Escapia Blog - Vacation Rental News and Trends

Blogging VRMA: Consumer Travel Trends

by Bill Furlong, CEO

Peter Yesawich, President and CEO of the Ypartnership, the PR agency used by the VRMA,  gave a very informative and entertaining presentation on how the consumer travel landscape is changing.  The following were his main points:

...Travel is down from the peak
- 55% of households took 1 trip/year75 miles or more from home.
- That number has dropped from a peak of 66% in 1999 and 63% as recently as 2007.
...the Web is the dominant way people are planning travel
- % of households with web access has increased from 11% in 1996 to 80% in 2008 and 2/3 of that access is high-speed.

How do people plan and purchase travel:
- 61% use the Internet exclusively
- 24% use a travel agent and the internet
- 7% use a travel agent
- 8% use neither
(sample base is leisure travelers using airlines and hotels in 2009)

- % of people using the web was 53% of people in 2002.  That number has increased to 66% by 2009.

...and the % of people using the Web to book travel is also a majority
- 35% used the Web to book travel in 2002.  56% of people used the web to book by 2009.  BUT, the % using the web to book has been flat from 2007-2009.

... what do people think is important on a Web site
- 87% lowest fares and rates
- 74% easy booking
- 72% photos
- 46% user reviews

...the next generation of search is meta-search sites like Kayak that search a large number of travel sites for rates, availability and more and let people compare
- only 5% of travelers use meta-search today.

...Meta-search powered price shopping will make it more important to build equity into a brand
- But consumers today care less and less about the brand. 
- A survey asked people when they fly whether they prefer to use a legacy carrier that they have used before, a low fare carrier or had no preference.  21% said a legacy carrier; 29% said the lowfare carrier; 50% said they had no preference.  So half of consumers didn't care about the airline brand.
- A survey asked people how important the lodging brand name was.  57% said the brand name was very or extremely important in 2006.  That number has dropped to 44% in 2009.  So brand importance is dropping for hotels.

... blogs and advisory/review sites are increasingly important.
- 19% use blogs and advisory sites today to plan travel.
- 1/3 of next generation, younger travelers use them.
- What do they use?  42% use YouTube, 33% use Facebook, 30% use MySpace, 27% use TripAdvisor.

Helping VR owners prepare for generational change

 by Bill Furlong, CEO

A Seattle-based family practice lawyer I know recently sent along their quarterly newsletter.  They included a link to a Seattle Times story (that was syndicated via the Minneapolis Star) about what owners of vacation homes should do as they think about the family cabin changing hands to their kids some day.  The story may be a useful resource for vacation rental managers and the owners of homes they manage.

On caveat...my lawyer-friend notes that the story quotes Minnesota attorneys and that you should get legal advice from someone based in your home state.

Vacation Rental Data Suggests that Hawaii Is On The Mend

By Bill Furlong, CEO



During our recent vacation rental breakfast seminars in Oahu and Maui, we presented a summary of vacation rental trends for bookings done in 2009.  The past 12 months have been rough ones in Hawaiian travel business.  More than anywhere else in the country, bookings have been incredibly slow in Hawaii since the country entered the recession.  A few of the takeaways from our recent analysis:

• Bookings have been on a steady recovery from the lows of early 2009.
• The recovery has been broad-based rather than narrow.  In other words, the steady improvement through the year isn't drive by a few management companies doing well.  It is a trend being felt by many of the companies in our survey.
• Most managers reduced rent in 2009 versus 2008.  Discounting accelerated as the year progressed, probably because more and more managers turned to pricing as a way to fill empty homes.  In July 2009, 93% of managers in our survey averaged a lower rent per booking than a year earlier.
• Lead times, which have shrunk in recent years, have shrunk even faster in the past 12 months.  The average booking lead time is up to 25% shorter than it was a year ago, averaging roughly 80-90 days.
• Weekend bookings appear to be smaller dollar value bookings.  And Monday and Tuesday appears to be when the long-range vacation planners book.

 The slides below have all the details.  In a few weeks, we'll be publishing our 3rd quarter 2009 vacation rental trends for the whole country.

Hawaii Vacation Rental Trends 2009

View more presentations from billfurlong.

Google Internal Study on Search Engines and Travel

by Bill Furlong, CEO

Ever wonder what people at Google think about search engines and travel?  Today, TechCrunch reported on a 2005 study from Google analyzing how search engines impact consumer decisions in a number of categories including travel.

Keep in mind that this study is from 2005 -- four years ago.  And, as you'd expect, it skews towards airlines and hotels.  But it is packed with info that might well be helpful for vacation rental managers thinking through whether to invest in search advertising.  And since it is an internal Google document, the information is not directed to selling online ads as much as internal decision-making.

Use of Online for Travel Information and Purchasing -