In the vacation rental industry, we spend a lot of time talking about the guest experience, owner communication, and operational efficiency. But what happens when a disaster hits your destination and your team is the one who needs support?

That's exactly what our June ELEVATE webinar tackled. Breezeway's VP of Community, Koryn, sat down with the three women behind Hospitality Heroes, a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to disaster preparedness, response, and recovery for hospitality workers, for an honest, practical conversation about what it really means to be a people-first operator when things go sideways.

▶ Watch the full webinar recording here.

Meet Hospitality Heroes

April Burns, Founder of Hospitality Heroes, brings nearly 30 years of experience across hotels and vacation rentals. The idea for the nonprofit was born from personal experience: when Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina, a region tied to April's childhood. She put out a call to the vacation rental community. Within 24 hours, she had over $4,000 in donations, a box truck and a convoy of supplies headed into communities before government aid had even arrived.

That moment made something clear: the hospitality community is small, nimble, and capable of moving fast. It just needed an official structure to do it consistently.

Rachele Hobbs manages a 50-year-old family property management company on Holden Beach, North Carolina — a small, 8-mile barrier island. She's evacuated 12 times. She's experienced complete data loss before cloud storage existed. She's lived through the chaos that comes when there's no plan. That experience made her a natural fit as Co-Founder for Hospitality Heroes when April and Sue came calling.

Sue Jones is the owner and founder of HR4VR, as well as the Co-Founder of Hospitality Heroes. Sue brings 14 years in vacation rentals alongside 30 years in broader hospitality, food service, retail, and manufacturing. Her HR lens shapes how Hospitality Heroes thinks about workforce protection — not just property protection.

Together, they're building something the industry hasn't had before: a dedicated organization focused not on advocacy or technology, but on preparing, responding to, and helping teams recover from natural disasters and crises.

The Gap They're Filling

As April put it, the industry has done a lot of work on advocacy and, more recently, on safety — but almost nothing on disaster preparedness for the people doing the work.

"Most people that work in the hospitality industry live paycheck to paycheck. If something were to happen to their home or their vehicle, many don't have the resources to just go get a new car or fix things. And they're coming back to support your companies."

— April Burns, Founder, Hospitality Heroes

That reality — that your workforce is often the most vulnerable when disaster strikes — is the heart of what Hospitality Heroes is trying to address.

What "People-First" Disaster Preparedness Actually Looks Like

The conversation surfaced a clear throughline: preparation is an act of care. When your team knows you've thought about them before the storm hits, it builds the kind of trust that keeps people coming back after.

Here are the key takeaways from the webinar.

1. Start with a disaster plan — even an imperfect one

Rachele's team at Hobbs Realty runs what she calls a staged system: yellow (monitoring a situation), in it (active event), and recovery (what happens after). Each stage has defined roles, responsibilities, and pre-written communications.

The critical word there is pre-written. During a crisis, cognitive bandwidth is limited. If your team is standing in the back of the office asking "what do we do?" you've already lost precious time.

"It doesn't have to be all-encompassing. It just has to be a start."

— Rachele Hobbs, Co-Founder, Hospitality Heroes

2. Train on that plan: annually, intentionally

Hobbs Realty sets aside time every February (their off-season) to review the disaster plan as a full team. Staff changes. Routes change. Technologies change. What worked last season might not work this one.

They also use those sessions to debrief on the previous season, including feedback from field staff like maintenance technicians who were on the ground during prior events.

"You want the people who were running wild trying to get everything done and get home to their own house in that feedback meeting — not just supervisors."

— April Burns, Founder, Hospitality Heroes

3. Maintain an emergency contact list and understand your team's personal situations

Sue emphasized the emergency contact update: a simple but essential document that captures not just how to reach your employees, but what their situation actually looks like. A single parent with three kids 45 minutes away has different needs during an evacuation than someone who lives locally.

"It's really helping to understand what your employees' greatest needs are in those times. And that starts with something as basic as the emergency contact form."

— Sue Jones, Co-Founder, Hospitality Heroes

4. Know what your employees can access — and tell them

One of the most practical moments in the conversation: Rachele learned only recently that employees can apply for short-term unemployment benefits when a business closes temporarily due to a disaster, and the wait period is faster than standard unemployment. She now makes a point to educate her entire team on what resources exist.

Other solutions operators have put in place include:

• Paying employees ahead of schedule when a storm is anticipated before a pay period
• Setting up charge accounts at local gas stations so employees can fill up even when card readers go down
• Keeping small gift cards on hand ($20–$25) to hand out to team members as they leave

5. Don't assume. Communicate clearly and often.

"Don't assume that your team knows what to do."

— April Burns, Founder, Hospitality Heroes

When do they close up? When should they leave? When are they expected back? Establish parameters in advance so people aren't making judgment calls in the middle of chaos.

Rachele's communications during an event are intentionally brief — short, Reader's Digest-style updates that tell people exactly where things stand. The debrief comes later. During the event, clarity wins.

6. Identify who owns what and build in redundancy

Koryn drew a direct parallel to a point Justin Ford makes in Breezeway's upcoming safety content: if everyone assumes someone else is handling it, nothing gets handled. In a disaster plan, there needs to be a named owner for each piece: communication, vendor coordination, employee check-ins, guest outreach.

That doesn't mean one person carries everything. It means accountability is distributed deliberately, including to remote team members who can keep phones answered and communications flowing when the on-the-ground team is overwhelmed.

7. Connect with your community resources before you need them

Connect with local food banks, county emergency services, and other civic organizations in advance of, not during the event. Rachele also highlighted the value of knowing which employees have relevant skills. Someone who volunteers with the fire department, for example, brings knowledge your organization can actually use.

What Breezeway Can Do to Help

During the Q&A, Koryn mentioned two Breezeway features that can support operators during times of crisis:

Blueprint allows you to build documented plans for how your team should respond in specific scenarios — essentially a living disaster plan within the platform.

Assist, Breezeway's extended support team, is most often used for after-hours and weekend coverage, but can also serve as a communication backbone when your local team isn't able to answer phones or update guests during an emergency.

"It's only as good as the plan and the communication you've already determined — but with the right information in place, it can be a huge support to your team, your owners, and your guests."

— Koryn, VP of Community, Breezeway

The Preparathon: Resources You Can Use Right Now

Hospitality Heroes recently launched a Preparathon, a library of downloadable disaster preparedness guides organized by event type. Guides are currently available for:

• Flooding
• Hurricanes
• Tornadoes
• Extreme Heat and Drought

More are in development, and the team is actively soliciting input from operators who've been through specific events and want to contribute their expertise.

The next ELEVATE webinar returns in August with a conversation on owner relations and how your operations directly impact owner trust and retention. Stay tuned for more details.

Looking for disaster preparedness resources for your team? Understand how Assist can support your operations before, during, and after a crisis or learn more about Breezeway's Blueprint by getting in touch with our team