Ex-HomeAway Software (HASP) Exec Secures $1.5 mil in All-Star Cast of Angel Investors
Dennis Schaal, Skift
Aug 13, 2013
TurnKey Vacation Rentals, a marketing and professional-management solution for individual vacation rental owners, picked up $1.5 million in seed funding from an all-star cast of angel investors, including the CEOs of Orbitz, and Zillow, and the founders or co-founders of TripIt, Hotwire, Expedia, Zillow and Glassdoor.
Angel investors include Richard Barton (co-founder Expedia, co-founder Zillow, Benchmark), Alexis De Belloy (HomeAway, Accel executive in residence), Barney Harford (CEO Orbitz), Robert Hohman (Expedia, former CEO Hotwire, co-Founder Glassdoor), Joey Levin (CEO, IAC Search), Karl Peterson (co-founder Hotwire, TPG), Spencer Rascoff (co-Founder Hotwire, CEO Zillow) and Greg Slyngstad (co-Founder Expedia, founder VacationSpot, Kayak board).
In addition to TurnKey co-founder and CEO T.J. Clark and co-founder and executive chairman John Banczak, Hotwire and TripIt co-founder Gregg Brockway and Eric Goldreyer, founder of BeadandBreakfast.com, take seats on the TurnkeyVR board.
Clark, who was corporate counsel for Hotwire in its startup days 13 years ago and previously served as CEO of Limos.com, says Austin-based TurnKeyVR will handle vacation rental owners’ listings on HomeAway, VRBO, Airbnb and Flipkey, perform revenue management functions, as well as take care of all guest interactions, including the booking process and the stay itself, all for a 10% fee.
In addition, TurnKeyVr facilitates the unit’s cleaning, which the guest pays for, and contracts with the owner to handle service issues such as a broken air-conditioner or other problems in the vacation home, Clark says.
“We are trying to be the Walmart of industry pricing, but also with a better level of service,” Clark says, adding that the company has no desire to be a consumer play.
Competitors would include the Evolve Vacation Network, which provides some similar services to owners, and also offers rentals to consumers.
Clark says mobile abilities play a vital role in providing services to owners, as well as guests.
TurnKeyVR uses a “mobile dispatch system” to contract with local plumbers and cleaning services for owners, and on the consumer end, TurnKeyVR offers iPhone and Android apps that provide guests with information such as directions to the property and area attractions.
After booking, guests recieve an invitation to download the app, which also includes the unlock code to enter the vacation home.
Asked what attracted the investors, Clark says they realize that vacation rentals are a booming arena, and that there is great opportunity to improve the management and guest experience.
TurnkeyVR is currently operational in Austin — in HomeAway’s backyard — and will expand from there, Clark says.
TurnKeyVR co-founder Banczak, like Clark, has Hotwire on his resume. Banczak ran airline, car rental and global distribution system operations at Hotwire.
But, more importantly, Banczak was president of BedandBreakfast.com when HomeAway acquired it in 2010, and then joined HomeAway, where he managed the software for professionally property managers, overseeing HomeAway’s acquisitions of Instant Software and Escapia.
Banczak left HomeAway about a year-and-a-half ago. http://skift.com/2013/08/13/vacation-rental-startup-gets-1-5-million-in-funding-from-all-star-investors/
Email Subject Lines: 8 Tips for Getting your Emails Opened
By Amy Hinote, NAVIS
The Subject line of your email campaign is the first thing your reader sees and can mean the difference between being read and being dumped.
There are other factors which affect open rates, such as:
- List quality
- Frequency
- Sender
- Nature of the message
However, the Subject line can make or break your email effectiveness. Here are 8 tips for writing successful subject lines.
1. Keep it short.
Keep your subject lines simple, to the point and under 50 characters.
2. Don’t be vague.
Tell your reader exactly what is in the email.
3. What is in it for them?
Provide the reader with a reason to explore your message further. Choose clarity over cleverness.
4. Do not use these words.
Most marketers know words such as “free” trigger spam filters, but recently email service provider MailChimp published the results of their study on the relationship between open rates and subject lines, analyzing the open rates for over 200 million emails. The study found a negative open rate correlation with the following words:
- Help
- Percent off
- Reminder
Email solutions provider iContact published a more expansive list of words not to use in your Subject line:
5. Keep it local, not personal.
The MailChimp study also found personalization, such as including a recipient’s first name or last name, did not significantly improve open rates. However, providing localization, such as including a city or region, had a positive impact.
6. Avoid newsletter drop-off.
When you first begin sending a newsletter, open rates can be attractive. However, according to the study, all newsletters experience some reduction over time. If you send a newsletter to your guests, keep content new and relevant, and change the subject line.
“While it is important to establish continuity and branding in a newsletter, ideally each new campaign should provide a clear indication in the subject line of what is inside this newsletter that is of interest.”-MailChimp
7. Tone down promotional emails.
As in any other medium, promotional emails don’t perform as well as emails where the reader has a “high level of emotional affinity or expects valuable and timely information.”
- No exclamation points!
- No ALL CAPS
- No splashy promotional phrases
Tip: “Subject lines framed as questions can often perform better…Vague teasers, constant reminders, and pleas for money are not going to cut through the inbox clutter. When it comes to subject lines, don’t sell what’s inside. Tell what’s inside.”
8. Take the time to test.
Even though the tips above are known as general best practices in Subject line composition, by testing you will learn what resonates well with your particular guests.
One way to test is to divide your list in half, with half receiving one subject line and the other half receiving the second subject line. The results are then applied to future subject line creation (i.e. some audiences engage better with subject lines that are more catchy and clever than those that are to-the-point).
Another way to test is to send two subject lines at the same time to a portion of the list (maybe ¼). 24-48 hours later, you will know which subject line was more successful and can send to the remaining ¾ of your list with the winning subject line.
Here is a helpful infographic from Autoloop demonstrating some of the tips referenced above.
Emerald Grande Boosts Voice Conversions 20%, Raises ADR with Sales Training, Caller Demographic Data
August 1, 2013 – Emerald Grande at HarborWalk Village is a Gulf front destination in Destin, Florida, but it is not your average beach resort. Emerald Grande is a luxury condominium hotel with an inventory of mostly three or four bedroom units that delivers a $500 in-season ADR. Its multiple room types, amenities, and high nightly rate add up to a complex leisure reservation sales process. To maximize the resort’s high revenue potential, Chief Operating Officer, Bruce Craul took action two years ago to develop a world class sales team for his world class property.
Voice: the high-revenue booking channel
“Our reservation staff is great, but I am always looking for ways to improve processes and increase revenue,” Craul said. “Like most high-value leisure properties, voice is our major booking channel. Guests check us out online, but they call the property to finalize a booking decision for a $3,500 vacation at Emerald Grande. We get lots of inquiries. It was clear that if our reservation team could convert more calls, it would make a big difference on the bottom line.” Craul selected NAVIS, a reservation sales system company, to implement its comprehensive sales optimization program.
Reservation sales training boosts Emerald Grande’s revenue 10% – 20%
“NAVIS specializes in phone reservation sales optimization,” Craul said. “They trained our reservation managers in professional sales skills, installed phone system technology that displays caller demographics and provides call recording, created an out-bound call program, and they monitor our monthly conversion scores to track performance. Each agent owns their account and is incented to close the business. The program was comprehensive – and effective. We have a 10% – 20% revenue improvement with their sales processes depending on the time of year.”
The Navis System records all calls between the Emerald Grande’s reservations staff and the callers. Management reviews each one to refine sales ability and improve conversion rate scores. “This is the most sophisticated reservation optimization process in the industry,” Craul said. “Our team developed the skill to close more than 35% of all inbound calls. We would convert even more business, but often we don’t have the availability and have to issue a regret.” Craul said the NAVIS’ sales reporting lets him know more about what is going on with his business to make decisions based on solid information.
105% revenue growth with fewer rooms
The resort turned over 17 units to Wyndham Vacation Club in 2012, but Emerald Grande increased its revenue despite the smaller inventory. “In the past year we lost 510 room nights to Wyndham, but still made 105% of the previous year’s revenue. We could not have done this without NAVIS.” Emerald Grande also initiated a highly effective outbound call program to follow up on reservation inquiries. Craul said, “When someone calls for information, NAVIS’ system displays the caller’s phone number and other information. Their team trained us in out-bound lead follow up and the caller information creates a data-rich lead to develop. Our outbound calls generate a huge amount of revenue simply by following up on inquiries that did not commit on their first call.”
