VRTECH’s Founder, Vanessa de Souza Lage, is featured in the innovative new book The Adapters by Sean Worker and Glenn Hausmann. In The Adapters, the authors have encompassed a multimedia business learning experience and book. They present real-life experiences and unique insights from 22+ business leaders in the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality (TT&H) industries to help professionals effectively navigate themselves through the challenges of today and tomorrow.

What is The Adapters?

Arriving at the heels of the global COVID-19 pandemic, this current work on travel, tourism and hospitality published timely in early 2021 comes with insightful data and unique experiences that are particularly relevant at this new era of change. The result? A comprehensive outlook on the future of travel, tourism and hospitality that will help to connect the world. 

The Adapters is borne from the combined efforts of Sean Worker and Glenn Hausmann, who originally began this journey as story collectors, interviewing business leaders in the TT&H industry at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors have over 25 years of experience operating their own individual enterprises in the TT&H industries. They paired together to begin their mutual search to find adapters and innovators within their world and retell their unfiltered experiences, successes, and failures to understand what’s needed to adapt to a new era of change in the industry. 

From hotel leaders, entrepreneurs, academics and educators, to financial advisors, data specialists and TV hosts, the duo covered a diverse range of professionals that make up the larger ecosystem of the industry.

As part of the natural evolution of this huge project, their journey has transformed into this multimedia experience and book with a variety of updated materials that will continue to grow.

The Adapters features 22+ professionals – referred to as Gusty Genius Thinkers (GGT) – in the TT&H industry, uncovering their initial responses to the COVID pandemic and the impact it has had on their business. These GGT’s reveal the crux of change that these industries are experiencing and disclose their own experiences as an insight as to how they have overcome various challenges

However, unlike other business help books, The Adapters build on professionals’ experiences to provide you with the resources and information to put these ideas and principles into practice. The Adapters draws conclusions from this chronicle of experiences and offers you the space and opportunity in this book to proactively take these insights and adapt them to your own situation. 

The Adapters isn’t just a one-off book. It is a multimedia experience that combines traditional writing with technology to provide various forms of resources including video interviews, monographs, videos and podcasts. What’s more, these are up-to-the-minute immersive resources, providing you with a package of knowledge constantly updated with new data and insights that are easily accessible through QR codes or The Adapters Hub online website. 

Who should read The Adapters – and why?

This book is not just about professionals in the TT&H universe. Although The Adapters explore the experiences deeply within these industries, this project tackles a large piece of the economic puzzle, which easily interconnects with other business areas within the world. 

Other services professionals are encouraged to “look over the fence” to understand how other industries use universal skills to overcome their challenges and inspire them to try to use these same skills for their own. 

This is an ever-growing resource of information that won’t cease to be relevant post-pandemic. The Adapters will continue to update their unique materials to help you navigate through your challenges whenever and wherever you are. 

Vanessa de Souza Lage talks vacation rentals in The Adapters

Vanessa de Souza Lage is the Founder of VRTECH and Co-Founder and CMO of Rentals United. Forming Rentals United in 2015, she has witnessed the evolution and growth of the short term rental industry and the hospitality industry as a whole. 

In The Adapters, Vanessa offers intriguing insight and experience in the short-term rental sector. She offers exactly how, during the pandemic, Rentals United was able to navigate through numerous challenges and continue driving maximum volume in the marketplace. Vanessa is also featured in a long-form video interview, where you can uncover more of her entrepreneurial insights. 

Vanessa de Souza Lage has contributed to the transformation of Rentals United from a small start-up to one of the biggest influencers in hospitality tech today. She went from co-founding the company in a dark room to securing a $4.2 million venture capital investment in just a few short years

Since then, Vanessa also founded VRTECH Events, which has successfully hosted over 30 events with over 50,000 members worldwide. She has effectively navigated from start to finish the journey entrepreneurs must take in the industry to be successful, including through the COVID-19 pandemic. With a variety of industry and entrepreneurial tips and tricks on the subjects of business partnerships to organising dig-events, it is no surprise why The Adapters claim “Vanessa is a GGT on every level”. 

In response to her contribution to the hospitality sector and The Adapters, Vanessa says, “Being in the crux of the growth of the vacation rental industry has been a privilege – witnessing its evolution is fascinating not just in the business sense but also in having front row seats to the social evolution of the modern-day traveller. Anyone who is part of the travel and hospitality sector should pick up this comprehensive book. Being part of The Adapters has been an honour.

The Adapters is a phenomenal ongoing project that encapsulates the importance at this stage of inflexion, inspiring professionals to adapt their business to thrive in the new era of change. If you’re interested in learning more about Vanessa’s journey with Rentals United, or you would like to experience everything The Adapters has to offer, this book is now available to purchase from Amazon.com.

To stay on top of the latest developments in vacation rental technology and get invitations to networking events, join the VRTECH community today.