Vacation rentals have often promoted themselves as a more economical and personal lodging option compared to hotels. Often these claims are backed by hard daily rate data and thus it’s not a stretch to conclude the current economic climate may have less of an impact on the vacation rental market compared to more standard travel and lodging categories. In general I would agree that vacation rentals are more insulated from the economy compared to hotels, but like most things in life “it depends.”

Aspen Feeling the Effects 

I was able to attend an educational session held by Liza Hogan of Resort Rating Specialists at last week’s Annual VRMA Conference. Liza helps VR managers institute rating programs that help accurately market vacation rental units, but also provide structure and guidance to help owners invest appropriately in upgrading/maintaining their properties. As such, Liza is a recognized expert in the space and has collected data points and case studies across the country. During her presentation Liza mentioned Aspen, CO was preparing for a “down” season and was only at 50% occupancy for the holiday season as of mid-October. Typically, premier ski destinations, such as Aspen, are nearly completely booked for the holiday by the end of October. 

With most Colorado ski resorts within a 2 hour drive of Denver, Aspen’s western location (4 hours from Denver) doesn’t play well to the regional market.  Instead Aspen is a magnetic for the out-of-state family…. Thus, tack on a plane ticket, extra baggage charges (over $100 if you bring your gear on most airlines) and a car rental and suddenly you have a pretty expensive trip, vacation rental or no vacation rental.  Destination markets like Aspen are inherently vulnerable during these times.

Regional Markets Seeing an Increase in Bookings

In contrast, I had a separate conversation with a reservation manager in the White Mountain region of New Hampshire who indicated they had seen a year-to-date 9% increase in bookings. Apparently, many of the folks in Boston and New York are still planning on going skiing, they just aren’t going to fly anywhere to do it. As such, ski areas like Loon, with its proximity to several large cities, is yielding an increase in vacation rental demand.

Ultimately, vacation rentals, in general, will fare better than most travel categories in the current economic environment.  However, for every two markets that are benefiting from a change in travel plans/preferences there is likely another market struggling.

We’re happy to announce another winner of the FlipKey Guest Reviews Monthly Contest.  Congratulations to Dave and Becky from Las Vegas on winning a $200 gift card to Amazon.com!

Dave and Becky vacationed in Hawaii in July and took time to share their vacation experience staying with Great Vacation Retreats by writing this guest review for Whaler’s Cove Unit #212.

Dave and I spoke on the phone and he was thrilled to hear they had won the contest.  He wrote in to add:  “We were already a winner when renting Whaler’s Cove #212, so to hear we won the review contest is just added icing on the sweet Kauai cake.”  First a fantastic Hawaiian vacation, then $200 to spend as you wish at Amazon.com.  Yes, like Sir Rod Stewart sings – Some Guys Have All the Luck – perhaps that’s why they live in Vegas.

We love to hear about the personal travel experiences and tips of vacation renters.  Dave and Becky provide a great personal tip to visit Joe’s on the Green for breakfast and many agree on this recommendation.  Even when writing in October, three months after their vacation, Dave and Becky say “we still talk about our vacation multiple times a week” and “can honestly say, we still miss it.”

Thanks to Dave and Becky and all the folks who submitted guest reviews with FlipKey recently and participated in our contest.  Mahalo.

We are excited to announce that FlipKey will be a featured speaker at this year’s VRMA Annual Conference & Showcase next week in Phoenix, AZ.

 
Each year the VRMA Conference and Showcase seeks to unite those involved in the vacation rental industry by providing cutting-edge information to its attendees, as well as the opportunity to network and share ideas. The Conference draws light to the evolving industry and has proven to be a valuable resource for those actively participating in the industry.

 To see some pictures of last year’s show click here.

At this year’s VRMA Conference and Showcase, TJ Mahony, CEO of FlipKey.com will offer insight on “How Guest Reviews Can Boost Business,” and  “Social Strategies to Convert Prospects & Motivate Owners,” ultimately sharing experiences and highlighting new services and strategies that are available in the market.

Throughout the five-day conference, there are a number of interesting topics scheduled for discussion including:

All Things Not Google

Travel Insurance for The Vacation Rental Industry

Vacation Rental Managers Media Preparation Workshop

Reservation Phone Calls: Best Practices That Build Revenue

Google Advertising for Vacation Rental Managers

And More! We hope to see you there.

