The short-term rental industry is becoming increasingly dependent on technology, and Guesty is making a major move to strengthen its position in one of Europe’s most important markets.
Guesty has completed its acquisition of French property management software company Smily, formerly known as BookingSync, bringing more than 15 years of local expertise into its global short-term rental platform.
The deal gives Guesty a deeper foothold in France, where the company sees substantial room for growth as professional property managers look for better ways to handle bookings, communication, payments, pricing and day-to-day operations.
France is currently described by Guesty as the world’s second-largest short-term rental market, with more than 1 million active listings and approximately $9 billion in gross booking value through online travel agencies over the previous year.
The acquisition therefore looks less like a simple software purchase and more like a strategic bet on where the vacation-rental industry is heading next.
Smily Brings Years of French Market Experience
Smily’s history goes back to 2005, when founder Sébastien Grosjean developed a channel-management system to help operate his family’s vacation-rental business.
The company began serving paying customers in 2010 and gradually expanded into a broader property management system.
Its software now combines several functions that property managers need to operate multiple vacation rentals, including channel management, centralized communications, direct-booking websites, payments and task management.
That history gives Guesty something that cannot easily be created overnight: established relationships with local property managers and knowledge of how the French market operates.
A Customer Base Worth Billions in Bookings
Smily’s scale also helps explain why the acquisition matters.
According to the companies, the platform has processed more than €3.3 billion in bookings involving 13 million travelers since it began serving customers.
Its founders say the system has helped operators grow from managing a small number of properties to portfolios containing hundreds or even thousands of units.
Smily has also maintained top-tier status in Booking.com’s Connectivity Partner Programme for eight consecutive years, most recently reaching Premier Plus status for 2026.
For Guesty, those relationships can be as valuable as the technology itself.
Guesty Wants to Add AI to an Established Market
The acquisition comes at an important moment for hospitality software.
Property managers are increasingly using artificial intelligence to automate repetitive work such as responding to guests, analyzing revenue, managing operations and identifying tasks that require attention.
Guesty says it wants to bring its AI capabilities and Agent Hub to Smily’s customers while combining the two companies’ product, engineering and customer-support teams.
That could change what property-management software means for professional operators.
Instead of simply providing a dashboard where managers check reservations and manually complete tasks, newer systems are increasingly designed to identify problems and carry out routine actions automatically.
In simple terms, the software is moving from being a digital filing cabinet to a digital operations team.
France Gives Guesty a Strategic European Base
The French market is particularly important because of its size and the country’s enormous tourism industry.
Vacation rentals have become a major part of the accommodation landscape, creating demand for software that can help professional operators manage larger portfolios without expanding their administrative teams at the same pace.
Guesty’s acquisition of Smily gives it a stronger local foundation from which to pursue that opportunity.
Rather than entering France entirely from the outside, Guesty can now combine its international technology platform with a company that has spent years working with French and European operators.
The Deal Is Also About Scale
Guesty says its platform now powers more than 500,000 properties across more than 100 countries.
The company also says it released more than 300 product features during 2026, many based on customer requests.
That scale is increasingly important in a short-term rental market where operators may list properties across several booking platforms simultaneously.
Managing availability, pricing and guest communication across multiple channels can become complicated very quickly.
A larger technology platform can potentially consolidate those functions and reduce the amount of manual work required.
Smily’s Founders Are Staying Invested
Another notable element of the transaction is the involvement of Smily’s founders after the acquisition.
All five founders and a group of shareholders are reinvesting part of their proceeds into Guesty equity.
That suggests the transaction is being positioned as a longer-term combination rather than simply an exit by Smily’s original owners.
For Guesty, retaining the knowledge and relationships built by Smily’s team could be particularly useful as it integrates the businesses.
Financial Terms Remain Private
The companies have not disclosed the financial terms of the acquisition.
That makes it impossible to assess the transaction based on purchase price or immediate financial returns.
What is clear is the strategic logic.
Guesty gains Smily’s technology, customer relationships and French-market expertise, while Smily gains access to Guesty’s broader product development resources and AI capabilities.
The combined company can then attempt to offer a more comprehensive platform to property managers.
AI Is Changing the Economics of Property Management
The acquisition also reflects a much larger shift taking place across hospitality technology.
Property managers have traditionally relied on teams of people to handle repetitive operational tasks. As portfolios grow, staffing requirements can rise with them.
AI potentially changes that equation.
Automated guest communication, revenue analysis, task coordination and operational workflows can allow companies to manage more properties without increasing staff at the same rate.
Guesty has been investing heavily in this direction. Earlier in September, the company also announced an integration with AirDNA that connects market intelligence with revenue-management workflows, allowing operators to use market and competitive data when adjusting property prices.
The Smily acquisition fits into the same broader strategy: connect more parts of the property-management process through technology.
France Could Become a Test Market for That Strategy
The French market provides an interesting environment for Guesty’s approach because it combines a large supply of short-term rentals with established local technology providers.
Smily already understands the market.
Guesty brings international scale and a growing AI infrastructure.
The challenge will be combining the two without disrupting the customers who made Smily successful in the first place.
Integration is often where acquisitions become difficult. Software systems have to be combined, teams have to work together and customers need continuity.
The success of the transaction will therefore depend not simply on how many properties Guesty adds, but on whether it can turn the combined technology and expertise into a better operating platform.
A Bigger Move Than a French Acquisition
Guesty’s purchase of Smily says something about where the short-term rental industry is heading.
The sector is moving toward larger professional operators, more sophisticated revenue management and greater automation.
At the same time, local market knowledge remains valuable because regulations, consumer behavior and business practices differ from country to country.
Guesty’s strategy is effectively to combine those two advantages: global technology with local expertise.
That could become an increasingly common model as hospitality software companies compete for professional property managers around the world.
What Comes Next
With the acquisition completed, Guesty and Smily plan to combine product, engineering and customer-support resources while introducing Guesty’s AI capabilities to Smily’s market.
The immediate focus will be on French property managers, but the implications could extend beyond France.
Smily’s experience across France and Europe gives Guesty another platform from which to expand its international presence, while the acquisition gives Smily’s existing customers access to a much larger technology ecosystem.
The short-term rental industry is no longer competing only on rooms, locations and nightly prices. It is increasingly competing on how efficiently those properties can be operated.
Guesty’s acquisition of Smily shows that the next phase of that competition may be fought behind the scenes—in software, automation and artificial intelligence.
For property managers, the question is becoming less about whether technology will change their businesses and more about how quickly they can adapt to it.