Unfortunately, this post comes 29 days after the article was published on USATODAY.com, but better late than never. Over the weekend I came across a nice, comprehensive article published by Gary Stoller of USA TODAY highlighting the growth potential of the vacation rental industry.

Titled, ‘Staying at a real home away from home’, the article provided one of the most thorough public reviews of the vacation rental industry and its growth potential.

Article Highlights:

• U.S. vacation rental market is estimated at $63B

• Vacation rental management companies expect to manage 12% more rental homes this year than in 2006, according to a survey of 129 companies by the Vacation Rental Managers Association.

• Rental inventory is growing because of a boom in vacation home sales, which have been largely unaffected by a downturn in the real estate business. Sales of vacation homes rose nearly 5% to a record 1.07 million last year, and 18% of buyers said they bought them to rent to others, according to an April survey by the National Association of Realtors.

• According to Steve Holmes, Wyndham Worldwide’s CEO, about one of five European vacationers rent a condo or house. Holmes estimates U.S. adoption rates with match that of Europe in “about a decade”.

Click here to read the full article.

FlipKey applauds the great coverage of the vacation rental industry by USA TODAY. With all the activity and recent publicity of the vacation rental industry, FlipKey sees 2008 as a cornerstone year for vacation rentals. Bring on the New Year!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 5:20 pm and is filed under Food for Thought. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.