The Holiday Property Coach

14/09/2026

You can imitate a style. But you can't copy the years of work that built the brand behind it.

Following my recent post about protecting your brand in a world of AI and online fraud, there's another side to brand protection.

What happens when another business in your space starts to look remarkably similar to yours?

Because your brand isn't just a logo or a set of colours.

It's your reputation.

Your relationships.

Your experience.

Your story.

And, most importantly, the trust you've earned.

A great example is Skol Apartments Marbella.

When another local business began using branding that felt very similar, Daniela Derin and Vincenzo didn't abandon what they'd spent years building.

They made their brand even more recognisable.

They increased their visibility, put themselves at the heart of their marketing, and strengthened the human connection behind the business.

And that's an important lesson.

In an AI world where content and visuals can be replicated in seconds, YOU are one part of your brand that cannot be copied.

So protect your identity. Document your brand history. Tell your story. Show your face. Communicate what makes you different.

And if someone starts looking a little too similar?

Don't make your brand smaller. Make it stronger.

Your brand is an asset. Treat it like one.

Have you ever experienced another business adopting branding that felt uncomfortably close to yours? 👇

12/09/2026

A guest messaged an owner I know last week to confirm the deposit before she paid it.

Good instinct. The listing wasn't theirs.

Someone had lifted the property photos, copied the description almost word for word, and built a fake listing to collect deposits from guests who thought they were booking the real thing.

The guest nearly paid. The owner never saw a penny of it. And their name was attached to a scam they had nothing to do with.

This happens more than most operators realise.

Here's how it works. Fraudsters scrape your best images, your website copy, even your branding, and rebuild it on a fake listing or a cloned site. To a guest scrolling quickly, it looks legitimate. Same photos. Same words. Same feel.

They take the deposit. The guest arrives to a property that was never available, or a door that never opens.

Two things get stolen at once. The revenue from a booking that should have been yours. And the trust in a brand you spent years building.

You can't stop someone screenshotting a photo. But you can make yourself harder to copy and quicker to catch it.

A few things worth doing:

Watermark your images with your brand, subtly but clearly.

Run a Google reverse image search on your own photos every so often, and see where they turn up.

Set up alerts for your business name and property names.

Report fake listings to the platform and the domain host the moment you find one.

Tell guests where the only legitimate place to book actually is.

None of this is glamorous. It's housekeeping. But it protects the two things that are hardest to rebuild once they're gone.

Trust takes years to build and literally seconds to damage - don't let someone do that to your STR brand.

10/09/2026

You can copy a colour palette. You can imitate a style. But you can’t copy the years of work that built the brand behind it.

Following on from my recent post about protecting your brand identity in a world of AI, online fraud and increasingly sophisticated scams, I’ve been thinking about another side of brand protection.

What happens when someone starts using branding that looks remarkably similar to yours?
Not necessarily a fake website.

Not necessarily someone pretending to be you.

But a business operating in the same space, using a very similar combination of colours, typography and visual style.

It can be uncomfortable to raise, particularly when you’ve spent years building your own identity.

Because your brand is not just a logo.

It’s the trust you’ve built.
The reputation you’ve earned.
The relationships you’ve developed.
The money you’ve invested.
The content you’ve created.
The experience your clients associate with your business.

And when another business starts to look very similar, there is a genuine concern that potential clients may become confused about who they are engaging with, or assume there is a connection between the two businesses.

In a world where AI makes it easier than ever to replicate content, imagery and visual identities, brand recognition and trust are becoming even more valuable.

That doesn’t mean every similarity is deliberate. Colours and design styles are not automatically exclusive to one business, and sometimes people simply don’t realise how close their branding has become to someone else’s.

But I do think we should be having more conversations about originality, professional courtesy and respecting the work that goes into building a business.

A great example of this is Skol Apartments Marbella.

Daniela Derin and Vincenzo have spent many years building the Skol Apartments Marbella brand.

They have invested time, energy and creativity into developing its reputation and creating a strong connection with their guests and the wider market.

