About Phillip Island Holiday Homes
Phillip Island Holiday Homes isn't a typical property management company. It started with a single home — Joel Rudd's parents' property on Victoria's Bass Coast — and grew over 26 years into one of the region's most established short-term rental operators, managing more than 300 homes entirely through word of mouth. No acquisition strategy. No outside investment. Just a family business that earned its reputation one guest experience at a time.
The portfolio sits at the heart of one of Victoria's most visited regional destinations. Phillip Island draws visitors from Melbourne for its coastline, its wildlife experiences, and a calendar of events that can fill accommodation across the island in a matter of hours. It's a market with genuine character — and Phillip Island Holiday Homes has spent more than two decades learning every corner of it.
Today, Joel leads a team focused on three things: delivering consistent guest experiences, growing the portfolio sustainably, and staying sharp in a market that is becoming more competitive, more regulated, and faster-moving than at any point in the business's history.
The Challenge
The Challenge
Local knowledge was always their edge but as the portfolio scaled, and as post-COVID travel patterns began shifting faster and less predictably, manual pricing could not keep up:
- Lead times shortened
- Demand moved overnight.
- The market itself got harder: more competition, tighter regulations, rising costs.
"Our challenge was finding a way to combine that local expertise with the speed and efficiency needed to keep pace with a rapidly evolving market," Joel says.
"Our challenge was finding a way to combine that local expertise with the speed and efficiency needed to keep pace with a rapidly evolving market," Joel says.
The Solution
The Solution
Before Beyond, Phillip Island Holiday Homes set and adjusted rates manually. Joel spoke to several dynamic pricing providers before signing, and what settled the decision was a combination of responsive support and an interface the team could actually work with.
Since joining Beyond in late 2025, the practical change has been speed: pricing actions that historically took days now take minutes. But Joel is clear that it is not simply about doing less. It is about doing more with the same time. Beyond's real-time data sits alongside the team's local expertise rather than replacing it. Insights and the AI reporting tools have added a new dimension to how the team manages both portfolio strategy and owner conversations.
"Occasionally, owners approach the question of pricing from a more instinctive standpoint, which is completely understandable," Joel notes. "Having access to that data adds credibility to our recommendations and complements our local knowledge."
"Don't wait. Trial this and see for yourself. It can be an absolute game changer and I say this as someone who felt we were already significantly better than our competitors when it came to our approach to rates and revenue management." - Joel Rudd, Director, Phillip Island Holiday Homes