The following is an excerpt from a recent Instant Software client newsletter.  To read the full article click here.

——————- ISI Insider Newsletter—————–

ISI Clients are Increasing Booking Conversions with New Integrated Guest Review Service Powered by FlipKey

Instant Software and FlipKey launched an integrated seamless guest review service during RezFest 2008. In less than three weeks since launching, 35 property management companies have successfully begun integrating guest reviews through ISILink. Over 4000 reviews have already posted on 1500 properties with an average rating of 4.32 out of 5. Getting started with guest reviews is quick and easy…and it’s also FREE.

WHY COMPANIES ARE USING FLIPKEY / ISI GUEST REVIEWS

Research shows that recommendations from prior guests have a dramatic effect on booking conversions. According to Compete, Inc., 78% of vacationers say they are significantly more likely to book a vacation home if they can read reviews from past guests. TripAdvisor notes that hotel websites have doubled their conversion rates after incorporating guest reviews into their websites. Why? Because they remove the uncertainty and unpredictability often associated with a potential accommodation.

Not only will guest reviews likely increase your booking conversions, but through FlipKey, you will also increase your marketing distribution. In 2009, TripAdvisor will begin promoting vacation rentals that feature FlipKey reviews, giving you the opportunity to promote your properties to more than 24 million visitors per month.

MANAGE YOUR REPUTATION – NO REVIEW IS A BAD REVIEW

Some property management companies have expressed concern about potentially negative ratings. However, 81% of guest reviews are positive to very positive with an average rating for ISI clients of 4.32 out of 5. In fact, only 4% of guest reviews are negative and these minor cases are critical in establishing the credibility of all your positive reviews. Research has shown products featuring at least a few critical reviews convert better than products featuring only positive reviews. 

To read more click here.

A few weeks ago, several members of the FlipKey team attended the 4^th annual RezFest, a 2-day conference for Instant Software users, in lovely Snowmass Village, Colorado. Hundreds of property managers from across the country attended.

The event, held at The Silvertree Hotel & Snowmass Conference Center was centered on informative class sessions, which provided property managers the opportunity to hear about the latest trends in the vacation rental industry, learn about Instant Software’s latest offerings, and those of their partners. A special thanks to the Instant Software team for their dedication to making the event a great success — you did a fantastic job!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by the FlipKey booth and learned more about our service.  In many cases started managers activated their FlipKey account and began collecting guest reviews during the conference!  It was great to meet plenty of new folks and re-connect with all of the property managers who are already using FlipKey.  We look forward to continuing to work with you.

Please enjoy some of our favorite shots from the weekend.  Note: We’ve spared several people, mostly ourselves, by not including photos from the evening festivities.  We’ll see many of you at Annual VRMA in Phoenix in a few weeks!

Beautiful views along Independence Pass

Team FlipKey at 12,095 Feet

Bryan helps Barb from Lahaina Island Accommodations activate her integrated FlipKey Account

Koryn spreads the good word about FlipKey

Bryan speaks with Jenny from Alpine Lodging

Koryn working at the FlipKey booth

Following the exciting announcement last week regarding FlipKey and TripAdvisor, we are pleased to announce the winner of the FlipKey Guest Reviews Monthly Contest for August – Clint Estep.  Congratulations Clint on winning a $200 gift card to Amazon.com!

Clint vacationed with his family in Hilton Head and took time to share his experience staying with Hilton Head Vacation Rentals & Coastal Home and Villa Rentals by writing this guest review for Island Club 137.

Sounds like a successful trip and I’d follow Clint’s fishing advice in the ‘Personal Tips.’  I traded a few messages with Clint this morning and I expect he knows about his fishing.

Thanks to all the folks who submitted guest reviews with FlipKey this past month.  The next monthly winner will be selected from guest reviews submitted between August 15th and September 15th with the winner receiving a $200 gift card to Amazon.com (see the Official Rules for more details).

With great excitement we announce that TripAdvisor has taken a majority position in FlipKey.   TripAdvisor – the world’s largest travel community – represents the “perfect fit” for FlipKey’s industry leading vacation rental guest review service.   Over the last year, FlipKey has made great strides in enabling the vacation rental community with the power of guest reviews.  To add to our value proposition we will now begin working with TripAdvisor to introduce vacation rentals and the reviews you collect through FlipKey to tens of millions of consumers from across the world.

