VRMA 2008 – News from the Annual Vacation Rental Manager Conference

I'm baaaack!  My apologies for the lack of blogging in the past couple of weeks.  We have been busy here at LiveRez with new product solutions, including an integration for the vacation property management system to QuickBooks accounting.  I actually have a whole big list of excuses..........................but, I will spare you the details.  As my high-school football coach always said, "Excuses are like ______, everyone has one and they all stink."

Well, moving on.  Over the next couple of blog posts I will convey some of the interesting tib-bits I picked up at the VRMA 2008 Conference.

The Vacation Rental Market is HUGE - it is currently $24 Billion annually.  That is a lot of money.  Based on an average occupancy rate of 35% and a Supply of vacation home 'unit nights' of 333 Billion.  That is 21 Million bookers of vacation rentals.

BUT......that is not even the exciting part.  The exciting part is that all this only represents a fraction of the total US Travel Market - and a fraction of the Leisure Travel market. 

Why only a fraction?  Because for most of their leisure travel, 57% of vacationers did not even consider a vacation rental, 23% considered it but did not book, and 20% booked a vacation rental.

57% did not even consider a vacation rental.  Did not even consider it!  We have an amazing opportunity to educate the public and brand the vacation home experience.

More to come......

Ralf
LiveRez