Archive for the ‘vacation home rental’ Category

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Ouch!! $4,000 Vacation Rental Scam Hits Canadian Family

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Read the full story here:  Canadian Family Gets Scammed for $4000 By Vacation Rental

This is so painful.  Painful because a family lost out on a vacation, lost out on some money, and also because it is another black eye for our industry.  The ability of the vacation rental industry to break into the ‘mainstream’ – real mainstream, like being on Expedia, Travelocity, Priceline, etc. – hinges on our ability to create an environment of trusted vacation experiences and sources for travelers to book with confidence.

So where did this family book their trip?  On www.flybynightvacationrentalscam.com?  No.  Actually it was on www.forgetaway.com.  A site associated with the Weather Channel.  If you cannot trust the weather guy, who can you trust?

I am interested in what you have to say about what we can do to change the perception and reality within our industry.

Ralf
www.LiveRez.com

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Representing the Theme of PhocusWright 2008 – Search, Shop, Book

Friday, November 21st, 2008

LiveRez Vacation Rental SoftwareLiveRez Vacation Rental SoftwareThe theme for the show was ‘Search, Shop, Buy’.  We changed that around a little into ‘Search, Shop, Book’.  The key – no email or phone exchange required, the traveler can choose to book completely and seamlessly online.  Something that is critical for the mainstream adoption of vacation rentals and the aability for vacation rentals to be part of the mass OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) like Expedia, Priceline, and Travelocity.

 Ralf
LiveRez

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Know Your Vacation Rental Customer – Targeted Efforts to Thrive

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

In the past I have spent much effort on discussing niche marketing.  I am all for targeting, profiling, and not trying to be everythign to all people.  I want to share some very interesting points that I picked up last week at the VRMA (Vacation Rental Managers Association) annual conference.

Target Customer:  Know who your target audience is and spend time to understand how the travel habits (budget, transportation, and other logistics) will be affected by the economic crisis.  Are their jobs recession resiliant?  Do they need to fly to your destination?

Here are some statistics from a recent PhocusWright study to help you understand the typical Vacation Rental traveler:�
60% have a college degree
33% have an income over $100,000
90% take over 2 leisure trips/year

Here is one you have to internalize.  75% use the internet for over 1hr per day.  75%!!  For over 1hr.

I am not saying that this decribes your exact travler, but if you think that the internet is not critical to your success as a vacation manager, think again.

My message – Know your customer.  Know your customer.  Know your customer.

Happy renting.

Ralf
LiveRez

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VRMA 2008 – News from the Annual Vacation Rental Manager Conference

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

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

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Pitfalls of Private Rentals…….Ouch, that just does not help our industry

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

A recent article in the NY Time again tells a story of travel misery.  A dream vacation spoiled by an inaccurate, incomplete, and ’skewed’ description of a rental property.  At least the property was there this time.

Here is the full story:  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/travel/05pracrentals.html

This is soooo painful to read:
“We ended up leaving midweek the conditions were so bad,” said Ms. Gismervik, a marketing director from Albany. “We couldn’t take it anymore.” The owner, she said, later apologized for the condition of the home, but did not provide any compensation. Moreover, Ms. Gismervik ended up paying an additional $2,000 to stay at a Marriott for the rest of the trip, and the experience soured her on vacation rentals. “I would not choose ever to do that again,” she said. “I’d stay in a hotel where I knew how things are. I’d never rent from a private person again.”

We have to continue to build trust, visibility, and a common standard of quality into our vacation home rental industry.   Finding ways to diferentate quality professionally managed properties from vrbo properties.

Ralf
www.LiveRez.com

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The Trust Accounting Myths

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Again and again I run into a discussion about ‘trust accounting’.  Trust accounting is one of those terms that people throw around, but usually mean many different things.  So I thought I would put my ’stake in the ground’ about how I utilize the term trust accounting. First, I use the term ‘formal trust accounting’ when I refer the requirement of detailed records and separate bank accounts for the owner bank accounts and records.  I do this because many property managers utilize the term trust accounting when they refer to the regular accounting that needs to be done to track the reservations & owner activity.  A monthly statement, a formal trust accounting solution does not make, but it meets all the requirements of most states. The biggest myth – QuickBooks cannot do formal trust accounting.  QuickBooks is the most widely used and extremely user friendly solution on the market and can absolutely be used for formal trust accounting. Formal trust accounting record requirements require a detailed accounting of the following four items: (these vary somewhat from state to state where formal trust accounting is required): 1) Ledger for each owner
a.       Name of the owner and identification of the bank account
b.      Dates of each activity
c.       Amounts received and from whom
d.      Amounts disbursed and to whom
e.       Current balances of funds for each owner, each month, or as of any date2) Journal for each owner trust account
a.       Name of the account (including the bank and account number)
b.      Date of each transaction, each debit and credit to the account
c.       Names of the sources of each deposit
d.      Names of each person receiving a payment
e.       Current balance in the account3) Copies of all bank statements, canceled checks for each owner trust account4) Monthly reconciliation of each of the above items.  

