SCALE Central & Eastern Europe 2026

Regulations are reshaping the short-term rental industry across Europe – and no two markets look the same. In this panel, industry experts break down the current regulatory landscape, what’s changing, and what operators need to know to stay ahead. Whether you’re navigating local licensing, platform compliance, or new government restrictions, this session will help you understand where the industry stands today – and where it’s heading.

Choosing the right tech stack can make or break your short-term rental business – but with hundreds of tools on the market, where do you even start? In this session, we cut through the noise and explore what a smart, scalable tech setup actually looks like for vacation rental operators. Walk away with a clear framework for evaluating, selecting, and building the tools that fit your business – not someone else’s.

The Smart Room Is Not a Feature. It’s the New Floor.

Short-term rental operators have automated bookings, pricing, and communications. The property itself is still waiting.

This session makes the practical case for connected properties: sensors that prevent damage before it costs you, energy that adjusts to real occupancy, guests who control their environment without calling you, and AI assistants that handle local recommendations, upsells, and requests around the clock – at scale, across your entire portfolio.

We’ll look at what the data says about guest expectations, where IoT delivers measurable ROI, and why the next competitive gap won’t be your listing or your price – it will be the experience inside the property.

We close with a direct challenge to everyone in the room: your PMS should be the hub connecting all of it. Is it?

Your properties could be perfectly priced and still invisible. In this session, Miro Gospodinov will use real data from thousands of Booking.com and Airbnb listings to reveal the ranking and visibility factors that actually drive revenue – and show why most operators are only optimising a fraction of what matters.

Most operators manage revenue by reacting to what’s already happened -dropping prices when bookings slow down isn’t a strategy, it’s a reflex. This panel brings together leading voices from across the industry to break down what separates operators who consistently outperform their market from those always playing catch-up – from pricing systems and business data to the tools that make it all work while you sleep.

During this session we will examine the major forces reshaping the short-term rental industry in 2026, focusing closely on the Bulgarian market and its evolving regulatory environment. Sustainable growth now requires technology, structured processes, and a willingness to manage differently than before.

Quality drives revenue, but it doesn’t scale easily. Using data from Central and Eastern Europe, this session shows that listings with higher review scores achieve higher ADR & revenue, while larger portfolios struggle to maintain top ratings & consistency. We also explore a second dimension of quality: listing content. By analysing thousands of listings, we reveal where professional managers are leaving money on the table — and how data helps prioritise fixes with the biggest revenue impact.

Three operators. Three very different markets. One industry.

In this panel, some of Europe’s largest property management companies come together to compare notes on what building a big business really looks like across different markets. From the challenges unique to their region to the systems and strategies that work everywhere, this is an honest conversation about what scaling actually has in common – and where the paths completely diverge.

Over the last decade, the Central and Eastern European short-term rental market has evolved beyond recognition from a fragmented cottage industry into a sophisticated, multi-billion-euro sector. This panel explores the real-life obstacles, opportunities, growth strategies and regulatory challenges faced by three regional powerhouses – Renters.pl, Flat Manager and Fragola Apartments.

During this session we will explore how property managers can scale their operations through automation and standardized workflows without losing the human touch that defines great hospitality. Drawing on real data and practical examples, the talk challenges the idea that automation means cold service – and shows how the right approach can actually improve guest satisfaction while reducing team burnout.

In the fast-paced world of short-term rentals, chaos is inevitable- back-to-back turns, last-minute changes, and constant pressure to deliver great stays. This session reveals the systems, workflows, and leadership strategies top operators use to stay in control. Learn practical communication tactics, tech-enabled checklists, and accountability tools to help your team move faster, stay aligned, and reduce stress.

In a competitive and uncertain market, data can be your biggest advantage – if you know how to use it. This workshop will show how to read key market signals and turn them into smarter pricing decisions that help you stay ahead of the competition.

In this session, Sab Mulligan shares real examples and live conversations where Zzzing’s AI Guest Experience Champion, Zoe, does the heavy lifting so humans can show up for guests more than ever before. You’ll see how smart, policy-led AI creates space for genuine connection, making hospitality an attractive career path for people who are truly guest-centric.

When a guest books your property remotely, you’re making a trust decision: this person is who they say they are. But what if their ID was AI-generated in 30 seconds? What if their face, voice, and entire digital footprint were fabricated? What if they don’t actually exist at all? This session explores a deceptively simple question with massive implications for hospitality: How do you actually prove someone is who they claim to be?

We’ll dive into the specific AI tools criminals are using right now (deepfakes, voice cloning, synthetic identities, AI-generated documents) and why traditional guest screening methods can no longer detect them. We’ll also zoom out to examine what identity actually is, why verification has always been philosophically complex, and how AI has transformed this from a theoretical problem into an operational reality hospitality operators can no longer ignore.

The sessions are done, but the night is just getting started. Join us for the official SCALE CEE after party, hosted by our headline sponsors Shelly and Hostify – where the best conversations of the day happen over drinks. Keep the energy going, swap contacts, and celebrate with the people who get it. See you on the dance floor. 🎉