A few weeks ago, we created the FlipKey Travel Blog Challenge as a step towards opening up the travel blogosphere to the FlipKey community.

For a quick recap of the contest: we asked our readers to reach out to us with their favorite blogs of the travel industry. The winners would be highlighted in a future post (today!).

I’m happy to report that we received numerous superb entries into the contest. Thank you to everybody who took the time to write about your favorites!

Choosing the winners was difficult, but we have come up with four distinct blogs that did a great job of capturing their respective angles via frequent posts, eloquent writings, and great insights.

Consumer Advocacy

Elliott.org - Elliott.org is the blog of Christopher Elliott, a renowned travel writer and consumer enthusiast. Christopher has been published in just about every major media outlet that you can think of.

Why we love Elliott.org? His consumer advocacy beliefs fall in line with FlipKey, and he holds a clear understanding of the Internet. His frequent postings on hot button topics affecting consumers leads to interesting commentary - both from himself and his insightful users.

Creativity

nerdseyeview.com/blog - Pam runs nerdseyeview.com, authors travel writings, and blogs for the BlogHer network.

Why we love the Nerd’s Eye View blog? Pam’s blog captured our interest due to its more artful take on the travel industry. It’s easy to get absorbed in the inner workings of the market, but sometimes it is worth the time to read enjoyable stories about the places people go and the things they do while traveling. Pam gets bonus points for “Fish Wednesday”, her weekly post dedicated to the fine art of cooking and eating fish.

Wealth of Information

travel-babel.blogspot.com - travel-babel is the personal blog of Claire Walter. Claire is an author, writer, and general travel industry advocate.

Why we love travel-babel? The blog is a great assortment of travel-industry related topics. Beyond just interesting tidbits about travel, a read through Claire’s blog is a rich learning experience, covering everything from the recent change in many country names to the “seven wonders of Colorado”. Read her blog and I guarantee you will walk away with a new piece of knowledge.

Vacation Home Purchase Market

2ndhomeblog.net - This blog is run by Ellen, Tim, and Florence - a trio of long-time second home owners who are happy to share their vast knowledge of the industry on their blog. The blog is actually a sub-service of 2ndhome.net (a service promoting 2nd home purchases, listings, and realtors).

Why we love 2ndhomeblog? Their writings are about as good of an “insider” view of the 2nd home sales market as you are going to find online. They talk about hot locations and what you can get in varying areas for your money. Use them as a resource for purchasing your second home - then use FlipKey as a resource for renting it.

We welcome all four of our winners into our blogroll in the right-hand column.

Honorable Mentions

We received a number of other great blogs - many of which we will continue to read on a daily basis. Here is the list of honorable mentions - these are the blogs that met our guidelines of being travel-related, frequently updated, and full of original content:

• http://activerain.com/blogs/mountainliving
• http://blog.joshuaberman.net/
• http://idealvacationrentalsblog.blogspot.com/
• http://intelligenttravel.typepad.com/
• http://jaslivingspace.blogspot.com/
• http://ontheroadtravel.blogs.com/
• http://travel.booklocker.com/
• http://vacationhomeinsider.blogspot.com/
• http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/
• http://www.budgetglobetrotting.com/
• http://www.eyeflare.com/
• http://www.gadling.com/
• http://www.gobudgettravel.com/
• http://www.gridskipper.com/
• http://www.jaunted.com/
• http://www.maxablog.com/
• http://www.me-go.net/rtw/blog/
• http://www.skaneatelessuites.com/category/skaneateles-reviews-news/
• http://www.thelostglobe.com/
• http://www.transitionsabroad.com/blog/index.php
• http://www.travel-junkie.com/
• http://www.travelhappy.info/
• http://www.travelminx.com/
• http://www.travmonkey.com/
• http://www.ubertramp.com/
• http://www.vacationrental.org/aboutus.htm
• http://www.worldhum.com/weblog/

I am sure there are many more of you out there - if you know of any good travel-related blogs that didn’t make the list, please continue to submit them to blogcontest@flipkey.com.

The Weather Channel - www.weather.com - is a well known and popular internet destination. According to Compete, 16.7M people in the U.S. visited weather.com in August, ‘07. During the winter months, weather.com tends to attract over 20M visitors.

After a decade of establishing itself as a top internet destination, weather.com is looking to expand its service beyond Mother Nature. In September, ‘06 the Weather Channel launched its ‘ForGetAway’ service - a standard vacation rental listing service.

