Jeff Baars is the founder and Principal of The Accommodation Co, an independent hospitality-tech consultancy based in Melbourne. He works with short-term rental operators, serviced apartment businesses and boutique hotels across Australia, New Zealand and the UK, helping them make better decisions about technology, distribution and revenue. He has no platform to protect and no single system to push, so his advice starts with the operator’s business rather than a sales target.

Before going out on his own, Jeff spent close to four years as Chief Commercial Officer at Urban Rest, where he helped scale the portfolio from around 100 units to more than 1,700 across four countries. Earlier he held senior roles at Quest and IHG. That mix of hotel discipline and fast-growth STR operations shapes how he works. He has sat on the operator side of the table, lived with the integrations and seen first-hand which tools earn their keep and which don’t.