Craul explained that staff training was an integral part of the NAVIS system at Emerald Grande and that his team took the sales classes to heart. “I watched our reservations people become sales professionals, real closers. NAVIS showed our team how to build a relationship with each caller and make them want to come here. They ask questions about the caller’s family and their favorite activities, and match our offering with what is valuable to them. On the technology side, NAVIS provided our reservations agents with a second screen on their desk that displays each caller’s location, demographics, socio economic profile, and phone number. This helps us know our callers better, provide better service, and it sets the stage for our outbound sales effort.”
“We are a luxury leisure resort and voice channel continues to be the primary revenue source,” said Craul. “Our decision to invest in a program to make our call center processes more sales-focused and our reservation team more professional was a good one. The ROI on this decision was very fast.” Click here to learn more about NAVIS’ reservations sales system.
Way to Go! Glad to Have You Announces Company Milestone with Guest Management System for Hospitality Industry
July 14, 2013 –Glad to Have You™, the leading provider of mobile hospitality and guest management solutions, recently announced it surpassed 250 customers using its Guest Management System™ as of July 2013.
“This is an incredible milestone for our company,” said Glad to Have You™ Co-CEO Jason Sprenkle. “For over a year we have worked diligently to provide our clients with the tools and resources they need to successfully manage their properties and guests.”
“It’s a passionate community of people. They’re loving what we do,” Sprenkle said. “We are excited about our clients embracing Glad to Have You™ as we continue to use the latest technology, simple user friendly designs, and a guest-centric attitude to quickly and continuously improve the hospitality experience.”
The Glad to Have You™ Guest Management System™ allows companies to more efficiently manage their guest and property information, while providing guests with an easier, more informed and overall more enjoyable travel experience. The solution was recently featured in a HomeAway® Partner Case Study proving to save 260 work hours over a one-year period for client Beachfront Only Vacation Rentals based in California.
“I was impressed with the GTHY team and the ease of setup and implementation,” said Beachfront Only Marketing Director Jennifer Sipe. “GTHY is so easy to use, it’s flexible, and everything is real-time. If I have an idea or suggestion, the software can either most likely already do it, or the GTHY team will make it happen.”
In addition to its base Guest Management System™, which includes white label mobile applications, guest specific content delivery, and guest communication and remarketing tools, Glad to Have You™ will soon release its newest product called gladRESPONDER™. gladRESPONDER™ is an innovative guest inquiry auto responder which produces more bookings with less work. At about the same time, Glad to Have You™ plans to release a new interface with BeHome247, Inc., a leader in home access and automation control. This partnership will create an enterprise solution for the vacation rental industry that will change the way property managers manage access and energy control. It will provide property managers and their guests real-time access to their rental units from anywhere in the world and the ability to automate much of what is done manually now.
Meet Glad to Have You™ at these upcoming events and conferences:
- Rezfest 2013, Las Vegas, NV – Sept 24-26, 2013
- VRMA, Nashville, TN – Oct 20-23, 2013
- SMS/HUG, Vail, CO – Nov 3-7, 2013
For more information on Glad to Have You™, please visit http://www.gladtohaveyou.com
About Glad to Have You
Glad to Have You™ believes in helping hospitality companies provide a better overall guest experience with improved operational efficiency using the latest technology, simple user-friendly designs, and a guest-centric attitude. Simply put, Glad to Have You™ makes great software that makes hospitality professionals lives easier and improves the guest’s stay.
Chicago Suburb Allows Vacation Rentals with Regulations
Aldermen OK vacation rental rules on 5-4 vote
Submitted by Bill Smith on Wednesday, June 12, 2013, at 10:19 am
Evanston aldermen gave final approval this week to a revised plan to license short-term rentals.
What started last fall as a demand from neighbors of one property on Ashland Avenue near Ryan Field that vacation rentals be completely banned, ended up as a much more limited set of restrictions.
Many of the changes were proposed by Alderman Don Wilson, 4th Ward, who at Monday night’s meeting won approval to change the ordinance’s wording to let homeowners rent their properties once a year for a period shorter than a month without requiring any city oversight.
In addition, short-term rentals would be permitted without a license in connection with a contract to sell the property and in the case of persons displaced while their own home was being repaired.
People who want to rent out their property for periods of less than a month more than once a year will be required to seek a license.
Gaining the initial license will require providing notice to neighbors and winning approval from the City Council.
Annual license renewals would generally be handled by city staff. The license will also require payment of a $50 annual fee.
Alderman Coleen Burrus, 9th Ward, was among those voting against the ordinance. She said the measure was “trying to fix things that aren’t broken” and that “people will find ways around it.”
In addition to Wilson and Burrus, aldermen Delores Holmes, 5th Ward, and Mark Tendam, 6th Ward, voted against the measure.
Trent Blizzard shows how to turbocharge your reviews with “rich snippets”
Turbocharge Your Reviews With Rich Snippets
Adding reviews to your vacation rental web pages is a slam-dunk. Consumers love them, plain and simple. Reviews have several key benefits, they:
- Improve your “dwell time” (the time consumers stay on your page after clicking on it in a search engine)
- Improve your conversion rate (According to Revoo, reviews cause an 18% uplift in sales)
- Improve your credibility and engagement.
- Add fresh and new content to your pages.
While adding reviews to your website is an important step, coding them as “rich snippets” is what really turbocharges them. The key difference is that a rich snippet actually shows your reviews right in your search results:
- Makes your results stand out in search engines
- Increase the CTR Click-Thru-Rate when you do show up in search (10-20% according to Distilled)
Can you spot the webpage that uses rich snippets below? Would you be more likely to click on it?
A review on your website may look like this:
Harborview Condo
by Trent Blizzard on February 15, 2013
“This is a beautifully decorated condo. It was very clean and
had a nice view of the harbor.”
But, look below at how the review can coded in your html, helping Google see the “data” within the review:
The example above is a very simple one and depending upon your situation many more data elements can be added to the review. I used Schema Creator to create the code above. You will most certainly want to consult with your webmaster on how best to code your reviews for maximum effect.
After you code your reviews, make sure you use the Google Structured Data Testing tool to preview what your review will look like in Google. Here is a screenshot of…Read More
Looks Matter: Housekeeping That Meets Expectations
The beautiful drive along the waterfront to get to your place. The delicious bakery down the street. The musty smell that kept them awake at night because your carpets needed to be cleaned.
Your vacation rental plays a leading role in your guests’ holiday, and its cleanliness is something many will never notice – unless you miss the mark.
Don’t let stained floors and funky smells turn into lasting memories by keeping housekeeping and maintenance near the top of your priority list!
Just how important is housekeeping?
A recent survey by J.D. Power and Associates found that housekeeping basics – cleanliness, room smell, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning – are among the top complaints for hotel visitors (behind Internet access, noise, and maintenance issues).
Hotel-goers may have different expectations than your renters, but this is not an area where anyone is likely to compromise. There’s a reason why “cleanliness” is one of the criteria on vacation rental review sites; Flipkey highlights clean, safe and economical as essentials that can earn a glowing review for even a low-frills, one-star space.
Protect your reputation
Different environments offer their own challenges, like humidity, dust or wildlife. However, any traveler who has found mold thriving in the bathroom or one-too-many ants parading around the kitchen can testify that there’s a fine line between what “goes with the territory” and what will come across as neglect.
Amplifying any of these oversights, today’s web-savvy vacationers also won’t hesitate to tell others what they’ve encountered.
“Doesn’t show any pride of ownership,” said one unhappy reviewer about a home on FlipKey.
“…some great art on the walls but the glass is so dirty you can’t enjoy them,” a TripAdvisor reviewer gently prodded on another home.
“Would rent again if the carpet were replaced with tile,” another suggested.
Meeting expectations
How can you ensure you meet expectations and protect your home from featuring in holiday horror stories? Commit to a regular routine that keeps your vacation home looks good inside and out.