It’s a logical service expansion. People use the Weather Channel to research the weather conditions in desired vacation destinations - helping them find a unique accommodation is a useful ancillary service.

Announced on September 25th, the Weather Channel raised its ante in the space and acquired LakeRentals.com for an undisclosed amount.

Looking at ForGetAway, it has quickly grown into a moderately large vacation rental site, surpassing the 100K visitor barrier in May.

Beyond its affiliation with the Weather Channel, there isn’t any thing special about ForGetAway or LakeRentals.com. They provide standard listing service features and charge an annual advertising fee of $125/property. LakeRentals.com is a clean site, but only attracted 41K visitors in August according to Compete. In addition, visitors tend to be a lot less engaged on LakeRentals.com and ForGetAway compared to more established vacation rental sites.

We are excited to see a new, well financed, entrant to compete against HomeAway. We’ll keep our eye on the Weather Channel and announce any new findings we come across.

Last week I wrote about the value of keyless entry systems. The analysis highlighted the pros and cons of enabling owners to go keyless. The main con cited by industry sources tends to center on the disintermediation of property managers as the point of key exchange. The basic conclusion is, “keyless entry is one more reason to incentivize owners to migrate to independent management”.

Although this is a respectable concern, we wanted to highlight data points that suggest keyless entry will not motivate rent-by-owner migration.

In a recent FlipKey study, we surveyed 22 owners who currently use property managers. The sample size is limiting, but provides some solid directional findings in their motivations to use a property manager.

Key findings:

• The primary value owners see in property management is convenience. Property management allows the owner to effortlessly collect additional income, without having to worry about marketing, maintenance or cleaning logistics.
• Key exchange is a secondary motivation.
• Focusing your service messaging on convenience is the most effective message. If enabling your owners to become ‘keyless’ supports that message, you can position it as an added benefit.

Zillow.com is a fantastic service, packed with information that is useful to the general homeowner, vacation rental managers and anyone involved in real estate. Zillow began with the idea of helping consumers determine how much a home is worth by giving them access to data points and comparable home sales in the area. With an open platform for adding user-generated home listings and content, Zillow has created a vibrant community.

I claimed the vacation home in Mattapoisett, MA that my family has operated for over 25 years. Leveraging public database information, recent sales and other claimed homes, Zillow calculates a Zestimate for the value of our home. Through Zillow I can add to the description of the house, adjust/update house facts, and can even set a ‘Make Me Move’ price - the price I’d be willing to sell the house for. The community features allow homeowners or prospective buyers to discuss the area with neighbors.

This becomes interesting for vacation rental managers as a tool to monitor home sales in their region, cultivate community with their neighbors and generate more owner-clients. The map below shows my neighborhood with recent sales flagged in yellow.

Yesterday, Zillow announced that they recently closed a $30 million financing round, bringing their total funding to date to $87 million. Zillow has big plans for the real estate industry and we’re very interested in the tools and features Zillow will continue to develop.

As a proponent of the vacation rental industry, FlipKey continues to recognize the value in ancillary services to help promote the industry. We recommend that property managers and owners familiarize themselves with the bevy of free Internet tools in this space. There are many unique ways (some that we haven’t even thought of yet!) in which services like Zillow can help you with your vacation rental endeavors.

I recently traded emails with Secure Lodging, Inc. Secure Lodging specializes in ‘keyless’ entry systems. There are several keyless home providers, but I like the Secure Lodging folks, so I will focus the discussion on their specific product.

Keyless entry systems aren’t new, but they are getting more sophisticated compared to the static button system I grew up with. Secure Lodging’s Oracode 660K product allows managers to remotely program access codes from their web browser. Since the lock does not require an internet connection I assume the Oracode lock receives transmissions via a radio signal - very cool.

In addition to remote updates, Secure Lodging allows you to control access levels. This means you can make sure a guest’s code is only active during a specific period of time (ie. the days they have reserved the unit). Oracode also allows you to monitor and control times of access for cleaning service staff and maintenance contractors. Again, very cool.

So why hasn’t keyless entry taken off?

It’s not entirely cheap. The cost of a keyless entry is $400-500 per home, with prices going down with bulk orders. Installation is easy enough to do-it-yourself - the manufacture provides a video walking you through the process. Given the security and convenience advantages of keyless entry I think many owners would be willing to foot the bill, but I admit others will not.