All of the above are tracked and available in QuickBooks for vacation rental property management.  So, find out what the requirements are for your state and do not be confused into thinking that QuickBooks cannot manage your accounting needs.

Ralf

LiveRez.com 

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Test New Niche Traveler Markets – Fast, Easy, and Cheap

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

You know it is time to launch another marketing campaign to get those guests coming in for your vacation home rentals.  But you know the old “spray and pray” does not work.  You need to be targeted, laser focused, a sniper of great vacation guests.  So you spend some time planning, researching, and brainstorming new niche markets to go after.  But how can you know which ones to focus on.This is where my little technique comes in for testing niche targets: 

Overview
–Get a sense of how interested the market is in your offering.
–Ask questions of potential customers before actually marketing to them.
–Cost you less than US$100 and maybe even under US$50.
Step one
–Determine your keywords
Step two
–Set up a survey. –www.SurveyMonkey.com, www.Zoomerang.com are my tools of choice.
–Don’t flog your Kindly Respondents with excessive or dumb questions.
–If you’re asking for email, phone numbers or addresses, be sure to be clear about your privacy policy and why you’re collecting that data. Usually just a zip code will suffice.
Step three
–Create PPC ads
Step four
–Let ‘er rip. Turn on Survey & Ads for a week or so and start collecting responses
Step five
–Evaluate your results.

Follow these simple steps and you will have some great information to base your next marketing campaign on.

Ralf

LiveRez

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Vacation Rental in Bejing……..You go first and tell me about it.

Monday, August 4th, 2008

I love the Olympics.  Some of the fondest childhood memories I have are of watching the summer and winter Olympics.  In Austria, where I grew up, the coverage was ‘old school’.  Instead of the human interest stories and highlights, the coverage showed the first competitor and then showed every competitor thereafter – just like being at the event.  That clearly has its pluses and minuses……..the marathon……..

Back to my point.  I love the Olympics.  In 2002 I was able to go to Salt Lake City to watch some of the winter games.  Now what if I wanted to go to Beijing to watch and stay at a vacation rental.  I know there are many places to look, but I Googled ‘Beijing vacation home’.  The #1, yes #1, organic listing that came up was from craigslist. 

I love craigslist.  Almost as much as the Olympics.  But to go thousands of miles to Beijing on a craigslist ad.  Whoa!  I think I need a bit more reassurance.  Not that I am a wimpy traveler.  I can tell stories with the best of them.  But there is just not enough confidence for me in booking a place far away, form a person I do not know, without any type of third-party reassurance. 

This underscores the importance of creating a network within the vacation property manager community to validate and endorse certain property managers.  By overcoming these types of traveler hesitations, we can grow immensely.

Good news – if you have what it takes, craigslist has 100s of available rentals.

Higher, Faster, Stronger.

Ralf
LiveRez.com

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Vacation Home Rental in Connecticut – my personal experience

Monday, July 21st, 2008

This is a story impossible to tell without dating myself.  Well, here go’s, my wife and I went to our 20-year high school reunion in Madision CT.  We are high school sweethearts.  That made the reunion fun because we both knew the same people.  Avoiding the awkward spouse-moments where all the spouses make small-talk amongst themselves while the alumni exchange old stories and catch up.

Wendy, my wife, and I chose to stay at a small vacation home rental in town.  It was a quaint cottage with just enough of the amenities of home to make it so much better than staying at a hotel.  It reminded me how much more enjoyable a vacation rental is than a hotel:

  • Like home, not sterile – feel like I am in CT, not just another generic hotel
  • Sit outside our cottage to eat healthy breakfasts and snacks
  • Complimentary bicycles available to cruise around town
  • Windows on all four sides of the cottage
  • Family room to watch the Tour de France while Wendy sleeps

In short, we had a wonderful trip.  It was fun to learn how we can meet someone for the first time in 18 years, and have all kinds of topics to discuss besides high school.  It was also amazing to see some folks who have never moved on after high school.

Ralf
www.LiveRez.com

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