When another local company in Marbella began using a brand identity that felt very similar, they didn’t sit back and allow their market position to be diluted.

Instead, they pushed harder on visibility.
They made the people behind the brand more visible.

They showed up more consistently. They put their faces at the centre of their marketing and made it clear who had built the business, developed the reputation and created the experience associated with Skol Apartments Marbella.

Now, their faces appear across much of the content they promote. There is no doubt that Daniela and Vincenzo are the real people behind the brand and that they are the people guests associate with Skol Apartments Marbella.

They didn’t try to hide from the challenge.

They strengthened the human connection behind the brand.

That is an important lesson.

Your visual identity matters, but so does your visibility as the person behind the business.

When people know who you are, what you stand for and the work you have put into building your reputation, it becomes much harder for someone else to replicate the trust you have earned.
Daniela and Vincenzo have kindly permitted me to share their experience as an example.

If you find yourself in a similar position, my advice would be to:

• Keep dated evidence of your branding and how it has evolved.
• Check what elements of your brand you have actually protected.
• Look at the overall identity, rather than just one colour or font.
• Consider whether there is any genuine risk of customer confusion.
• Make the people behind your brand more visible.
• Continue communicating your history, experience and point of difference.
• Have a calm, private conversation before making public accusations.
• Seek specialist IP advice if you believe your rights are being infringed.

And perhaps most importantly, don’t feel you have to abandon the brand you’ve spent years building simply because someone else has adopted a similar look.

Make your brand stronger. Make your story clearer.

Make the people behind it more visible.
Your brand is an asset. Treat it like one.

For those of you building and scaling short-term rental businesses, this is another reminder that brand protection should be part of your wider business strategy, not something you only think about when a problem appears.

10/09/2026

When did you last check whether your brand was being used somewhere without your permission?

Most STR operators I talk to have never looked.

They assume brand theft happens to bigger businesses. It doesn't. Copied listings, stolen photos, cloned social accounts and imitated names happen at every size, and often to the operators doing the best work.

So here's a brand audit you can run today. It takes an afternoon.

Start with the theft and fraud side.

Reverse image search your best property photos. Drop them into Google Images and see where else they turn up. You'll sometimes find your own villas advertised by someone who has never set foot in them.

Watermark the images you publish going forward. A discreet mark in the corner is enough to make your photos harder to steal and easier to prove.

Set up alerts for your business name and property names. A simple Google Alert tells you when your brand appears somewhere new.

Monitor the platforms directly. Search your name on the OTAs and on social. Look for cloned accounts and duplicate listings.

Know the reporting route before you need it. Every OTA and social platform has one. Find it now so you're not scrambling later.

Now the identity side, which most people skip entirely.

Look into trademarking your business name and logo. It's less expensive than owners assume, and it's the difference between asking someone to stop and being able to make them.

Document your brand assets in one place. Logo files, fonts, colours, photography, tone. If it lives only in your head or your designer's inbox, you don't really own it.

Be the visible face of your business. When people can see the person behind the brand, imitations look exactly like what they are.

I ran 175 properties over 25+ years in Cyprus and the UK. The brand was one of the most valuable things I sold, and it was valuable because it was protected.

You don't build a brand worth stealing by accident. You build it on purpose, and then you defend it.

When did you last audit yours? 👇

I've written the full checklist up on the blog, link in the comments.

10/09/2026

You can copy a colour palette. You can imitate a style. But you can’t copy the years of work that built the brand behind it.

Following my recent post about protecting your brand in a world of AI and online fraud, there’s another side to brand protection…

What happens when another business in your space starts to look remarkably similar to yours?

Because your brand isn’t just a logo or a set of colours.

It’s your reputation.
Your relationships.
Your experience.
Your story.
And, most importantly, the trust you’ve earned.

A great example is Skol Apartments Marbella.

When another local business began using branding that felt very similar, Daniela Derin and Vincenzo didn’t abandon what they’d spent years building.

They made their brand even more recognisable.