Speaking with various industry pundits, rent-by-owners are the primary customers of keyless entry systems. It makes sense. Rent-by-owners cannot be on-site to manage key exchange and mailing keys is a disaster waiting to happen. Keyless entry solves one of the rent-by-owners largest management challenges.

The benefit to owners underscores the lack of adoption by property managers. Installing a keyless entry system potentially disintermediates property managers from one of their key functions (pardon the pun).

Yet, I tend to have a positive outlook on the vacation rental world and the services that surround it.

1. Yes, keyless entry enables an owner to control home access remotely. With a phone and some dedicated efforts an owner can effectively manage guests, cleaning and maintenance remotely.
2. However, if I’m about to spend $2,000 on a weekly vacation rental, I don’t care if the owner has a StarTrek teleporting system….. I would feel more comfortable if there was a human being within 10 miles to ensure my stay is seamless and enjoyable.
3. As an owner, I would be ecstatic if my property manager offered to install a keyless system for me - I would even pay them to do it!
4. The value of property management is much deeper than the process of key exchange. It’s about making sure both parties - guests and owners - have a seamless and comfortable experience. It’s a juggling act of coordination, hospitality, and PRESENCE.

I emphasize PRESENCE, because it’s arguably the most important service provided by property managers and it can never be replaced by technology.

In June 2007, FlipKey conducted a survey of 277 vacation renters, owners and property managers to evaluate the current state of the market. In partnership with Compete, Inc’s behavioral targeted survey panel of 2M consumers, FlipKey contacted individuals who had recently visited large vacation rental listing services as well as owners/managers actively managing vacation rental properties.

FlipKey is happy to report that the market is vibrant, growing and economically attractive. However, we also identified a number of gaps that have not been addressed by existing logistical and marketing solutions, which are hindering the realization of this industry’s full potential.

• Despite numerous vacation rental listings services, property managers continue to seek effective and economical guest acquisition solutions
• Market growth is handicapped by the lack of reputation transparency between guests and properties/owners
• Many travelers seeking rental accommodations are defecting to traditional hotel lodging services due to the frustration of identifying available and reputable properties

FlipKey has made the report free through its homepage. Click here to request a free copy.

For the average property manager, a guest booking a vacation home represents the end of the sales process. Congratulations! But for the average guest, the booking of their vacation home is just the beginning of their vacation planning. Next comes the flight, the rental car, the tickets, and all the other essential itinerary planning.

Enter Kayak.com. Kayak represents everything that is great about the internet - it’s quick, it’s comprehensive, and it is pretty much guaranteed to give you what you want. Kayak is different than Expedia and Orbitz. Kayak is what is called a “meta” search engine. Kayak’s charge is to search all other travel search engines to help the consumer find the best option. As such, the Kayak search engine covers more ground than all the other travel sites out there. Thus you are almost always assured of finding the cheapest flight.

Kayak is a great service to help your guests book the rest of their trip. Luckily, Kayak provides some simple tools that can allow you to extend its service to your own website. By simply copying and pasting some simple html into your site you can help your guests find a cheap flight and car rental service.

For one example:

Embedding a widget like this on your web site makes it very simple for your guest to begin their flight search. It costs nothing to add to your site and can help compliment your primary service (providing great lodging accommodations).

Since most vacation home sites are regional, you can even pre-populate Kayak’s tools with the airport nearest your vacation homes. Kayak offers several simple widgets you can embed on your website. Click here to see more options.

In addition to helping your guests, you can earn money by signing up for an affiliate id via linkshare. By inserting the id into the widget on your site, you can ensure you earn a commission on anybody you send to Kayak.

Your guests look to you as an expert. By providing them with easy access to the best-in-class tools on the internet, you are setting high standards that will keep guests coming back to you every year.

Rentmineonline.com is a new U.K. based start-up striving to create an eBay-like network to enable people to rent “things” to each other. We write about Rentmineonline, because we love the idea - despite some major pitfalls.

The concept of an eBay for rentals was one of the original business ideas we explored before we created FlipKey. We looked at the world around us and thought of all the great things we’d love to have access to, but were unwilling to purchase.

• A boat on a hot summer’s day with friends
• A power saw to clean up some fallen trees after the latest wind storm
• A hand bag, so my girlfriend doesn’t pay $500 for the latest craze that she will abandon in a month
• A car to do a quick grocery run

The fact is we as a society own a lot of stuff that we don’t often use. By creating a trusted network of members you can establish a cooperative that adds new meaning to the term ’social efficiency’.

