Hosting With Heart

Tiffany Falzon has worn her fair share of hats in her almost 37 years. With a professional background in accounting, Tiff was in Sydney when she first donned her hosting crown, opening a glamping tent on a block of land owned by her Dad in her home town of Marion Bay on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula and opting to manage it from afar. After the incredible initial success of the tent, Tiff event...

Louise Warren is a great believer in common sense, thoughtfulness and empathy. It's these driving forces that have closely informed the way she and her partner Anthony have for the past 10 years managed their multi-award winning accommodation business, Mt Hay Retreat in Berry, New South Wales. Comprising only a handful of individual private suites built on a family-owned property purchased in the...

As a former marketer for the likes of Kip&Co, Milligram, Flexicar and wishlist.com.au, Kimberly Palmer has a toolbox of skills that most hosts could only dream of. Having set up Harper's Cottage in 2019, her first short-term rental in the small yet charming hamlet of Malmsbury, about an hours' drive north-west of Melbourne, Kimberly completed an apprenticeship of sorts in hosting, learning the in'...

Behind every great host, there's often an even greater back-room support team and Monica Orrego and her team at Thriving Tasmania are just that. Following her bold, brave move from Colombia to Australia in 2012, Monica has worn many hats in the hospitality sector including housekeeper, host and, building on her original career in accounting and finance, administration and strategy extraordinaire....

With her background as a travel writer and having consulted in PR, Sheriden Rhodes, my first return guest on Hosting With Heart, was more than well-equipped to embark on her hosting journey three and half years ago during the height of Covid. More recently, however, with an array of achievements under her belt as a result of the incredible success she's had hosting her own property, The River Haus...

As someone who has spent a great deal of time travelling across Australia in recent years, Charlie Douty knows first-hand what it's like to experience discrimination as a member of the LGBTIQ+ community. In response, he's made it his mission to do something positive to address this and in February of this year launched Welcome With Pride, an inclusion, training and accreditation program for touris...

In this short mid-season episode, Jen Clark talks all things Heartful, the new short-term accommodation booking platform she founded and launched in October, 2024. Some of the incredibly exciting happenings at Heartful include welcoming our new dedicated team in June, 2025, which will enable us to ship new and refined features on the platform much faster, a host (pardon the pun) of new site featur...

Kirstie-Lee Smith always knew she wanted to be a photographer, she just had to unearth what kind. Starting off, as many photographers do, shooting weddings, she soon moved into real estate photography, which despite her initial misgivings, she ended up absolutely loving. This subsequently morphed into a passion for photographing short-term accommodation, ultimately leading her to formally establis...

While many hosts focus on the material details of the stays they manage, Sal Bellanger's approach to running her accommodation business, Sanctuary South Stays, is refreshingly unpretentious. Having taken ownership of the former family home of her husband Justin, now known as Nornalup Homestead, in 2018, Sal has since turned this into a haven for lovers of both nature and history. This is a propert...

Like many of us, Benj Bailey-Webb has had his fair share of trials and tribulations over the past 5 or so years. The owner-builder of the now widely lauded permanent tiny house in Victoria's majestic Grampians region, Nook On The Hill, started off wanting to design and build a small footprint, sustainable home for himself and his then-partner, Holly. As the process played out, however, and also th...

Seeking to indulge their mutual love of renovating and holidaying on Tasmania's beautiful east coast, couple Joel Challis and Nick Graham in 2022 were routinely scrolling realestate.com.au when they stumbled across an intriguing piece of land available for sale not far from the small hamlet of St Mary's. And the rest, as they say, is history. Since then, this environmentally conscious, super indus...

With a background in graphic design and a childhood penchant for garage sales, Alison Kenna, now the parent to three young boys, is one busy woman. When not working part-time in the marketing department at her local TAFE or assisting her husband James in the day to day running of his air conditioning business, Alison is busily managing Warrnambool Retreat, a property with three separate titled res...

My guest on today's episode of Hosting With Heart, architect Shae Parker McCashen, has long been what she refers to as an 'architectural green sheep'. With an upbringing that instilled in her a respect for people and a passion for the environment, Shae went on to qualify as an architect in the early 2000's and has today amassed over 24 years of extensive industry experience, including 14 years at...