They increased their visibility, put themselves at the heart of their marketing and strengthened the human connection behind the business.

And that’s an important lesson.

In an AI world where content and visuals can be replicated in seconds, YOU are one part of your brand that cannot be copied.

So protect your identity. Document your brand history. Tell your story. Show your face. Communicate what makes you different.

And if someone starts looking a little too similar?

Don’t make your brand smaller. Make it stronger.

Your brand is an asset. Treat it like one.

Have you ever experienced another business adopting branding that felt uncomfortably close to yours?

DirectBookings

09/09/2026

07/09/2026

Are you scaling your STR business to grow, to profit, or to sell? Because they are not necessarily the same thing.

When I start working with a property manager, one of the first things I look at is their existing property inventory, the demographics, geography and, most importantly, the profitability of the properties they already manage.

Before we talk about adding another 20, 50 or 100 properties, I want to understand which ones are actually making money, which are creating operational complexity, and what the right next properties should look like.

I learned this in my own business when we deliberately reduced our portfolio from over 200 properties to approximately 175 better-quality, better-performing properties.

Bigger wasn’t necessarily better.

And then there’s the next question: are you building a business that could operate without you and that somebody else might actually want to buy?

In my latest blog, I explore the difference between Scale to Grow, Scale to Profit and Scale to Sell, and why building a profitable, resilient and valuable business should be the real goal.

Because the aim isn’t simply to collect more properties. It’s to build a business that works for you, rather than one that only works because of you.

Read the full blog here:

https://www.theholidaypropertycoach.com/blog/do-you-have-a-scale-to-profit-and-a-scale-to-sell-strategy-for-your-str-business

Lisa Roads helps women in short-term rentals scale, systemise, and successfully sell their property management businesses. Book a discovery call today.

06/09/2026

September and October are shaping up to be VERY busy — and I’m excited about what’s coming next for Women in Short Term Rentals.

📍 First stop: Host Planet Roadshow, Nottinghamshire — 14 September

Women in Short Term Rentals is proud to be a delivery partner for this year’s Host Planet Roadshow, bringing practical, relevant education and connection to STR businesses around the UK.

There are only a few tickets left for Nottinghamshire.

https://lnkd.in/ePRCD89W

And if you’re a woman working in short-term rentals and would like to join me as my guest, drop me a private message — I may be able to offer you a complimentary ticket.

🇪🇸 Then I’m off to Madrid for GuestyVal

A chance to catch up with friends, meet more of the movers and shakers in our sector, hear what’s happening across the industry — and hopefully squeeze in a little Madrid fun too!
But there’s something even bigger on the horizon…

💥 Women in STR Learning Lab | SCALE Fest Barcelona | 25 October

I’m working with a brilliant support team and industry experts to create a dedicated Women in Short Term Rentals Learning Lab at SCALE Fest.

And this isn’t going to be another room where we simply talk at women.
We want to listen.

We want to find out what women working across the STR sector actually need to help them progress, lead and succeed.

What skills do women feel they need more support developing?

What’s missing from current STR event agendas?

Are industry events covering the subjects women actually need?

Are women being adequately supported as AI rapidly changes our sector — or are some at risk of being left behind?

What are the barriers affecting women’s visibility, leadership and progression?

And, importantly, what can we as an industry actually DO about them?

We’ll have a dedicated room with expert table facilitators leading conversations around these questions and more.

The insights we gather will help inform the future direction of the Women in Short Term Rentals mission: elevating the visibility and success of women across our global sector.

Whether you’re a property manager, founder, supplier, leader, employee or industry professional, we’d love your voice in the room.

🎟️ The Learning Lab is FREE to attend, but places need to be reserved.

Sign up using the link below and come and be part of the conversation in Barcelona.

https://lnkd.in/e6ACgPRg

There’s a lot happening — Nottinghamshire ➡️ Madrid ➡️ Barcelona — and I can’t wait!

06/09/2026

03/09/2026

Scale does not always equate to profit