With that said, if it was easy someone would have already done it. eBay evaluated this concept several years ago and abandoned it because of the inherent challenges. I had the opportunity to meet with Josh Koppelman of First Round Capital (and former Half.com and eBay fame) and he put it best, “to succeed you will have to inherently change human behavior.”

Josh is referring to the fact that we, as individuals, do not rent things to each other. Minus the obvious category of Vacation Home rentals, when’s the last time you rented a personal asset to a stranger?

Rentmineonline is not a crazy idea… In fact it won an investment award at SeedCamp (a European business competition) and was recently featured on TechCruch. However, Rentmineonline will have a tough road to glory. To succeed they will have to (i) build a critical network of people willing to rent things (ii) create a sense of trust out of the ether and (iii) figure out a way to monetize the process.

If they can succeed this will be a huge win for social efficiency, not to mention a very large business. As I finalize this post the market capitalization of eBay is only $49B.

FlipKey was born out of my own experience as a vacation home owner/renter. For the last year I have rented out my Boston condo to people from around the globe. When friends hear of my little side business they are quick with questions:

• Has anyone trashed your place?
• What happens if there is a problem?
• How can you trust a complete stranger?
• Has anyone tried to scam you?

It’s human nature to focus on the negative, but I’m happy to say that my experiences have been 100% positive. I have met people from all around the world that wanted to taste Boston - all have been respectful - and in some cases I have made life long friends.

Moira L.: A wonderful woman from Australia who was in town for four weeks to promote her personal care product line. She called once a week with a general question about the home and then took me out for coffee to say thank you. Moira left my home in better shape than the day I moved in.

Dolores G.: In town for a week to help her daughter find an apartment. I needed to pick up my bike in storage and met them in my home. Dolores had a wonderful family that left behind a bottle of wine to thank me for a great experience.

Elizabeth D.: Arrived in Boston during a cold and rainy Spring week. I was in San Francisco during her family’s stay. Unfortunately my furnace broke down and the family was stuck in my 40 degree condo for 24 hours while I arranged a contractor to replace the broken unit. Elizabeth helped me coordinate letting the contractors in and stayed in good spirits throughout the ordeal. I refunded their last two nights.

The people who have stayed with me have been great, but problems do arise - a broken furnace here and a lost key there. I am fortunate enough to live within 10 minutes of my vacation condo, but my experiences have highlighted the necessity for ‘assistance’. Although occasional rentals can be managed directly by the owner, a seamless experience can only occur if a dedicated service/individual is available for the various mishaps that can occur during a vacation rental.

As renters we have a responsibility to ensure a great vacation experience for our guests. Bad guests do exist, but they are few and far between. Below are my recommendations for ensuring guests receive the support they deserve:

• Use a property manager. Although property managers will charge a 15-30% service fee on the total room rate, they provide end-to-end services that will remove the back breaking chores of cleaning & maintenance and will take care of onsite problems. You get what you pay for, and more importantly your guests will get what they paid for.
• If you are independently renting your home make sure you have a trusted contact within 15 minutes of the home. Your ‘back-up’ should have key access and be aware of when guests are in the home. Should a problem arise your back-up should have previously agreed to manage the situation.
• Before a guest arrives provide them an emergency contact and explain your process in the case of an unfortunate event. If you are a property manager this is a key communication to emphasize the reputation of your service and advantages of using a professional management service.

We are busy at FlipKey, but we also enjoy getting out and meeting people. Over the next few weeks we will be attending a number of industry events, so if you’re in the area, please come by and say hello.

What’s the hottest ticket in Boston this month? Nope - not the Red Sox. Surprisingly, it’s the Tech Cocktail Boston Party on September 6th (tomorrow night) at Tequila Rain in Boston. If you were one of the lucky few to get in, drop us a note and we’d love to meet you.

Next up is Dave Beisel’s Web Innovator’s Group of Boston on Monday, September 10th. The WebInno has been a great way to showcase early stage self-funded startups in the Boston area. Unlike the Tech Cocktail Party, there is no cap on attendance. Tickets are free, just make sure you register.

Finally we will be attending and presenting at the VRMA 2007 Conference and Showcase in New Orleans this October 13-17. We will be there with booth in hand, finally ready to answer the question “So what exactly are you guys doing?”