Don’t neglect curb appeal. “Curb appeal” isn’t just for real estate listings! Your vacation rental doesn’t need to be on the garden tour circuit, but its external appearance shouldn’t be ignored, either. Regularly-trimmed lawn, mildew-free sidewalks and pressure-washed siding are among the simple maintenance tasks that make a good impression when people arrive on your doorstep.
Always check the basics. Floors, surfaces and other visible areas should be clean on arrival. Before new guests arrive, ensure someone does a good walk-through; if you spot dirt or a burned-out lightbulb, take care of it right away. If you come across something that requires professional attention, take care of the problem as soon as possible.
Don’t forget the behind-the-scenes stuff. There are less visible cleaning jobs, like changing furnace filters and washing all blankets and comforters, that should be done on a regular basis.
Take advantage of your marketing efforts. If you’ve carefully staged a luxury rental, celebrate the details through the photos, testimonials and descriptions on your website. If rustic charm is the main draw, use those same things to highlight your style. Not only does this help set expectations, it also makes it easier to attract renters who want exactly what you have to offer.
Help your guests come prepared. Linens, dishes, and common household items (i.e. garbage bags, pots and pans) are often included with rental homes, while towels and toiletries may not be. Let your guests know ahead of time how to prepare so they won’t be caught off guard.
Don’t do it all at once. Touching up your vacation rental – inside and out – isn’t something you need to do every week. However, you do need to do maintenance or its good looks will start to fail. At least once a year, work your way through this cleaning and maintenance checklist to keep your home and property looking their best.
When things go wrong
Even with the best of intentions, there’s a good chance something will go wrong at some point: A light bulb might burn out when neither you nor your caretaker are on-hand to fix it, or you might not notice a new stain on the floor.
If this happens, respond as soon as the issue is brought to your attention. People generally just want to know someone is listening, so your quick acknowledgment will go a long way to reduce any negative feelings.
If the problem is aired through a review site, take a deep breath and consider your best response. Remember that both the reviewer – and review readers – want to know that you’re paying attention and that you care.
It takes time and energy to keep your vacation rental looking its best, but the investment is worth it. A clean and well maintained property ensures your renters enjoy a smooth vacation and protects your reputation for future visitors.
By Erin Colbert
About MyVR
Founded in 2011, MyVR is a vacation rental website builder and marketing software provider. MyVR was started by a team of seasoned entrepreneurs who wanted to use their depth of experience in marketing and lead generation to simplify the marketing of their own vacation rentals. MyVR completed the Y Combinator incubator program in March, 2012 and raised a $1.4 million seed round from numerous, prominent Silicon Valley investors, including SV Angel, Chris Dixon, Paul Buchheit, Clem Bason, and others.
Airbnb now allows hosts/managers to sell activities, services and tours in addition to short-term rentals
May 1, 2013 — Recently, Airbnb has adapted its business model to include sales of tours, activities and services in addition to short-term rentals.
The upselling of concierge-type services to guests is not new to vacation rental managers, but has not been a part of the distribution portal offering until now. For vacation rental managers who generate ancillary revenue from services, the ability to sell their activities and services on 3rd party distribution sites is potentially advantageous, as it promotes the comprehensive offering provided by a professional manager.
Airbnb’s official response:
“Since launch we have seen people use Airbnb in many different and unique ways.
“Whilst providing hosts a platform to rent out their spare space and travellers a way to book it remains our core offering, we don’t want to discourage anything that provides more meaningful trips and better travel experiences for our community.”
However, as Barefoot Technologies recently referenced in their blog Homeaway Tightens the VRBO Noose on Property Managers, these channels are quickly providing individual owners easy, affordable ways to compete with the added-value services of professional property managers.
Over the last few years, individual home owners have gained access to technology and resources which help in self-management: Housekeeping/maintenance tracking, keyless entry, effective marketing channels, channel management systems, calendar management tools, affordable websites with online booking, credit card processing services, email management and travel insurance resources.
Yet, two resources which have not been handed to individual homeowners on a silver platter are: time and teleportation. Each of the tools mentioned above requires time to set up, maintain, monitor and implement. Not every homeowner has or wants to redirect his/her time to manage all the tools needed to effectively manage a rental like a pro.
And at the end of the day, the owner who lives away from his/her rental cannot teleport and magically appear at the rental if there is a problem.
When Airbnb announces its offering of time and teleportation to individual homeowners, professional property managers should start to worry.
By Amy Hinote
Bookt Names Matthew Hoffman Senior Vice President of Sales
Key Appointment Completes Global Leadership Team for Cloud Based Travel Software Firm
HOLLYWOOD, FL, April, 2013 – Bookt LLC, an innovator in cloud-based lodging technology, today announced the promotion of Matthew Hoffman to head-up and drive the company’s worldwide sales program, including responsibility for InstaSites – the vacation and short-term rental industry’s first mobile, social, global web solution specifically for rental professionals.
“Matt is a rock star!” said Bookt’s CEO Rob Käll. “Since he joined us two years ago our sales have quadrupled, and our surest measure of success – the number of nights our clients book per month has increased more than tenfold. Bookt’s cloud-based InstaManager App and Booking Engine drive revenue, manage resources, and provide business control for savvy lodging companies worldwide. The Short-Term Rental category is one of the fastest growing segments of travel. InstaManager makes it easy and affordable to get started.”
“Matt has three qualities I always look for,” Käll added. “He has a sharp analytical mind with an innate ability to quantify business activities and augment them for optimal output. Next, he has fantastic natural leadership abilities. Lastly he has shown a tremendous interest in becoming a resource for the short-term rental industry by serving on the Board of Directors for the Florida Vacation Rental Managers Association and sharing his wisdom, data, trends, and news openly with our industry. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @VR_Success.”
Bookt has announced an aggressive international growth plan and Hoffman will lead the sales effort with a goal of another tenfold increase in global clients and transactions by the end of 2015 via the InstaManager App, pioneered in 2011 as part of the game changing $1 Switch. InstaManager features powerful short-term rental manager software with tailored marketing distribution channels through TripAdvisor, HomeAway and others. With Matt Hoffman’s promotion and continual rollout of breakthroughs from InstaManager’s exclusive VR Labs, Bookt continues to gain market share and lead in the lodging technology space.
About Bookt
Bookt is a leader in cloud based services for the lodging industry. Our vacation holiday rental manager clients, called InstaManagers, compete on 6 Continents and in 85+ Countries with Millions of Vacation Rental Nights Booked via the Bookt system. More information is available at www.instamanager.com or contact info@bookt.com. Here are User Reviews from global InstaManagers.
How to Increase Your Bookings with Portals
If you have a successful vacation rental agency or you’re a hard working vacation rental owner, you might wonder if your own vacation rental website and marketing efforts will be enough on their own to deliver the bookings that you strive for. Large-scale Online Travel Agencies (OTA) and vacation rental listing portal sites are an excellent way of driving more traffic volume to your properties and getting more bookings, all the while saving a lot of time and money in the marketing process, too.
Portals Have Large Marketing Budgets
One great advantage of portals is that they have huge marketing budgets, which mean they can bid on expensive short-tail keywords through Google Adwords, spend thousands on user experience and optimization and have huge sales teams to convert more bookings for your vacation rentals. They are a vital part of the online ecosystem; if you’re a medium-sized agency in Paris, for example, broad search phrases like “holiday in Paris” is going to prove very expensive, but if you list with Booking.com, for example, you can appear for this phrase through your listings with them.
It’s also worth looking at indirect competitors. Take the hotel industry; brands like the Accor group still advertise their hotels on Booking.com and hotels.com, even though they possess huge marketing teams with large budgets. This is because they see the value of reaching new markets and bringing in customers that they have no other means to reach; many portals also have huge, loyal user bases.
Build Your Referral List
Portals are also useful to expand your database. If you get inquiries from sites like HolidayLettings and HomeAway, you can use these email addresses to market-to again in the future with new deals and your best prices. Portals like these make an excellent way for agencies and owners to expand their database rapidly and effortlessly.
Portals Can Be Cost-Effective
Portals can also prove very cost-effective. Sites like HouseTrip and Only Apartments are actually free to list, they just add a small commission on to your existing prices and keep the difference, meaning that you take 100% of the booking value and don’t lose any commission. So not only do they expand your marketing reach and bring more bookings, they are also very cost effective, and in some cases completely free of charge.
