slightly more than 100 applications to either improve, automate, or measure physical processes, and that ultimately translates into better reviews, lower operating costs, and that's in our model, which is quite important because ultimately every you know guests where we can drive an additional improvement, or every, let's say, euro that we can optimize without harming the guest experience is worth a lot. Um, and the biggest challenge that's at least what we often hear also from our peers in the hospitality industry is that the lack of staff and the lack of uh personnel in the industry. So it's not just naturally a topic of saving cost, but it's also like being more efficient with the limited amount of talent that you have. And that problem will just grow more and more, right? I mean, I read like over the weekend I read the statistics that uh just in Germany we will have a shortfall of 8 million um members of the working population in the next like 15, 20 years, if I remember correctly. So you need to radically invest in automation and efficiency because otherwise you will not be able to handle that operational stack. Yeah, that's our conviction.

SPEAKER_01

Despite AI, that's an interesting it's an interesting number, especially the size of Germany, that's nearly 10% of your entire population.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's uh quite substantial. And and it was a good segue because it's because on the other side we argue in hospitality, hey, where does the human capital is is gonna be in the future, you know? Does that still matter? And where is that balance between technology for all the right reasons you've mentioned, but the human touch is still needs to be there? How does Numa look at that?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, look, hospitality in the end is probably one of the most emotional industries, and that's the beauty, and at the same time the challenge uh for all of us. We do believe that call it AI or automation or chatbots can serve at least an equally strong experience than a human. If not now, it will do so in the future. Uh, and we see that already from the measurements that we have. Now it's not about an either or, it's how do you augment it in the best possible way. So, which are the cases where you need a human involvement and where it really makes a difference uh for the guests? So that's in special cases. I would say that for me, still the biggest area where the human component still plays a big role is when it comes to F and B, which for us plays more of an indirect role because we often do this with partners. Sometimes also in cases ourselves, like in the example of Native, so that's our premium brand that we have acquired last year, which has a strong presence in the UK. But there I do think it's it makes uh a massive difference because there it's also about uh human connection. But ultimately, I think there is no choice, right? You have to do and push this path because otherwise someone else will do it.

SPEAKER_01

So if somebody's in real emergency, they will still manage to get somebody on a call.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. I mean we have a we have a guest experience team uh that is very strong and is available 24-7. Um just want to make sure ultimately that our guests get the feedback that they want as fast as possible. And if it's something that um an AI or a machine can do instantly, then it should be done in that way. If not, then uh obviously one of our strong team members is a better choice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Well, trust me, when you're 2:30 in the morning in a UK apartment and uh a framed glass picture falls on your head, some, which happened to us in London, you want to be able to speak to somebody pretty quickly because it's a very distress. And that's where we need to be careful in how we're balancing that human aspect and that technology at the same time, right?

SPEAKER_00

I think ultimately actually the much bigger effect of AI will be indirect on our industry because let's think 10 20 years ahead, people will have more time, many people will probably work less. The distance between location. Locations will also matter less because you can travel from point A to B much faster. So there will be more travel activity. How do we deal with that as an industry? Also in balance with many of the cities that, anyway, feel a little bit overcrowded. So we have to be really smart about that. But that to me is very clear that this will also happen. And that's a big indirect effect that maybe today we often underestimate. But the question is, will it come in seven years, in ten, or in fifteen?

SPEAKER_01

I hope this will come through. And this is a good segue to talk about distribution strategy as well for Numa. From where I sit, you're a strong brand. I mean, we've known each other or I've followed Numa right for a long time now. Distribution continues to be one of the most strategic topics in hospitality. Not just for reach and demand, but also for margin compression for many others. OTAs, they dominate the demand acquisition at large in hospitality. And at the same time, operators increasingly want to strengthen direct relationship with their guests. And that's that's a huge challenge. Um, how does Numa think about distribution today? And what do you think is going to change?

