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)

We have previously highlighted survey based research which illustrated the exceptionally positive opinions consumers have with regard to their vacation rental experience.  We recently tested these findings against some real data. Specifically, we randomly selected 3,000 reviews collected by FlipKey and analyzed the distribution of the guests’ ratings.

The analysis took into account the distribution of how vacation rental guests have responded to the following rating scale:

As the chart below illustrates, consumers love the vacation rental experience.  Managers are often worried about “what happens when someone leaves a negative review”, but we found these instances are few and far between.   Specifically, 84% of guests recommended the home they stayed in, 12% had a neutral experience with only 4% of guests indicating they had a negative experience.

These findings are nearly identical to the historical survey-based findings we have cited in the past. What’s important to understand is that the above graph represents the ‘actual distribution of vacation rental reviews’. However, the only way to acquire the normal distribution of guest reviews is by inviting all of your guests to leave a review. If you require guests to self navigate to your site to leave a review, you are only going to attract the extremes (i.e. a select number of extremely happy guests and extremely upset guests).

To ensure you are fairly represented and yield the most from your guest’s positive comments, the FlipKey system is designed to invite all of your guests to leave reviews, so you can effectively attract new guests, at higher nightly rates, based on all the strong recommendations of your past customers.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Big Bear Lake, CA and meet with several of the leading property managers in the area. I had never been to Big Bear Lake, but I understood the area as a unique skiing getaway for local Los Angeles residents. As I was visiting in the middle of June I assumed the town would be in hibernation as it waited for the ski season to ramp up… I was wrong.

To my surprise, Big Bear Lake features a vibrant summer community. Featuring a comfortable 75 degree breeze off the lake, I found many Palm Springs, LA and Ontario residents frequenting the area to escape the heat and bustle of “sea level California.”

I was able to secure a vacation rental home through Big Bear Vacation Rentals and spent the night sharing laughs and drinks with Nick Lanza and Cheri Scott (the owner and marketing manager of Big Bear Vacation Rentals, respectively). Within a few hours we had taken a boat ride around Big Bear Lake, enjoyed a wonderful meal at a local lakeside restaurant and then finished the evening with some games of pool and nightcaps at a neighborhood house party. When the night was over it was hard to believe that it was only Tuesday.

Big Bear Vacation Rentals:

I have since recommended the area to my family that lives in the Los Angeles area and have a new sense of appreciation for the year-round advantages certain vacation rental destinations maintain. I am looking forward to visiting Big Bear again this winter, but I’ll be sure to keep this in mind as a recommendation to friends and family for an excellent vacation spot anytime during the year.

Thanks again to my wonderful hosts at Big Bear Vacations… Click here to read my FlipKey review of my Big Bear Lake vacation rental experience.

Back patio of my Big Bear Vacation Rental:

This week Escapia announced its new blog at www.escapiablog.com.  The Escapia blog provides another source of insight and industry trends for vacation rental managers.  The vacation rental community benefits from increased communication and the sharing of ideas and we are excited with the addition of a blog written from the perspective of one of the industry’s leading software providers.  We’ll be adding Escapia to the FlipKey blogroll and look forward to future commentary from the Escapia  team.