As these sites get larger and larger, consumer behavior is also changing. Sites like Booking.com have become the site for hotel searches, with users searching for that site specifically before going on to book. Equally, TripAdvisor is also in a similar position of being a ‘one-stop-shop’ for reviews, a vital touch-point in the buying process. So as consumers become more habitual in their buying behavior online, it’s important to get visibility on as many sites as possible, and portals are the optimum choice to do just that.
The above points are just some of the reasons why listing and advertising on portal sites are a good idea; they are a cost effective way to reach new customers and explore new markets, while expanding your own marketing database and maximizing your online visibility. They can save you time, money and effort, while bringing a wealth of new bookings and customers.
Guest post by Anthony Dodd, Channel Relationship Manager at Kigo Vacation Rental Software.
Bookt Releases Revolutionary New Mobile Vacation Rental Technology
InstaSites Are Most Advanced Short-Term Rental Booking Solution for Today’s Mobile, Global and Social World
Bookt LLC, an innovator in cloud-based lodging technology, today announced the worldwide launch of InstaSites – the industry’s first mobile, social, global web solution specifically for vacation rental professionals.
“You would never bring a knife to a gun fight, but that’s unfortunately what lots of vacation rental managers do today,” said Bookt’s CEO Rob Käll at a recent industry event. The Short-Term Rental category is one of the fastest growing segments of travel. While new companies like Airbnb.com have mastered the user experience of booking a unit directly from an owner, the majority of Vacation Rentals nights are booked through agencies and management companies. Most of them have woefully inadequate online booking solutions. “Over 30% of people shopping for a vacation today are using a mobile device and they will go somewhere else when your site does not showcase your units well.”
“InstaSites represent a breakthrough.” said Matt Hoffman, VP of Sales at Bookt. “Beyond mobile support and a fast, easy and secure booking engine that is PCI compliant, we also carefully considered the context of the booker, like: How much will the cost be in US dollars, if booking an overseas unit? How close will I be to popular attractions? How easy can I share this info with my friends, and how can I validate this accommodation through other people’s user reviews? ”. Hoffman concluded, “And the sites just look great, with large beautiful images that immediately evoke an emotional response with the guest!”
“Nothing is more gratifying than providing our demanding client base with technology that knocks their socks off,” said Ben Strum, Bookt’s CTO. According to Strum, “InstaSites have many new innovations like 1) responsive design that automatically adapts to the user’s device; 2) continuous visitor data collection that feeds Bookt’s ground breaking ‘Lead Insight’ technology; and 3) a content delivery system, rolled out in partnership with Amazon.com, that makes sure that a user visits a site with engaging, fast downloading images and videos, regardless where in the world they access it.” Strum added, “We have also made sure that the site is easy to edit and very expandable by basing it on the popular WordPress open source technology.”
InstaSites get their name from their ease of launch – a mobile web solution that you can get up and running, virtually instantaneously – and that the site is tied straight into the back office of the InstaManager App, pioneered in 2011 as part of the game changing $1 Switch. InstaManager features powerful vacation rental manager software with tailored marketing distribution channels through TripAdvisor, HomeAway and others. With the introduction of InstaSites and continual rollout of breakthroughs from InstaManager’s exclusive VR Labs, Bookt continues to gain market share in the lodging technology space.
About Bookt
Bookt is a leader in cloud based services for the lodging industry. Our vacation holiday rental manager clients, called InstaManagers, compete on 6 Continents and in 85+ Countries with Millions of Vacation Rental Nights Booked via the Bookt system. Bookt’s cloud based platform directly drives revenue, manages resources, and provides business control for savvy lodging companies and managers worldwide. More information is available at www.instamanager.com or contact info@bookt.com. Here are User Reviews from global InstaManagers.
10 Books Vacation Rental Management Execs Recommend Which Have Helped Their Success
April 12, 2013 –VRMA’s Regional Western Conference in Westminster, CO, was an excellent resource for education, information, trends and networking (and maybe a little fun). I was fortunate enough to spend several hours listening to VRM executives discuss their businesses and the challenges they face. In this roundtable session, facilitated by Navis CEO Kyle Buehner, an interesting subject came up about books which have motivated and inspired these top tier vacation rental entrepreneurs to push past their competition and succeed in the industry.
1. Good To Great -by Jim Collins
Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world’s greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. Also recommended: Collins’s Built to Last
2. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You -by Jim Maxwell
If you’ve never read The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, you’ve been missing out on one of the best-selling leadership books of all time. If you have read the original version, then you’ll love this new expanded and updated one.
Internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker, and author John C. Maxwell has taken this million-seller and made it even better:
- Every Law of Leadership has been sharpened and updated
- Seventeen new leadership stories are included
- Two new Laws of Leadership are introduced
- New evaluation tool will reveal your leadership strengths—and weaknesses
- New application exercises in every chapter will help you grow
3. Eat That Frog -by Brian Tracy
The legendary Eat That Frog! provides the 21 most effective methods for conquering procrastination and accomplishing more. This new edition is revised and updated throughout, and includes brand new information on how to keep technology from dominating our time.
4. The Great Game of Business -by Jack Stack and Bo Burlingham
In the early 1980s, Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation (SRC) in Springfield, Missouri, was a near bankrupt division of International Harvester. That’s when a green young manager, Jack Stack, took over and turned it around. He didn’t know how to “manage” a company, but he did know about the principal, of athletic competition and democracy: keeping score, having fun, playing fair, providing choice, and having a voice. With these principals he created his own style of management — open-book management.
5. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently -by Marcus Buckingham
The greatest managers in the world seem to have little in common. They differ in sex, age, and race. They employ vastly different styles and focus on different goals. Yet despite their differences, great managers share one common trait: They do not hesitate to break virtually every rule held sacred by conventional wisdom. They do not believe that, with enough training, a person can achieve anything he sets his mind to. They do not try to help people overcome their weaknesses. They consistently disregard the golden rule. And, yes, they even play favorites. This amazing book explains why.
6. Great by Choice Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All -by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen
Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns withanother groundbreaking work, this time to ask: why do some companies thrive inuncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research,buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins andhis colleague Morten Hansen enumerate the principles for building a truly greatenterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous and fast-moving times. This book isclassic Collins: contrarian, data-driven and uplifting.
7. Double Your Profits: In Six Months or Less -by Bob Fifer
One of the nations’ foremost financial consultants shares 78 proven ways to cut costs dramatically, send productivity through the roof, and, in just six months, double profits.
8. Rework -by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Read it and you’ll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don’t need outside investors, and why you’re better off ignoring the competition. The truth is, you need less than you think. You don’t need to be a workaholic. You don’t need to staff up. You don’t need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don’t even need an office. Those are all just excuses.
What you really need to do is stop talking and start working. This book shows you the way. You’ll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you.
With its straightforward language and easy-is-better approach, Rework is the perfect playbook for anyone who’s ever dreamed of doing it on their own. Hardcore entrepreneurs, small-business owners, people stuck in day jobs they hate, victims of “downsizing,” and artists who don’t want to starve anymore will all find valuable guidance in these pages.
9. Delivering Happiness -by Tony Hsieh
The hip, iconoclastic CEO of Zappos shows how a different kind of corporate culture can make a huge difference in achieving remarkable results — by actually creating a company culture that values happiness –and then delivers on it.
- Pay brand-new employees $2,000 to quit
- Make customer service the responsibility of the entire company-not just a department
- Focus on company culture as the #1 priority
- Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business
- Help employees grow-both personally and professionally
10. Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success: Building Blocks For a Better Life -By John Wooden
Legendary college basketball coach John Wooden and Jay Carty know that when it comes down to it, success is an equal opportunity player. Anyone can create it in his or her career, family and beyond. Based on John Wooden’s own method to victory, Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success reveals that success is built block by block, where each block is a crucial principle contributing to life-long achievement in every area of life. Each of these 32 daily readings takes an in-depth look at a single block of the pyramid, which when combined with the other blocks forms the structure of the pyramid of success. Join John Wooden and Jay Carty to discover the building blocks and key values—from confidence to faith—that have brought Coach to the pinnacle of success as a leader, a teacher and a follower of God.