SPEAKER_00

Ultimately, from our perspective, we we always say internally we want to be omnipresent. So whenever or wherever a potential guest thinks about making a booking, we want to be there. So there's two strong pillars. Number one is uh the OTAs. I personally have never understood this perspective in the in the industry, especially in the traditional hotel world, that is fairly negative compared to them. Um, because from my perspective and from Numa's perspective, that's been a great um platform enabler. Um and our expansion has been way more capital efficient because of the existence of that model. Um I would actually like because I've been previously more exposed to the e-commerce and the mobile world, right? And there you often had to make sure that the customer comes back four or five times before you made money on them because the initial acquisition cost was so high. So this is a lot more efficient for us. And sometimes I would actually be willing to pay a bit more if I had better targeting capabilities, which they are quite limited, let's be honest, compared to the Googles of the World, just to name an example. So um that's that now. Transitioning to the second point of your question. Uh absolutely, uh, it's a core priority for us to also grow our brand, which the direct chair is the number one criteria for it. I think we've made great progress uh in this context. Just also because uh our guests love our product, and I think that's the most important thing, right? To serve them a great, great experience. But to me, this is never an either or. It's always a combination um between the two, especially because we have such a strong leisure component. So we we want to be attractive for travelers coming from the US, from Asia, and several of them are not necessarily repeat travelers. They, you know, maybe come once every five, six, seven years. So they obviously stay in their ecosystems that they're used to. Like if you think of China, for example, with um WeChat and Alipay just as an example. So for us, we want to have the right combination.

SPEAKER_01

So basically, your strategy is a combined strategy for lead gen and then trying to secure the customers uh going forward. And interesting point you're raising. And I think the hotels, the hotel industry still looks at that as, in a way, an enemy. And I think the SDR world has a totally different approach to that in what role OTAs play and how you can partner with them to create your it's a lead gen, it's your top of funnel, and you should use it to bring your customers back. And interesting enough, I'm going to be a keynote speaker at the Swiss Hotel Summit. First time ever they have somebody from the SDR industry coming to talk to them. And when I made this the recommendation that somebody from booking.com could be on a panel with me, they happily declined. So it's interesting that this is still perceived in a way. There's class actions from hotel companies against OTAs because of their sheer market power. But at the end of the day, I think it helps to look at it a little bit different. So when we sort of segment the distribution versus direct third party, let's talk about AI and your thoughts on that. That is the big topic in STR as well. How I'm going to be found in the future if I can't be found on on uh on the OTAs or or on Google or the classical search funnels that we have. How does Numa think about AI in in terms of distribution?

SPEAKER_00

On the demand side, do we think it's a huge opportunity to basically reshape the whole environment? Uh, it reminds me very much of um, you know, in my previous company when the iPhone was launched in the App Store, there was a huge opportunity, and it typically benefits the first movers because as a pioneer you can be quick, and um you have a few years of uh runway before the big juggernauts then understand how the ecosystem works. So we want to be in that uh very early mover group. I also think that it kind of gives the consumer more power compared to before, because you can more easily narrow down what you're looking for, so depending on your use case, which when you look at the the search world today, which is largely driven by on the one hand, obviously conversion rates, but also what drives the most margin. Thinking through okay, how do I match and personalize the experience and the search results more for what the individual traveler wants, that's I think very powerful. I don't have a really good answer yet to you how that's being done because we don't know yet ourselves, but um we do want to invest in it, and we also think that it basically will enable more larger N in the point-to-point relationships than what you had before. And ultimately it should be um, you know, for both the the guest, the consumer, um, and the individual supplier a better outcome.

SPEAKER_01

While we still talk about distribution, do you guys have a loyalty program?

SPEAKER_00

We have a membership program that gives you benefits. We don't have like uh like points-based loyalty uh program yet, but we uh very much believe in uh you know rewarding that you have been uh it's a loyal member with us.

SPEAKER_01

So loyal so it's not just discounting, there's other perks that you basically offer.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, among uh many things you get like uh early check-in, late checkout benefits, you get um a nice surprise in terms of uh, you know, local drinks and snacks, among other things. And if that's something that we have seen leads to nice uh reviews and happiness among our guests. Um and um yeah, that's an area that we continuously want to push.

SPEAKER_01

So that's I mean, you're definitely at the forefront also in terms of your size and everything else. I mean, that's something that the STR industry has never hacked, but obviously it's a little bit different from a product standpoint, and also the generation ultimately that you serve, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, 100%. And I I mean I kind of understand it because correct me if I'm wrong, right? I think in most cases, many STR players focusing more on promoting the individual property or the individual unit as opposed to the brand that they're building. So in our case, we have deliberately chosen to put Numa first and then the property, not the individual unit, and I think that's um that's probably the biggest difference in that context. But both approaches work very well, right? I think there's a pro and con to both sides.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and the second aspect is obviously the geographical spread. You know, most of the operators are hyper-local, and you know, you don't go to the same place every time every every summer or every winter. Ski used to be like that, but that's not anymore. So very few operators operate in multi-destinations where they could leverage a loyalty program better than just being more in one location as well.