When she's not busy managing Milton Beef, her family's successful ethical beef farm, or helping support the local refugee community, you'll find my guest on today's episode of Hosting With Heart, Janelle Wallace, busily welcoming guests to her newly opened, fully accessible hempcrete retreat, Figtree Cottage of Milton. Janelle's journey to becoming a host was lined with many twists and turns, but...

With a background in psychology and outdoor education, my guest on today's episode of Hosting With Heart, Clare Reilly, now works as a disability advocate, blogger, podcaster, social media influencer and writer. Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2017, Clare is currently planning to become the first person to traverse the Munda Biddi Trail—the world's longest off-road cycling route in Western Au...

In today's episode of Hosting With Heart, I chat with Phil Janson who, along with wife Lyndel, are the owners and hosts of Willow's Retreat, a sustainable property located on 50 acres of pristine bush and pasture land in Fernances Crossing, approximately 100km directly north of Sydney. During our chat, Phil talks about what led he and Lyndel to hosting and explores the joys and challenges they've...

In this short launch episode for Season 9 of Hosting With Heart, Jen Clark covers off on what she's been up to for the last 9 months (namely, building new accommodation marketplace, Heartful) and what's in store for this brand new, exciting season of the podcast. ……… For more information about Hosting With Heart and to access our archive of over 100 episodes, visit the HWH website at www.hostingwi...

My guest today on Hosting With Heart is Jodie McQueen, owner and operator of Paradise Road Farm, a two-cabin farm stay in Sheffield, the gateway to Tasmania's Cradle Mountain world heritage area. With a diverse professional background including time spent working in Japan and Australia in a variety of communications, tourism and sustainability-focused roles, in 2016 Jodie and her then-partner dete...

Vince Hunt and partner Angela Brickwell truly do personify what it means to be a heartful host. After purchasing a 120 acre block of land in the idyllic town of Billinudgel on the northern New South Wales coast some years ago, they went on to construct two cabins - one of which is fully accessible - on the land, all the while indulging their passion for permaculture, regenerative farming and a phi...

In this first episode of Hosting With Heart for 2024, host Jen Clark provides an update on the recent equity crowdfunding campaign for Heartful, a new short-term accommodation booking platform focusing on sustainability and inclusion, helmed by Jen, that will launch mid-year. She also discusses her plans for season 8 of the podcast, which will move to a more flexible fortnightly format and have a...

It's the FINAL DAY of the Heartful equity crowdfunding campaign, with our public investment offer closing at 10pm AEDT on Thursday 2nd November, 2023. As of 8pm AEDT on Wednesday 1st November, Heartful had welcomed 109 new investors, with a total of $119,392.00 raised, something Jen is extraordinarily proud of and of course, very excited about. She touches on some of the recent successes of the ca...

Well, it's CRUNCH time in the Heartful equity crowdfunding campaign, with EOIs closing on Monday October 16th at 10pm AEDT and Jen needing to raise $50K during the private offer period (that's just 48 short hours!) in order for the public offer to go ahead. The private offer period opens at 12pm on Tuesday October 17th and will run until 12pm on Thursday October 19th, following which the public of...

This third instalment in our equity crowdfunding campaign mini-series is a re-recording of Jen's recent presentation at the Heartful Investor Webinar held on October 4th, 2023. It contains a wealth of info about Jen and her personal / professional background, the backstory of Hosting With Heart, an insight into how the idea for Heartful originated, the many reasons the platform is needed and what...

This second short and sweet episode of our Heartful crowdfunding campaign mini-series sees Jen talk about some recent wins in the press, reaching over 115 Expressions of Interest from potential investors in Heartful and her thoughts on why now is the time you need to embrace accessibility as a host. To express your interest in investing in Heartful or register for our forthcoming Investor Webinar...

In this first episode of our 6-week podcast mini series documenting the equity crowdfunding campaign for the new ethical accommodation booking platform Jen is proudly launching in 2024, she talks about how the idea for Heartful was realised, gives an overview of what equity crowdfunding is and how it all works, and provides a general update on how things are progressing 30 hours after the campaign...