You Must be Tripping! Metasearch for the Vacation Rental Industry
April 15, 2013 – Wondering where the Kayak for the vacation rental industry is? It is here and -surprisingly -has gone slightly under the radar for the professionally managed vacation rental industry. Tripping.com is a metasearch platform which allows vacationers to search and compare vacation rentals from multiple sites in one, easy-to-use website. 
Based in San Francisco, Tripping.com was founded by tech industry veterans from Expedia, Travelzoo and StubHub, and is a rising star in today’s vacation rental marketplace. The rentals on Tripping.com come from top vacation rental sites such as HomeAway, FlipKey, and Wimdu, just to name a few.
Former StubHub executive Jen O’Neal created Tripping.com out of her passion for travel and using her technology and business background to solve the needs of travelers around the world like herself. Founded in 2010, Tripping.com now gives vacationers access to over 850,000 vacation homes and is the largest direct aggregator of short-term rentals.
“By offering the full spectrum of home rental options, we’re giving travelers an easy way to stay in local neighborhoods and experience local culture,” said Founder and CEO Jen O’Neal. “We’re focused on bringing together the best selection of home rentals so all travelers – whether they’re backpackers, business execs, honeymooners or retirees – can find the perfect place to stay.”
As a metasearch platform, Tripping.com is a gem for guests trying to navigate the complex world of vacation homes, but the site offers much more. Tripping.com also has a robust social component with a community of travelers from 175 countries. This community offers a safe and easy way to engage in cultural exchange by connecting travelers and locals for coffee, conversation and free homestays around the world with the goal of transforming trips into meaningful, life-changing experiences.
With a huge attention to the user experience, a solid strategy of letting the consumer steer its viral growth, and access to over 850,00 vacation homes, Tripping.com is truly a game-changer in the vacation rental industry and a company to watch closely in the coming months.
Part One: A Look Back at How the Marketing and Competitive Landscape Has Changed for Vacation Rental Managers
Measuring Performance for Vacation Rental Management Companies
Part One: A Look Back at How the Marketing and Competitive Landscape Has Changed for Vacation Rental Managers
For vacation rental managers who have been around long enough to remember an offline life, the marketing of vacation rentals “ain’t what it used to be.”
An office on the strip, branded signs on the homes, and a rental brochure were enough to light up the phones on January 1st, with vacationers trying to secure their favorite house for one of the few weeks of the season.
But change is inevitable, and the sales and marketing of vacation rentals is no different. The first part of this series of articles takes a brief look back at some of these changes and how they impact the determination of key performance indicators for today’s vacation rental management article.
General History of Vacation Rentals
After World War II, in Europe, a vacation system became popular which involved “vacation home sharing,” also known as “holiday home sharing.” European families would buy a vacation cottage/villa jointly and have exclusive use of the property for one of the four seasons. They rotated seasons so each family enjoyed the prime seasons equally. This concept was mostly utilized by families related to each other because of the trust factor involved in joint ownership and no property manager.
However, few families vacationed for an entire season at a time so owners found ways to monetize vacant periods, leading to the birth of the vacation rental and timeshare markets we know today.
The idea of vacationing in homes became widely accepted in the United States in the 1960’s. By the 1970’s and early 1980’s many property management companies emerged, largely as a by-product of real estate companies identifying additional revenue streams and securing client loyalty.
Interestingly, the first timeshare in the United States was started in 1974 by Caribbean International Corp., offering a 25-year “vacation license” rather than ownership.
Traditional Professional Property Management
Professional Property Managers initially offered comprehensive, full-scale services to vacation home owners, including but not limited to:
- Accounting
- Reporting
- Marketing
- Reservations
- Maintenance and Services
- Furnishing Services
- Local Check-in/Check-out
- Local Assistance
- Housekeeping
- Guest Services
- Real Estate Services and Accounting
As technology progressed in the early to mid 1980’s, vacation-rental-specific property management systems were created to help VRMs manage these services, including Resort Data Processing (RDP) and AV Main (FRS). AV Main creator First Resort Software was instrumental in bringing VRMs together with the first user conference called “The Forum,” which later became known as RezFest after Instant Software’s acquisition of the company.
In 1985, the Vacation Rental Managers Association (VRMA) was founded, and ten vacation rental managers gathered in Lake Tahoe for the first Annual Conference, which featured sessions on marketing and advertising and a presentation from the California Department of Real Estate. The industry expanded rapidly.
By the mid 1990’s, the internet as a vacation planning tool began to transform VRMs, vacation rental websites with online booking components began to appear around the country, and web-based software developed.
However, many vacation destinations were located in areas with unreliable internet connections, so technology growth was sluggish. In addition, adoption of new software was painful and creating a successful online presence was costly. Consequently, the road was paved for 3rd party channels to sell and market vacation rental properties online.
Changing Marketing/Competitive Landscape
In recent years, the traditional Vacation Rental Management Company (VRM) has seen considerable changes in the competitive landscape:
- The impact of 3rd party websites
From 1995 until 2008, multiple 3rd party vacation rental websites were born. However, during this period, the only 3rd party website causing disruptive competition for the traditional VRM was HomeAway’s VRBO.
Learning to navigate a distribution strategy related to VRBO.com was faced by VRMs with varying levels of success and angst. Many chose to place their own professionally managed properties alongside for-rent-by-owner properties on VRBO.com causing a consequential expansion of the source of competition. Other VRMs chose to pour their marketing dollars into heavy SEO/SEM initiatives to compete head-to-head with VRBO.com.
Simultaneously, TripAdvisor began compiling reviews which worried many VRMs who at the time lacked the ability to adequately respond to negative comments.
With the real estate market collapse, the number of rentals available to consumers increased; with easy access online marketing outlets, the number of rent-by-owner properties grew exponentially; and with double digit industry growth, the investment community got on board.
In 2008, TripAdvisor’s took a majority stake in Flipkey, HomeAway raised $250 million in capital, the 3rd party website competition began to increase, and new 3rd party websites were born. Some of these include Airbnb (with a current $2.5 billion valuation), HouseTrip (just received $40m in capital), and the metasearch platform by StubHub execs Tripping.com.
By 2013, the vast majority of VRMs have adopted:
1. A marketing strategy which incorporates 3rd party channels.
2. An operational strategy which handles inquiries and bookings from distribution channels.
3. A guest relationship strategy which converts one-time guests into long-term customers.
- Search engine results
As vacationers turned to the search engines to plan their vacations, it became extremely important for VRMs to dominate the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). SEO/SEM experts such as Blizzard Internet Marketing, Blue Tent Marketing, and Visual Data Systems began dominating the programming lineup of industry conferences with the latest and greatest tips to achieving a listing on page 1 of Google for “[Your destination here] Vacation Rentals”.
VRMs were able to compete with each other for coveted keywords and fight the Google battle with strategies and marketing budgets. As the search engine algorithms changed and the distribution channels started increasing in traffic and page rank, VRMs struggled to keep up online. The large VRMs have been able to retain beneficial presence in SERPs, but small to midsize companies in competitive markets have been forced to get more creative in their online marketing strategies, while new companies find themselves more reliant on third party distribution than on SEM.
- The increased competition from VRBO’s
Before technology and communications allowed remote management, vacation home owners were heavily reliant on VRMs to manage their properties. The full service approach was beneficial for property managers, home owners and guests which made the relationship a win-win-win for all.
The real estate collapse brought major changes to the vacation rental market place, bringing in thousands of homeowners who had not previously considered renting their homes. Airbnb was one conduit who capitalized on the phenomenon in major cities.
Christine Karpinski made Amazon’s Best Seller List with her book How to Rent Vacation Properties by Owner, which supplied would be owners with rental policy and confirmation templates, marketing strategies and tips on maintenance and housekeeping accountability.
Looking back on some the services which traditional VRMs offered, many tools became available to homeowners:
- Accounting and Reporting: QuickBooks Pro worked well for many VR owners, and there are services available which show owners how to use effectively.
- Marketing: Distribution channels (VRBO.com, Airbnb.com, HomeAway.com. HouseTrip.com, Flipkey.com, etc.) and low cost website building tools allowed homeowners to effectively market their properties.
- Local Check-in/Check-out: Keyless entry options became more advanced and affordable.
- Local Assistance: Companies with hybrid business models sprouted which allow fee based services such as 24/7 on call service, housekeeping, maintenance and reservations.