TripAdvisor’s branded websites attract 24 million consumers a month.*   Over the next year we will work closely with TripAdvisor to introduce vacation rentals to a wider consumer audience and allow the power of guest reviews to promote the vacation rental experience.   We are confident that the combination of FlipKey’s industry focus and TripAdvisor’s marketing reach will be a significant win for consumers, FlipKey clients and the entire vacation rental industry!

FlipKey will continue to operate as an independent company, so continue to check the blog for service updates, company news and industry commentary.

See below for the full press release.

*Source: comScore Media Metrix, May 2008

———————————-Official Press Release———————————-

TRIPADVISOR TAKES MAJORITY POSITION IN FLIPKEY, STRONG PLAYER IN VACATION RENTAL MARKET

NEWTON, Mass. – August 20, 2008 — TripAdvisor®, the world’s largest travel community, today announced it has purchased a majority stake in FlipKey™, http://www.flipkey.com, a leading vacation rental review site. Terms of the investment will not be disclosed.

“Vacation rentals is the hot emerging category in travel and FlipKey has a great foundation and a smart business approach,” said Steve Kaufer, founder and CEO of TripAdvisor. “We believe we can help FlipKey become the leader in the space and, in turn, FlipKey content will satisfy a growing need for TripAdvisor users.”

“TripAdvisor is ‘it’ in the world of user-generated travel reviews, so we are thrilled to have the support of the TripAdvisor Media Network,” said TJ Mahony, FlipKey founder and CEO. “We’re honored to have been chosen as the vacation rental provider to the world’s largest travel community and look forward to working with TripAdvisor to build our business.”

Boston-based FlipKey.com launched in March 2008 and is led by TJ Mahony, CEO, Jeremiah Gall, COO, and Carl Query, CTO. FlipKey features 50,000 vacation homes, representing all 50 U.S. states. In addition to amassing vacation rental listings and consumer reviews of the featured properties, FlipKey has an exclusive relationship with Instant Software, the leading property management software company, to provide a guest review platform for its clients. FlipKey content is expected to be integrated with TripAdvisor.

About TripAdvisor Media Network
TripAdvisor® Media Network, operated by TripAdvisor, LLC, attracts nearly 32 million monthly visitors* across 12 popular travel brands, TripAdvisor®, www.airfarewatchdog.com, www.bookingbuddy.com, www.cruisecritic.com, www.holidaywatchdog.com, www.independenttraveler.com, www.onetime.com, www.seatguru.com, www.smartertravel.com, www.travel-library.com, www.travelpod.com and www.virtualtourist.com. TripAdvisor-branded sites make up the largest travel community in the world, with 24 million monthly visitors*, six million registered members and 15 million reviews and opinions. Featuring real advice from real travelers, TripAdvisor-branded sites cover 300,000+ hotels and attractions and operate in the U.S. (http://www.tripadvisor.com), the U.K. (http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk), Ireland (http://www.tripadvisor.ie), France (http://www.tripadvisor.fr), Germany (http://www.tripadvisor.de), Italy (http://www.tripadvisor.it), and Spain (http://www.tripadvisor.es). TripAdvisor® Media Network provides travel suppliers with graphical advertising opportunities and a cost-per-click marketing platform. Collectively, the sites comprising the TripAdvisor Media Network have won hundreds of awards and accolades from press and industry worldwide. TripAdvisor and the sites comprising the TripAdvisor Media Network are operating companies of Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE).

TripAdvisor is a registered trademark of TripAdvisor LLC in the U.S. and/or other countries.

© 2008 TripAdvisor LLC.  All rights reserved.

*Source: comScore Media Metrix, May 2008

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Mermaid Cottages – a Tybee Island, GA vacation rental company has recently added FlipKey’s “Property Widgets” to its website.

In their own words, Mermaid Cottages offers:

Whimsical, funky cottages, historic, classic homes, pet friendly, complimentary high speed and wifi internet, comfy, cozy, welcoming places to nest, relax, re connect and simplify. That’s what the Mermaid Cottage Vacation experience is all about.