SPEAKER_00

100%. I always think of what would an alien think of our world when they descend onto Europe. They would probably think, I mean, how how crazy is this? Who has who came up with this idea? And um, that also explains why ultimately uh, especially in Europe, the market is so complex. Uh, when you think of the short-term rental or even the hotel industry, right, in terms of fragmentation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. That makes it interesting on the other side, but very complex uh to start with, for sure. So let's talk about the big elephant in the room, um, which is definitely something that you're facing as well, or are you you're up against uh is regulation and in urban hospitality. So obviously, when we talked about prediction for 26, so one of the biggest impacts that the STR industry will see is definitely what's happening with regulation. How is this going forward, especially in the urban markets, less so in the leisure market, if they can separate that from a thinking standpoint? Lobbyists and policymakers sometimes throw the entire industry into one bucket. But urban accommodation remains under regulatory scrutiny. I mean, especially cities like Paris and London and Barcelona, it's it's about uh over entirely. Cities are trying to balance tourism growth. You talked about that over tourism, then you have the affordable housing pressure, which I know is is probably in many cases one of the weakest arguments, funny enough, but it's being politicized because it gets more votes to talk about affordable, affordable housing, but that's not going to happen. And then you have local community concerns. So, how does Numa operate across multiple regulatory environments and how do you navigate that complexity?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, look, Simon, first of all, I understand that it's a big important topic for many cities. It's something that we have seen very early. So we typically have hospitality type licenses, so we do not have or pursue residential licenses for short stay use cases per that nature. Even in cities where there is no regulation yet, we do expect that it will come. I mean, it's quite an automatic from my perspective. Um, I do think it's just a natural development of an industry that's growing up. You've seen it in other cases as well. Think of GDPR in the internet industries, heavy regulation probably benefited the American corporations more than the local European ones. But that's another story. In real estate, that's obviously different. But I do think we will see a trend towards more professionalization on the supply side because of that, and uh then still uh a certain component of the market segment being pushed out of the market due to long-term regulatory issues. We play by the rules, we if we follow what uh politicians decide, uh, and um ultimately focus a lot on how we can help a city from that perspective to satisfy the demand that will grow and grow more, right? We all agree on that. Yet how do you serve it in a way that you don't remove scarce residential units? And the only answer to that is conversion of either hospitality assets, old hotels, or office space. And with the office space, it's often rather a question of commercial viability. In some cases it works well, in a lot of cases it's too expensive. That's that's something how we play by it, and we will see more and more of these office conversions um in the future.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, very strong, strong position for you, without a doubt. Get rid of the cowboys, we get the we get the supply and manage it professionally is definitely one. Then the massive, the huge amount of sort of two and three-star hotels in Europe that require a lot of renovations. There's no capital. There's they're privately owned. We see that in Switzerland. The the hotel infrastructure is is is becoming old. There has been very little investment by the families over time, lack of capital and everything else. And now they require higher investment. Then obviously, conversions is an opportunity to say, okay, we turned that into a different type of supply as well. So I could not agree with you more, and and that definitely brings you uh into a very strong position. In that aspect, what one thing I want to talk to you about as well. We very recently we had Jarja Jackson from Iconic Capital on the podcast, which is one of the largest flexible, flexible living owners in the United States with their with their brand called Central. What is your view on that in Europe, especially now considering, I mean, what's happening in Barcelona is pretty significant if they if they if they pull through with that? So that will that will bring automatic new models and new ways of flexible living, long mid-term rental is becoming all of a sudden a topic which has never been before for professionals, whatever. But these are old trends that we're seeing coming out of the United States. But looking at the European lens, what do you think about that move? And is that gonna influence Numa's business model as well?

SPEAKER_00

I know the model uh quite well. I think it's a great model. Number one, number two, uh, I do think that the uh traditional residential real estate model needs innovation as well. It's one of the less friendly service-driven environments that I have seen, to be fair. So I think it's easy to innovate. The question, how quickly can you do it given the tight margins? And then in a lot of cities in Europe, practically the real estate owners often don't have a problem to fill their inventory just because the supply is so scarce. So the question is what can you do to make sure that the real estate owners also understand what the value add is for them? I'm 100% sure that this will work. So definitely whoever wants to work on this, I think it's a great opportunity. You need a lot of patience. Three, looking at it from our perspective, NUMA, hospitality and short stay is probably the most complex and most headache-driven nature of operations that you can do. Running something like this would be easy for us. The question that, and we have had this discussion a few times because we have also been approached by some of our real estate partners, shouldn't we do something like this together? And how does NUMA think about it? What I have learned sometimes painfully over the past almost 20 years now in operating companies, you need to be laser focused in what you do and say no to you know 500 times more things than the ones that you really want to do. So, short term, I don't think we will do anything in this regard. Is this something that we could look into long term? It's a possibility, but if you also look at some of the larger brands with you know premium branding, also you see it um, you know, like car brands rushing into this, like you know, Mercedes apartments and that kind of stuff. Um, so that's an opportunity down the road. But for now, we want to stay focused on the 10 times bigger problem, which is hospitality.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you never know what's happening to Mercedes if the Chinese take over the car manufacturing, then Mercedes needs to diversify its.

SPEAKER_00

But um, I think they will continue to do great things.

SPEAKER_01

So let's talk about international expansion. You know, that's an important topic for a lot of our uh listeners as well. That you've you've entered across many different markets. International expansion and hospitality always comes with operational challenges. You already mentioned that local regulation, labor dynamics, demand patterns are different. How do you evaluate new markets when you're expanding?

SPEAKER_00

This essentially follows um three main criteria for us is like how does the demand look like? Is there a healthy mix between leisure and business, ideally? That's number one. I think number two is how does the regulatory nature look like? So for us, it's actually rather a benefit if there is more regulation, because we feel that in some markets that are not featured with some regulation, there is often tends to be an oversupply, which is then unhealthy from uh from an operational perspective. And then three, it's size for us. So we want to be in markets that can be meaningful in terms of size and contribution, so meaning we don't want to be everywhere, we're quite selective. So let's say the top six, seven markets in every country, uh, and that already gets you to uh a hundred in Europe, and that's quite a lot from our perspective, so that's where we want to be focused on, and then long-term global perspective is quite relevant to us. However, we do believe that's one of the few markets where Europe leads the world, and it's actually the most difficult to break into Europe because everything is so complex and from its real estate nature.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's absolutely true. We've heard it many times, also from SaaS business out of the US or or even franchise setups who say, hey, we want to expand into Europe, they do a little bit of market study, and they're like, nah, we leave this alone. So, but that's an interesting point to get to the next topic. Before we continue, a quick note about price labs. Many of the revenue insights we discuss on this podcast are rooted in market intelligence and data analysis. That is exactly where price labs excels. Their dynamic pricing engine leverages hyperlocal data to optimize rates while their market dashboards provide clarity on supply, demand, uh, and performance trends. Combined with listing optimization tools, it becomes a comprehensive revenue management suite designed for scale. If revenue strategy is a priority for you this year, check the link in the episode description. Let's continue the show. One thing that is important for you building a brand is obviously your operational consistency across uh different geographies. I mean, you know, yes, we have different languages, but we also have different cultures at the same time as well. How do you manage that?

SPEAKER_00

I think uh I think it's a it's a challenge to uh to manage that. I mean, just think of also price points, right? So you have a city like Berlin, which has fairly low price points, and then if you think of Paris, London, it's a different multitude, obviously. Um, also culturally, like the perspective of what room size is big and what is small, right? So when you're from Asia or Paris, like 20 square meters is already big, whereas from some from a German perspective, often is rather small. So that's not easy to manage. I think our answer to this is right to be very focused on managing expectations in terms of what you get and what you don't get. And um ultimately when it comes to the complexity, which is what what you're indirectly asking, if you compare Europe, I would say 80% is more or less the same in terms of how you can operate. United 20% is where the headache comes from. So it's the building nature, the regulation how you operate and are allowed to run it. How do you um work with local service partners? Most notably, very important, how do we make sure that we get the best talent uh to run our city operations? You know, despite the data-driven and automated mindset that we have, that still plays a massive role in ensuring that our quality consistency stays the same uh all over um the European continent.

SPEAKER_01

So let's quickly go back in relation to that about AI and how is the future of operation going to look like as well. So artificial intelligence is starting to reshape many aspects of hospitality, clearly. We already uh alluded to a few revenue management, other customer service, operational automation. Where do you see AI having the biggest impact in the coming years?

SPEAKER_00

If you ask me about uh long term, it's certainly increase in demand. So and uh rising tide lifts all boats, right? So ultimately that's that's like if you just think of macro perspective, massive everyone that's in the industry will massively win because of that. Because if people have more time, live longer, uh can travel faster, I need more entertainment, and hospitality is a major component of that. That's number one. I think number two is ultimately in um delivering a better guest experience. So think of personalization. We will be able to better understand what a guest prefers in terms of where to travel, what kind of products they want, and what can we enrich in terms of the journey? Because ultimately the guests that stay with us they put a lot of trust in us. Tell me any other product where you can say that uh, you know, someone has been literally spending sixty, eighty, a hundred hours with your product, and that's a lot of trust that they give to us. So, what can we build on top in terms of you know connecting them to the vibrant restaurants in the area, to the activities? So basically see that as um sort of like local platform to connect you to more experiences, and that would also enable us to gain a larger share of wallet when you think of the trip and the spending behavior during that time. Lastly, we talked about it already with the operational quality and cost cost advantage, but I think that's to me literally just like an execution play.

SPEAKER_01

So before we wrap this up, let's look into the crystal ball of future of urban hospitality. What does the next generation of hospitality companies from your eyes look like in the future, especially when we look at the urban markets?

SPEAKER_00

I think they will be radically driven by what uh millennials and Gen Z wants, and that is ultimately seamlessness and uh direct connection to to the local feeling. So if you will move away from let's say we deliver the same kind of product all over the world, but to better connect you to what's really meaningful. And I think it's also important that we think about this because the flip side of AI, digitization, and the world is that we all spend way more time in front of the screen and our mobile phones, and you look then for uh a connection and don't forget that there's a lot of history in the world and in the cities. So, how do you help to preserve and connect that to them? And I think this this bridge between fast-paced digital seamlessness and then preserving the world's history and also what what you can see in basically local buildings, if they could tell a story, they would probably write many Hollywood movies. I think that's uh that's where I see the biggest um upside. Um and uh yeah, ultimately they'll see a big shift in terms of the uh product offerings.

SPEAKER_01

Well, if the large hotel companies are not getting there, they will just acquire Numa to fit that spot. Because at the end, if you think about the traditional hotel companies, how they go about the market and where you come from, and there's still a big gap in also the mindset as well to think about, you know, I mean, we know Marriott didn't acquire Sonda, they made a partnership, but they couldn't, did they couldn't drive enough supply for Sonda to survive, which clearly means they couldn't serve their customer with the potential right product to make this partnership work, which is quite interesting. And I find it interesting for Marriott being experimental and saying, okay, we want to do this, but it's it requires the entire mindset. It's like in the car industry, somebody who's produced the fastest car forever is not just turning around in in one board meeting and say we're now building electric cars. I mean, instead of combustion engines. So there's still a bit of transition that has to happen, in my viewpoint.

SPEAKER_00

It's a great analogy, right? If you think of uh what Tesla did in the car industry. And I think if you remember in the beginning, uh there was a lot of discussion. Is are you driving an electric engine or a gas engine? And I I had one of the first Teslas in um in Germany in Berlin. Um, and I still remember how, on the one hand, weird many people looked at uh me when I was driving the the roadster, and then also um how polarizing it was. And when you think about the hospitality industry, right, in like probably 10 years, we will no longer have these discussions of okay, is it a service department, is it short-term rental, is it a hotel room? Rather focused on how does it make you feel, what's the kind of gas experience. And uh in the car industry, I think you already see that shift because more and more consumers no longer worry about too much what it is, a gas or an electric engine. It's more about the comfort, the efficiency, the feeling. And we will see a similar pattern, I'm convinced, in the hospitality industry as well. And by the way, if you look at the Chinese market, the large hotel chains, they largely develop the technology also internally.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Well, I can only say, Christian, wish me luck at my keynote at the hotel summit in Switzerland. Christian, Numa represents one of the most interesting examples of how hospitality is evolving. Technology, operations, distribution, and urban real estate are becoming increasingly interconnected. And companies like yours are helping redefine how these pieces come together. Thank you so much for joining the show and wish you continuous great success with Numa. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00

Simon, it's been a great pleasure, and I wish you all the best in the coming weeks. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01

That was STR Global Unlock, where we say what others want. If you got value from today's episode, send it to someone who is still playing it safe. Follow the show and get more global insight at ajlov.com. The globally recognized STR consultancy. I founded and that proudly brings to you this show. More bold conversations are on the way, so stay tuned.