- Housekeeping: Housekeeping tracking services are available for owners.
In addition the distribution channels provide support, communities, forums, conferences, training, credit card processing and travel insurance options for VRBOs.
- Awareness of other destinations as vacation options
Among vacationers who utilize vacation homes, for many years the trend was to visit the same place year after year and establish family traditions. Vacations were often longer than a week, and it was typical to stay in the exact same home each year.
Developments in technology, transportation, communications, and the family composition allowed travelers to think outside the box about vacation choices. With more options to explore with the click of a mouse or the touch of a screen, destinations all over the world became accessible for vacationers.
However, for the same reasons, more travelers are finding and using vacation homes as a lodging option, and there is still substantial room for growth.
- Trends in 2013 and 2014
The competitive and marketing landscape is still shifting for VRMs, and the following trends are currently reshaping how traditional VRMs market to their owners and guests:
1. Mergers and acquisitions in the vacation rentals space (in management companies, technology and distribution channels)
2. Increasing online marketing costs for VRMs
3. Previously traditional timeshare inventory becoming available to the retail vacation rental market at lower rental rates
4. Emerging technology/tools becoming available to individual homeowners
5. An increased attention to data mining and usage
6. A surge in tools to manage the guest experience and remarket to the guest after their stay
Coming soon…Part 2: Metrics should be used to measure performance for a Vacation Rental Management Company
By Amy Hinote
Vacation Home Sales Continued To Rise In 2012
Vacation Home Sales Continued To Rise In 2012, With Median Sales Price Up For First Time Since 2009, According To New Research From HomeAway And National Association Of Realtors.
Buyers Attracted by Potential for Rental Income and Price Appreciation, and Skew Younger.
AUSTIN, Texas, April 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — The market for vacation home sales in 2012 showed continued signs of strength, with a 10 percent increase in sales from the prior year and a 24 percent increase in the median sales price, the first rise in three years, according to the 2013 Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey by the National Association of Realtors® (NAR).
As part of the survey, proprietary research commissioned by HomeAway, Inc. revealed 38 percent of vacation home buyers purchased a vacation property in 2012 primarily because of low real estate prices, which has grown 5 percentage points from 2011, while another 28 percent cited the desire for a family retreat.
According to the NAR survey, the median sales price experienced a rise for the first time since 2009, from $121,300 in 2011 to $150,000 in 2012, and the median buyer’s age was 47, with more buyers under age 45 entering the market.
Read the survey here
The survey also shows rental income still holds significant appeal for buyers of vacation homes. For nearly eight in 10 buyers (76%), rental income influenced their decision to buy last year, a 5 percentage point increase from 2011, and nearly all (92%) vacation home buyers plan to rent their property within the next 12 months to either long-term or short-term renters or a combination of the two. Approximately 60 percent of buyers believe they’ll make enough rental income to cover at least half of their mortgage.
Other vacation home buyers cited the following factors as the most important reason to take the plunge into vacation home ownership last year, according to the HomeAway® portion of the research:
— For future retirement (12%)
— Low mortgage rates (11%)
— Potential for price appreciation (7%)
— Other (4%)
“Although vacation homes prices are starting to rise, the cost is still incredibly affordable compared with prices 10 years ago,” says Brian Sharples, chief executive officer of HomeAway. “At the same time, the interest in vacation rentals by travelers in the United States remains strong, and the speed and ease with which owners can list and rent a home online has never been more favorable, making it the perfect time to consider the purchase of a vacation home.”
According to the NAR survey, 78 percent of vacation home buyers believe now is a good time to purchase real estate, and 27 percent say they purchased a vacation home in 2012 to use as a principal residence in the future, typically after retirement. Nearly half (46%) of buyers paid cash for their vacation homes last year, while slightly more than half took out a mortgage.
Of those buyers intending to rent their property, about 31 percent plan to make their vacation homes available for rent between one and eight weeks over the course of the next year; 36 percent plan to rent their properties between nine and 26 weeks per year; and 33 percent plan to rent their homes between 27 and 52 weeks per year.
Buyers aren’t limiting themselves to proximity to their primary homes when purchasing vacation homes. Nearly half (46%) of owners purchased vacation homes more than 500 miles from their primary residence.
By the Numbers:
Highlights from the NAR 2013 Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey
553,000 - Number of vacation homes sold in 2012
$150,000 - The median sales price of a vacation home in 2012, up 24% from 2011
46 - Percentage of vacation home buyers under the age of 45, up from 38% from 2011
$92,100 - Median household income of vacation home buyers
46 - Percentage of vacation home buyers who paid cash for their property
46 - Percentage of vacation home buyers who plan to own their property more than six years
29 - Percentage of vacation home buyers saying they are very or somewhat likely to buy another property within the next two years
About the National Association of Realtors 2013 Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey
NAR’s 2013 Investment and Vacation Home Buyers Survey, conducted in March 2013, includes answers from 2,326 usable responses about homes purchased in the United States during 2012. The survey controlled for age and income, based on information from the larger 2012 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, to limit any biases in the characteristics of respondents. As a subset of the survey, HomeAway, Inc. commissions proprietary questions from the portion of the respondents who have purchased vacation homes and investment homes.
About HomeAway, Inc.
HomeAway, Inc., based in Austin, Texas, the world’s leading online marketplace for the vacation rental industry, with sites representing over 711,000 paid listings of vacation rental homes in 171 countries. Through HomeAway, owners and property managers offer an extensive selection of vacation homes that provide travelers with memorable experiences and benefits, including more room to relax and added privacy, for less than the cost of traditional hotel accommodations. The company also makes it easy for vacation rental owners and property managers to advertise their properties and manage bookings online. The HomeAway portfolio includes the leading vacation rental websites HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com in the United States; HomeAway.co.uk and OwnersDirect.co.uk in the United Kingdom; HomeAway.de in Germany; Abritel.fr and Homelidays.com in France; HomeAway.es and Toprural.es in Spain; AlugueTemporada.com.br in Brazil; and HomeAway.com.au in Australia.
In addition, HomeAway operates BedandBreakfast.com, the most comprehensive global site for finding bed-and-breakfast properties, providing travelers with another source for unique lodging alternatives to chain hotels. For more information about HomeAway, please visit www.HomeAway.com.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:Adam Annen, HomeAway, Inc.512-505-1548 or aannen@homeaway.com
April 30 -May 1 –Housekeeping and Maintenance Seminar in San Diego
Designed for company owners, general managers, executive housekeepers, and housekeeping coordinators, this Housekeeping and Maintenance Seminar provides the latest news, up-to-date information and education to take your housekeeping department to the next level and give your company the ultimate competitive advantage.
Check out the agenda below. Space is limited to the first 80 attendees.
When: April 30 and May 1, 2013
Where: San Diego Hilton Mission Valley. You can book online or by calling 619-297-5466. Booking code PRH.
Times: Continental Breakfast each day 8:30am. Class starts at 9am
Cost: Prior to April 14, 2013: $210 per person. After April 14, $260 per person.
To Register: Go to www.proresort.net and click on the seminar tab at the top of the page.
Day One Agenda
8:30-9am Continental (included in fee). Come see old colleagues and meet new friends.
9am-Noon The Twelve Fundamentals of an Effective Housekeeping Program.
Everything you ever wanted to know about how to build an effective housekeeping department from standard setting, piece rates versus hourly, subs versus employees and so much more. All attendees will get the PowerPoint of the session as well as many supporting documents.Hold on tight-we go really fast through dozens of topics!!!
Noon to 1:15 Buffet luncheon as group (included in fee)
1:15-4:15 Effective and Profitable Maintenance Programs and How to Achieve Them.
Learn how to achieve “zero based workorders” and issues with many workorder systems. See scheduling alternatives you may never have considered. Want to develop a maintenance plan to offer your homeowners? We will be doing that and much more.
Day Two Agenda
8:30 to 9am Continental (Included in fee)
9am to Noon: Housekeeping from A to Z
Adding a housekeeper or a subcontractor? We will discuss all topics from recruiting to hiring- even how to interview a housekeeper or sub- and then equipping and training!! As well as what is legal and what is not. This session alone is worth the attendance fee.