With FlipKey Widgets, the Mermaid Cottages Vacation experience is being confirmed by their past guests.  Mermaid Cottages has a history of happy and enthusiastic guests and is a pioneer in leveraging FlipKey guest reviews to harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing and trusted guest recommendations.

Click here to see a great example of the guest reviews featured for Doodlebug Cottage.

By adding the FlipKey Property Widget across its website for individual vacation properties, Mermaid Cottages is able to let their guests promote the Mermaid Cottage experience.

“Thank you for having this great service, I’ve already had a couple of guests reserve homes because of the great reviews!!”

- Diane Kaufman, Owner Mermaid Cottages

FlipKey Widgets are provided as a free feature to all FlipKey users to help vacation rental managers easily add guest reviews to their website to attract and convert more guests.

• 78% of consumers indicate they are significantly more likely to rent a vacation rental if they can read reviews from past guests that stayed in the property. (Source: FlipKey / Compete, Inc. Vacation Rental Research Report – Issue II)
• Hotel websites have documented a 100% increase in online conversation rates when website visitors read a guest review.  (Source: TripAdvisor, Hayes & Jarvis Case Study)

Reputation is the opinion and public perception of an individual, a group or an organization/company.  In the vacation rental market reputation is created by the opinion of prior guests’ experiences with the rental properties and underlying hospitality services of a specific rental manager.  If you run a great vacation rental company, telling people your product and service are wonderful is of little consequence.  Let’s be honest, what else would you say?  The only effective way to let future guests know how great your vacation homes and guest services are is by letting the words and experiences of past guests do the talking for you.

To help our users maximize the impact of their guest reviews FlipKey offers free “Extension Tools” that feature our FlipKey Verified reviews directly on the manager’s website.

Mermaid Cottages of Tybee Island, GA recently added the FlipKey Reputation Widget to their ‘Questions?’ page.  The widget automatically updates (no coding required!) as Mermaid Cottages collects additional reviews through FlipKey.  Visitors who click the widget are taken directly to Mermaid Cottage’s FlipKey Profile where they can read specific reviews of individual properties.  With 150 guest reviews and an average star rating of 4.75, Mermaid Cottages is effectively leveraging their guests’ experiences to communicate their strong reputation.

FlipKey offers a number of different tools that allow our manager users to extend FlipKey Guest Reviews directly to their own site. We will report on additional examples and tools in future posts.

We spend our days and nights helping vacation rental managers understand and leverage the benefits of guest reviews.  We built our service based on feedback from the industry.  Now, with over 50 vacation rental managers actively using the FlipKey Guest Review service we wanted to hear directly from our users and get their reactions.

In the spirit of transparency we would like to share the good, the bad and the ugly.

(+) = Positive feedback
(-) = Critical feedback / feature request

(+)  Ease of use / Speed: Many users noted how easy and quickly they were able to get started and begin to collect property specific reviews.

(-)  Review Alerts: Although FlipKey offers automated review alerts when a low rated review is submitted, users have informed us that they also want to be alerted of the POSITIVE reviews!  We are working on new reports to help our users efficiently track all guest reviews – both positive and negative.

(+)  Owner Management: A surprising, yet consistent, point of feedback was FlipKey’s positive impact on Owner Management.   Managers are forwarding guest reviews to owners and finding the owners receptive to critical feedback that is supplied from guests.   (Note:  Owners are much less receptive to critical feedback delivered directly from the management company).   In one example the owner decided to upgrade the mattress in the master bedroom after multiple complaints over the “firmness” of the bed.   In a different example, an owner now has fresh water delivered to the home in case their water (drawn from a well) is not acceptable to the guest.

(-)  Property Detail Info: Some users have noted that the property detail info and calendar info on FlipKey is not always 100% accurate.    We consider this a top priority and are improving our content/data syncing systems, as well as partnering with a number of the industry’s leading software firms to better ensure content accuracy.   (Click here to read our recent partnership announcement with Instant Software)

(+)  Account Support: All FlipKey users are assigned, free of charge, an Account Manager who helps them get started with FlipKey and handles all support needs.   A direct quote submitted about one of our Account Managers:  “Bryan has been incredibly helpful!  Truly an asset….”

Don’t get any funny ideas Bryan… raises aren’t available until year’s end.

In the coming months we will work to publish more useful input and recommendations from our users. Thank you very much to all the people who contributed by participating in our satisfaction questionnaire.