Introducing Yoav Tourel: Finding long-term solutions to short-term problems

By Grantlee Kieza, Industry Reporter

This month, Resort News caught up with Yoav Tourel, the Temporary Board Chair of Directors at ASTRA, the Australian Short Term Accommodation Rental Association. He is also, the Managing Director for the Australia-Pacific region of Guesty, a leading property management platform for the short-term rental and hospitality industry.

Passionate industry professional Yoav is very invested in the success of the short-stay sector, so let’s get to know him a litt le better... Israeli-born Yoav is a father of four who says he came to “this wonderful country almost 20 years ago” thanks to his wife Maayan.

“She’s an Israeli as well,” he said. “She came to study veterinary science at Melbourne University because Australia is one of the best places in the world to study it.

“We have four children, quite a team! I have a daughter who has just started high school and the other children are ten, seven, and fi ve.” He joked: “I like to say that having four children is an economy of scale without the economy.

“My work relocated me to Sydney almost 12 years ago and we’ve been here ever since.

“My background is actually in advertising and media. I was born and bred in an advertising agency before making the move to the digital or ad tech world.

“Four years ago, I was involved in ad tech for an Israelibased company when I got a phone call from Guesty. I’m working for them now within the property tech space.

“We basically started the activity of Guesty here in Australia, so it was a case of building a team, working with clients, and bringing all their needs to our headquarters and developing solutions accordingly.”

Last year Guesty also acquired the Australian property management soft ware company, HiRUM, and the Spain-based vacation rental soft ware company, Kigo, bringing thousands more customers to the Guesty family of product solutions.

HiRUM Software Solutions, based on the Gold Coast, became a leading tech player in Australia’s tourism sector. The company made its name with both small and large hospitality operators including prestige brands Palazzo Versace Gold Coast, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Ramada by Wyndham, and Grand Mercure Hotels & Resorts.

For the last two and a half years Yoav has been a board director at ASTRA, and for the “last four or five months” has been the acting chair, and right now, Yoav is worried.

Worried he says because much of Australia’s short-term holiday market is based on “fragile ground” and in his opinion, a more consistent approach to legislation over short-term rentals is required. Having a more balanced approach is vital to protecting Australia’s holiday accommodation industry. His comments come after the Independent Planning Commission recommended that non-hosted STRA should be subject to a 60-day exempt development cap. Byron Bay has the highest proportion of shortterm rentals in NSW, at about

8.5 percent of all dwellings. The commission’s recommendation could open the way for a broader crackdown on short-term rentals across the state and push properties back onto the longterm rental market in the Byron Shire, which has the highest rate of housing stress in NSW. Yoav says the standardisation of rules for short-term rentals is crucial across each state.

“I think it is too ambitious to think that we could have Federal laws over short-term stays, but definitely on a state level, it would be much better if the same rules applied for everyone rather than leaving it up to individual councils.

“What they are doing in Byron is very similar to what they’re suggesting in WA, that if you register, you’re entitled to 60 nights of short-term rental and then if you want to do more you have to apply for an exemption.”

Western Australia’s retired premier Mark McGowan recently flagged changes to shortstay rental accommodation services such as Airbnb, with Perth’s February rental vacancy rate at 0.7 percent.

But Mr McGowan conceded that “obviously a lot of people have made business decisions regarding Airbnb. And a lot of tourists that come to Western Australia use Airbnb to stay.”

Yoav says the standardising of laws around Airbnb and other short-term rental platforms would benefi t the whole accommodation industry.

“If you are planning to buy a property and hoping to use it as short-term holiday rental you need some sort of assurance that the council isn’t going to change the laws because that will severely impact what you can earn from the property.

“What councils are doing is also right from their point of view because they’re trying to represent their community and in the best way possible. This is what makes it such a tricky issue.

“I took part in the Byron Shire public hearings over this issue representing ASTRA, so I listened to everyone who spoke there, people from both sides of the argument. Everyone who spoke made sense even though they were on opposite sides of the issue.

“ASTRA believes that there needs to be regulation in the short-term market, but we also say there has to be a balance between the needs of the council, the community, and our industry.”

ASTRA represents tens of thousands of Australians who work in the shortterm rental industry.

Yoav says from ASTRA’s point of view the Australian housing crisis was not the fault of the short-term holiday market.

“When we speak with the government and when we read reports, we don’t think that the short-term rental industry is the problem,” he said.

“We keep referencing research that was done back in March last year in Canberra that basically gave 208 pages of recommendations on the future of living – and none of the recommendations involved holiday rentals as a problem for housing.

“Even the recommendations that the special committee put into the Byron Bay situation identified a lot of recommendations for the housing crisis that was outside of short-term rentals in terms of what the government needs to do to address the problem.

“Our position at ASTRA is that it is very populistic to blame the housing shortage on short-term rentals because it creates a lot of clickbait.

“We must find ways where the industry and the local councils

Management Rights Specialists

QLD-NSW-VIC-WA

BUYERS - SELLERS - DEVELOPERS

Our team of legal experts, led by Col Myers, has over 30 years’ experience in this area and will get you the best possible outcome.

Tel: +61 (0)7 5552 6666

M: +61 (0)417 620 516

E: cmyers@smh.net.au

W: www.smh.net.au can live together and ways that we can work together to relieve some of the housing stress.

“Most of the discussion in the media over the short-term holiday industry is about conflict but what we want is solutions by which everyone can benefi t.

“The short-term rental market in Australia is huge. There are estimates that say there are between 200,000 to 240,000 properties in Australia now being used for short-term rentals, but a lot of them are occasional use and seasonal use. We estimate that about a third of them are used for full-on short-term rentals.”

Yoav said the push by some sectors of the property industry to cut the terms of management rights was another thorny issue facing the accommodation industry.

“That’s another big issue we’re looking at. The two parties should be able to live together, but at the same time, we should see how we can allow owners who are paying for the management rights to have more of a say about them.

“As an industry, we need to be able to sit together with the building management and the stakeholders and see how we can strike that balance.

“There are also issues with strata management companies in Melbourne and New Zealand. We’re seeing owners bullied in their buildings for doing short-term rentals. Technology can help with solutions because by using the right technology you can ensure you are gett ing the right type of guests – you can screen them and increase the level of accountability so that a lot of the problems with noise and bad behaviour just don’t happen.

“COVID provided a very strong boost for short-term rentals because, with the closure of hotels and the psychological eff ect of not wanting to be with a crowd but wanting to have your own place, it really opened the short-term rental market to many other segments who suddenly considered it a valid alternative for accommodation.

“Add to that the rise of people working from home or any location they chose, and you saw very strong growth in the short-term market.

“But like the Spider-Man movie says, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. At ASTRA we have been in discussions with the NSW government for the last fi ve or six years over codes of conduct and registrations and we’ve seen the positive impacts of that.

“Regulation is needed because the growth of short-term rentals impacts the fabric of communities and the fabric of buildings, so it is inevitable that there will be tension.

“When we speak with diff erent departments in government, we’re looking at how to strike that balance, how shortterm rentals can co-exist in the community and what the mechanisms to do that might be - is it capping the days, is it through special levies? The industry is now trying to find the solution.”

The ASTRA board consists of nine volunteer directors from diff erent areas of the industry, such as property managers, tourism and travel, hospitality, and technology, legal, and finance experts.

Yoav says: “At ASTRA we’re all volunteers, and from all diff erent angles of the industry. We really care about the industry that we love.

“That’s why we must find solutions to the problems the industry faces by discussing ways we can all work together and benefi t as a result.”

Moving forward, Yoav will be a regular contributor to Resort News