Noon to 1:15 Buffet luncheon as group (included in fee)
1:15-4:15 Linen Systems
You may not have a laundry but if you provide linens your losses are probably too high. We will explore all 5 linen systems and the advantages and disadvantages of each as well as the ways shrinkage occurs and how we can plug those holes. Pack-making and distribution tips, guest use and abuse of linens and more!!!
Hosted by industry expert Steve Craig of Pro Resort, these seminars are fast-paced and never boring. Here are just a few comments from his recent “Dream” seminar in Orlando, FL:
• Jim Kitts, Owner, Carolina Beach Realty: “Thanks again for a great couple of days. Lots of info and lots to digest. I really feel that we walked away with a lot of helpful info. Now, the important part is putting it into motion, using what we learned.”
• Nita Decker¸Georgia Mountain: “OH my gosh loved loved loved it!!! We left with so much info. Thank you. We are very interested in talking with you about coming here to help our housekeeping department. Steve, thank you.”
• Miller Hawkins, Booe Realty: “Wow! What a conference! I cannot say anything but rave reviews from the past several days spent at your conference in Orlando. You did a remarkable job.”
Zipinion Launches Market Research Tool for Real Estate and Vacation Rentals
Austin, TX – March 29th, 2013 –Today Zipinion, a technology company with focuses in the market research and customer insight spaces, announced the release of its ground-breaking crowdsourced polling application. Real Estate and Vacation Rental Property Management companies, large and small, can now create an online poll/survey and get real-time feedback from a pool of over 500,000 respondents in just minutes. Zipinion’s platform is the fastest and most affordable way to ask questions and get valuable, reliable responses helping business make better decisions.
Zipinion is a valuable service offered to real estate sellers and vacation rental property managers giving immediate market research and customer insight regarding a specific topic of a poll. “Real estate professionals and vacation rental property managers are forced to make decisions every day for themselves and their clients, describes Zipinion’s GM/Partner Michael Gualano. Whether those decisions are internal marketing programs, graphic design, or how their client’s properties should be showcases online the choices are critical and detrimental to the bottom line.”
“Being a part of the online housing space since 2003 working with many of the top brokerages in the country and an early contributor of largest online vacation rental marketplace HomeAway Inc., I’ve been able to learn a lot about what RE and VR companies’ need. They’re require fast, effective and affordable results unlike what’s provided by traditional surveys and focus groups. We’re excited to announce Zipinion, which provides unbiased objective solutions that will literally reinvent how decisions are being made,” explains Michael.
With Zipinion, businesses gain access to a massive, on-line workforce of skilled workers who can complete tasks at remarkable speeds without sacrificing quality or accuracy. These tasks are questions that businesses ask to get instant crowdsourced feedback. Real estate brokerages and vacation rental property managers are providing this service to their customers, companies are using it to help with internal decisions and freelance individuals are taking advantage proving Zipinion can be used by any size organization.
Zipinion’s platform could be potentially disruptive to current consumer feedback industry. Traditional surveys and focus groups are expensive and slow. Zipinion makes external objective feedback fast, easy and affordable.
ABOUT ZIPINION
Zipinion is the fastest and most affordable way to get independent objective feedback. Simply upload your concept and watch the feedback stream in. You’ll get 100 objective opinions sourced from a pool of over 500,000 people in just minutes. It’s that easy, so don’t make decisions without getting Zipinions. For more information and samples, visit www.zipinion.com.
“Provide Wireless Access to Business Systems??” By Tom K
By Tom K
I don’t recommend that you provide wireless access to your Business Systems… unless there is a definite business requirement and no other alternatives.
But if you REALLY NEED to provide wireless access to your Business Network, in this month’s newsletter I discuss potential pitfalls and Best Practices you should consider when you deploy wireless access to your Business Network.
I am, however, a big fan of setting up public wireless Hot Spots within your facilities to provide open Internet access to guests and to staff with personal smart phones and tablets. I have discussed this in detail in my newsletter, “Securely Implement a Public WIFI Hot Spot”.
The Pitfalls
Wireless is inherently unsecure.
Sure, you can (and should) use encryption and use a secure password within the Private Wireless Network. But anyone who has the wireless Key (password) can knock on the door of your business resources anytime, from inside the building, in the parking lot, or across the street. As a business owner, this definitely concerns me.
There is an App for that.
The wireless threat is no longer just laptops. You can get apps for tablets and smart phones that will allow you to work within a network environment. If my tablet can see the wireless business network, I’m one password away from being in a position to use my apps to access your company jewels. If I’m hanging out in the parking lot, or next door, my tools have all the time in the world to try to break in. Tablets and smartphones are inconspicuous, they are everywhere, and there are millions of them.
No Firewall.
When you provide wireless access to your business systems, access is direct… Just like from your wired PCs. All access occurs inside the firewall, so the firewall can’t offer any protection.
Best Practices
If you really need to provide wireless access to your Business Network, Read More…
About Tom K
Tom K, has been a senior level Business and IT Consultant providing exceptional solutions to business leaders for more than 26 years. His last eight years have been focused on the Vacation Rental and Real Estate industry. He has built strong relationships with all the major systems and services providers in our industry, regularly working with their principals and most senior personnel.
Are Banner Ads Working For You?
There’s much debate over just what “native advertising” means. Talk to enough publishers, however, you’ll find agreement on one thing: it isn’t banner ads.
The banner ad is now 18 years old. It has become a symbol of all that’s wrong with online advertising. It is more often than not devoid of creativity; it stands out as an intruder on webpages; and it is mostly ignored by readers.
And yet it continues to be a bulwark of the online advertising system. Many publishers would like to change that. (See Buzzfeed cobbling together a network of like-minded sites to run its sponsored content posts.) Here are 10 facts about banners that might make you wonder if there’s got to be a better way.
1. Over 5.3 trillion display ads were served to U.S. users last year. (ComScore)
2. That’s 1 trillion more than 2009. (ComScore)
3. The typical Internet user is served 1,707 banner ads per month. (Comscore)
4. Click-through rates are .1 percent. (DoubleClick)
5. The 468 x 60 banner has a .04 percent click rate. (DoubleClick)
6. An estimated 31 percent of ad impressions can’t be viewed by users. (Comscore)
7. The display advertising Lumascape has 318 logos. (Luma Partners)
8. 8 percent of Internet users account for 85 percent of clicks. (ComScore)
9. Up to 50 percent of clicks on mobile banner ads are accidental. (GoldSpot Media)
10. Mobile CPMs are 75 cents. (Kleiner Perkins)
11. You’re more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad. (Solve Media)
12. 15 percent of people trust banner ads completely or somewhat, compared to 29 percent for TV ads. (eMarketer)
13. 34 percent don’t trust banner ads at all or much, compared to 26 percent for magazine ads. (eMarketer)
14. 25-34-year olds see 2,094 banner ads per month. (ComScore)
15. 445 different advertisers delivered more than a billion banner ads in 2012. (ComScore)
By Brian Morrissey03.21.2013
Blue Tent Launches Guest Comminucations Tool
By Chris Swain–ACE is an Automated, Customized Email marketing solution developed specifically for vacation rental companies by Blue Tent Marketing. It’s fully integrated with industry-leading property management systems such as HomeAway’s Instant Software and Escapia. The ACE program delivers essential guest information throughout the entire customer life cycle. It’s all about improving your business and increasing guest satisfaction by delivering useful, insightful and actionable content to the right person at the right time.
By developing a custom API solution that communicates directly with your property management software, ACE does all of the heavy lifting and promises a first-class guest communication platform.
How to Handle Negative Reviews Of Your Vacation Rental Property
Don’t let negative reviews affect your vacation property rental bookings. Use them as a powerful marketing tool instead.
By March 15, 2013 –You cannot please all the people all the time; even the best of the best receive negative reviews on their properties from time to time. Although it is hard not to get affected by negative reviews, there are many ways to effectively deal with them and turn those negative reviews into positive marketing opportunities.
Generally, those who write reviews are customers who are very happy or very unhappy. Unhappy customers aim at ensuring you are liable for the bad experience they had. They are able to hide behind the anonymity of the Internet, meaning they generally use harsher words than they would if they were face-to-face with you telling their problem. To make matters worse, the impact of a negative review far exceeds the impact of a positive review, making it imperative that you deal with these negative reviews before it affects your vacation rental bookings.
Respond to All Negative Comments
Silence is your worse enemy. If a customer writes a negative review and there is no response from you or your agency, it can be interpreted as either you don’t have responsive customer service, or that you have no response to the ‘truthfulness’ of their negative review. Many businesses shy away from responding to negative comments, unfortunately that is a luxury that established brands with large marketing budgets, like Apple, can afford. Small-to-medium vacation rental agencies and individual property owners who are establishing their brands often cannot afford to let these negative reviews shape their brand image. You may only have one chance to expose yourself to a potential-client: don’t let that one chance come from an unsatisfied customer.
Respond In A Timely Manner
Timing is everything. If you leave too much time between the negative review and your response, you will most likely lose the opportunity to turn the negative review positive for many potential clients who saw the negative review without your response. Read More…
New website choices make it easy for owners to have their own website
March 14, 2013 –Owners now have access to many tools which make renting their own property easier than ever before. Payment processing, travel insurance, housekeeping tools, and keyless locks have been finding their way to VRBOs for the last several years, but did you know the vacation rental website choices have been increasing as well? Alan Eagan of RentMoreWeeks.com recently researched some of the most popular website providers for VRBOs and breaks down their pricing and setup format in is article “Vacation Rental Marketing – A Place Of One’s Own.”
Here are his top 5 picks:
By Alan Eagan
1. Future Stay
Here’s a little of what they say;
With Futurestay you can now create a website for your property in under 10 minutes with online booking for free. Link your existing profiles on vacation rental listing sites (like vrbo & homeaway) back to your Futurestay website (at your own domain) to accept online bookings, simplify management and enhance your professional brand and image.
Here are just a few of the tools and features you get with Futurestay:
- online booking (no merchant account or paypal needed)
- guest management software
- auto publish your property to 100+ listing sites (yahoo travel, lodging.com)
- fully customizable layout and design
- 100+ marketing, management, and booking features
Photos
You can add as many photos as you like and they also display as a slideshow on your home page.
Templates
Check out some sample websites here
Pricing
Futurestay is totally free to setup and use.
You’ll never be charged anything for the website or hosting. When guests book your property through your site they pay the price you want to receive plus Futurestay’s 10% commission.
7 minute challenge
Take the 7 minute website challenge!
They bet you can set up your vacation rental website in 7 minutes or you get your money back. Actually, its free either way!
Disclosure
I should add that I am a partner of Futurestay’s and I will get fantastically rich should you sign up with them.
2. MyVR
Here’s some of their blurb;
MyVR is online software that helps vacation rental owners increase bookings with less time and less hassle. We accomplish that by doing three things:
We better showcase your home
We help you launch your own online and mobile presence for your rental with your own website, Facebook Page, and more.
We expand your marketing
We offer numerous options for you to expand your vacation rental marketing (including social, local, mobile, and more) so that you can get more bookings, but without a ton more work because we know you have limited time.
We simplify the management of it all
We give you a single, centralized dashboard at MYVR where you launch and manage all your vacation rental marketing. Get all your inquiries in one place, and keep your calendar, rates, photos and information up to date and in sync across all your marketing!
Photos
Photos are shown full screen and here at rentmoreweeks we are big fans of full screen photos.
Templates
You can see some existing website examples here
Blog
They also publish a very informative blog that’s well worth following.
Pricing
At present there are two pricing plans the first costing $12 per month, the second costing $25 per month.
Both come with a free 14 day trial so you can dip your toe in the water.
For more info on what you get for your buck visit this page.
3. Promote My Place
Here’s what they say;
PromoteMyPlace.com is specially designed for holiday rental owners like you. It offers everything you need to get a high-performing website for your holiday let, simply and quickly, at minimal cost to you.
- Simple & easy to use – no technical knowledge required
- Great choice of professional designs and colour schemes
- Full ongoing support included – never get stuck again!
- Quick and fuss-free – get online in as little as 1 hour
- Cost-effective – no need to spend a fortune on website designers, developers and hosting companies
- Annual hosting included – no hidden extras
- Unlimited free updates – change your site yourself, at any time
- Promote your site online – we’ll show you how
- Lots of satisfied customers
Here’s a video review by Mike Bayer of renting for profit (.com)
Photos
You can upload as many photos as you like
Show Videos
You can add YouTube videos directly onto to your website quickly and easily.
Templates
You can see their templates here
Languages
Allows owners to display their website in 7 different languages – English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese. Very handy for the European market.
Blog
They also have a very good blog with all sorts of marketing tips
Pricing
Your website will cost you £69.00 (that’s around $103) which works out at about £5.75 a month.
They offer a 14 day free trial too.
You can get a £10.00 discount by entering the Promotion code shown below.
When you’re ready, simply register for your no-obligation 14 day free trial and enter the promotion code below. If you decide to continue after your free trial expires, your discount will be applied automatically.
Promotion Code: NMR10
4. Web Chalet
Here’s some of what they have to say;
If you currently advertise on HomeAway, Flipkey, or VRBO you can now also create a personal website for your vacation home in minutes—WebChalet websites sync with HomeAway and VRBO calendars.
Use your personal website to communicate with your guests and keep them there instead of sending return customers back to a directory with all of your competition! Isn’t a great domain name much easier to remember than a listing number?
Every website comes with a full suite of marketing tools, from formatted Craigslist ads to Facebook integration.
Photos
You can add unlimited photos at no extra charge.
Templates
They have 18 templates to choose from
Pricing
They offer a number of pricing packages from $149 a year for a single property to $1999 a year for an unlimited number of properties. There are also a couple of packages in between.
They too have a free 15 day trial if you want to try it out.
Webchalet are already providing over 2700 websites for owners which is pretty impressive.
5. Webmyhouse
Here’s some of what they have to say;
Easy-to-use solution to create your own website and publish your property on the web, both for renting and selling purposes. Lots of great, menu-driven functionality, such as multi language, choice of layout and colors, photos, connection to Googlemaps, what is nearby, property availability overview, property pricing, listing of events, email functionality and visit reporting. Great functionality and ongoing development for a minimum yearly fee, at a fraction of the cost of developing and maintaining a website!
- Adjust your website any time of the day
- Without needing programming knowledge
- No estate agent, consultant or programmer involved
- With the website address-extension you choose
- Great functionality: availability overview, connection to
Googlemaps etc - Easy set up in 4 languages
- In the format and colours you prefer
- Portal functionality for owners of multiple properties
- Easy to add any additional properties
- Develop and maintain your own marketing community
- No unsolicited reactions for renting
- Ongoing development for more functionality and eye catching presentations
- Publish your basic website for free
- Full functionality for a minimum yearly fee, at a fraction of the cost of developing and maintaining a website!
Photos
Free version = 5 pictures on slider homepage, 2 pictures per room and 6 general photos
Paid version = unlimited images (within reason)
Languages
Produces your website in 4 languages – English, French, Dutch and German. This could be very useful to those villa rental owners in Europe.
Pricing
There are two types of website that you can create, the first type is 100% free but has some limitations whereas the second, premium website is priced at £64 per year for one property.
For full details visit the pricing page here.
Last Day for Early Registration for Destination Summit in Denver, CO
March 8, 2013 –Today is the last day to get early registration rates for the Destination Summit at the Magnolia Hotel in Denver, CO. Ryan Solutions and Inntopia are hosting the Destination Summit 2013, May 21-23, and the event is billed as, “the premier educational event for destination marketers. ”
The agenda focuses on industry specific content for destination marketers as well as best practices in web marketing, social media, mobile sales, direct marketing, sales agent training, and intelligent data analytics. Attendees are expected from premier vacation destinations in the US, Canada, the Caribbean, and Europe.
About Inntopia
The Inntopia system is the leading advanced reservation platform in the destination industry, powering ski resorts, destination management organizations, tour operators, and travel suppliers. The Inntopia platform enables access to all of the travel related supply in a destination, and then offers a suite of sales and back office tools to efficiently manage a business.
About Ryan Solutions
Ryan Solutions is a Colorado-based marketing agency focused on the integration of resort transactional systems, marketing strategies, and direct and social media marketing. Their systems help you build, automate, and apply guest intelligence by creating one complete guest profile and communicating more effectively with each guest.
Sponsors:
