David Kaufman published an interesting article in the New York Times today about the soaring cost of hotel rooms due to an overall shortage of rooms. The article highlights that:

• NYC’s hotel room rates rose 15.4% last year with average room rates at a blistering $320.87/night
• In 2008, hotel rates are expected to rise by 5 - 8% in the U.S. and 12 - 14% in Europe
• Room rate increases upwards of 35% year-over-year have been observed from India to London to Dubai

[Correction: David's original article was published on January 20, 2008 in the New York Times]

* Click here to read David’s Full article republished today on Boston.com

The Times article highlights an opportunity for the vacation rental industry to promote its product as a strong alternative for guests that typically would have chosen to stay in a hotel room, but are being deterred by rising room rates. The combination of higher hotel rates with a faltering economy will likely deter travelers from traditional accommodations prompting the search for alternative vacation plans.

How rising hotel rates benefit the vacation rental market:

• With rising room rates across all lodging categories, vacation rental managers can increase nightly rates while maintaining a competitive and often a more economical alternative for consumers
• Depending on geography, managers can target aggressive ’shoulder season’ campaigns and promotions to lure cash conscience travelers from traditional accommodations
• Opportunity to expand vacation rentals beyond family destinations. Over occupancy in urban markets such as NYC, San Francisco , Boston and Chicago signal an opportunity for services to expand into city centers. (FlipKey has personal experience with managing vacation rentals in downtown Boston and can confirm that demand far exceeds supply in the downtown area - during all seasons)

The Times article sees the same opportunity for the vacation rental market and even provided a short plug:

Although they will be much harder to secure in 2008, savings will be available even in the highest-cost destinations for travelers willing to work for them. Henry H. Harteveldt, travel analyst with Forrester Research in San Francisco, suggested opting for apartments instead of hotels for stays longer than four days or for small groups. “They are far more economical and can feel much more like home,” said Harteveldt, who suggested using websites such as Condo.com . “This is something I actually did on a recent visit to New York.”

Our industry often focuses on competition between property managers and local rent-by-owners; however, its hotels that typically act as the primary competitive lodging alternative for many key markets. Rising hotel room and occupancy rates signals an immediate opportunity for the vacation rental industry to effectively promote itself as a mainstream lodging option.

FlipKey looks forward to working with active associations, local cambers of commerce and popular media channels to help promote the vacation rental category. The time is now!

Last week, FlipKey attended the annual Central Florida Property Managers Association Conference and Tradeshow in Orlando. The event was fantastic, well-attended by vacation rental managers and oversubscribed with suppliers. We thank the organizers for putting together an educational, productive and fun event. Thanks also to the property managers who spent time at our booth learning about FlipKey. We look forward to continuing to work with you.

The conference took place at the modern Contemporary Resort at Disney, with several spacious and comfortable banquet halls dedicated to the tradeshow, group seminars and small break-out sessions on industry topics. This was a local chapter event, but with so many British property managers and national vendors in attendance it felt like, yes I’ll say it — a small world after all.

At the conference, the CFPMA announced its rebirth as the CFVRMA, with a new name and brand to align this large local chapter with the national VRMA association. Look for their new site in the coming weeks.

Below is a handful of our favorite photos from the event. Happy Thanksgiving from the FlipKey team.

Topiary Mickey welcomed us with open arms to the CFPMA Conference at Disney.

Bryan works the showroom floor.

The FlipKey booth with a constant stream of property managers learning about our service.

TJ discusses reputation and verification with a manager during the social hour.

Steve Trover from All Star Vacation Homes stops by the booth. Special thanks to Steve and Sara Moore for their hospitality.

Trent Blizzard of Blizzard Internet Marketing happily swings the sword on the floor while Sir Longhairs looks a bit anxious in the background.

For added safety, each All Star Vacation Home is outfitted with pool guards — electronic alarms that must be pressed as you open the sliding glass door to the pool area. Apparently my method of “pushing the button real hard” isn’t the proper way to disable the deafening alarm. Thankfully, All Star had maintenance personnel at our rental home within an amazing five minutes to replace the alarm.

Every once in awhile we take an afternoon break at FlipKey to catch up on what’s happening in the world. I was excited yesterday to read a link Carl found on cnn.com.

As featured on CNN.com:

Your next hotel might not be a hotel. It could be a condo, a rental apartment or a home.
Hotel rooms generally don’t offer as much space or privacy as renting a house or condo.

And maybe it should be.
It isn’t just that traditional hotels, inns and resorts turn off many travelers. There are plenty of reasons to check out of the lodge these days — through-the-roof room rates, being nickeled and dimed for every little extra item — and the alternatives are often roomier, less expensive and more convenient.
No one is predicting the demise of the hotel industry. Not by a long shot, but when it comes to overnight accommodations on your next trip, you might consider an alternate to a traditional hotel.

Here are five reasons why:
- Lots and Lots of Room
- More Privacy
- A Better Price
- You Can Go Native
- Extra Flexibility

*Article has been abbreviated.. Click here to read the full article on CNN

We recommend you read the full article. Thanks to Christopher Elliott for the great write up.

FlipKey has been selected as a “main dish” presenter at the next meeting of Dave Beisel’s overwhelmingly popular Boston Web Innovators Group. “WebInno” has quickly become the place to see and be seen in the Boston area Web Industry. We are big fans of the bi-monthly event and we thank Dave for selecting us amongst the many qualified candidates.

For anyone in the region, we welcome you to come on down and listen to TJ’s presentation or swing by the FlipKey booth and talk to us. We’ll be showcasing our soon to be released vacation rental reputation service. Event information and registration can be found here (It’s Free!):
http://webinno15.eventbrite.com/

About Rick Fisher:
Rick Fisher is the President of Vacation Home Expo - the travel industry’s first and only consumer travel show solely focused on the condominium, villa, and vacation home rental segments. Prior to co- founding Vacation Home Expos, Rick was a Vice President for Expedia’s Specialty Lodging division which included vacation rentals and bed and breakfast. He has been a visible spokesperson and strong advocate for the vacation rental category for the last twenty years.


Q: The industry is excited to see the launch of the Vacation Home Expo. How did you go from working at Expedia to launching the Vacation Home Expo?

Although I came from the leading online provider for vacation rentals in Expedia I have always felt that the opportunity to create more awareness of the growth and popularity of vacation rentals with consumers and the media was via offline exposure. It’s very simple…we believe that approximately 85% of North Americans have never stayed in vacation rental type accommodations and have only experienced a traditional hotel stay .Most of the focus in our industry has been on pushing out product to the market place via the internet. Along the way there’s been very little commitment from our sector to do more in creating more offline awareness with consumers, the media, and travel trade about the benefits of the “vacation rental experience”. Vacation Home Expo represents the ideal venue to help contribute to that needed effort. The fact that the Expo in Atlanta is being endorsed and presented by the Atlanta Journal Constitution also lends a tremendous amount of credibility to our category.


Q: The first Expo is in Atlanta this coming April. Is this an annual event or can we expect to see additional showcases in other major cities in 2008?

Our intent is to make the Atlanta show an annual event and we are already exploring dates for 2009 and beyond. Our plans are also to expand the Vacation Home Expo to other key cities and markets around the country. We have just formed an industry Advisory Council comprised of seasoned executives representing a broad cross section of the vacation rental space. One of the assigned tasks of the council will be to provide us with critical feedback regarding future potential venues as well as other ideas and recommendations that will position the Expo for continued growth and success.


Q: How will you measure the success of the Vacation Home Expo?

That’s a great question and for me it won’t be based simply on numbers that can be easily quantified like the total of consumer attendees to the show and the final tally of exhibitors. Instead, I envision the Vacation Home Expo as a step by step process that will be instrumental in introducing more consumers to this phenomenal accommodation lifestyle. Anyone will tell you that, like cruising, vacation rentals reflect a high level of consumer satisfaction and the propensity for strong repeat and referral business. The challenge has always been and still exists today to attract new customers who will experience this lodging option for the first time. As I’ve always said once you taken them to “the promised land” you will most likely have a believer and convert for life. Our hope is to have the Vacation Home Expo act as a key catalyst to rally an already diverse and fragmented industry around this common cause and purpose. In addition to servicing the needs and interests of existing vacation home renters true success will come with our ability to touch that tremendous untapped pool of new customers and further grow the category.


Q: Between the various VRMA events, RezFest and other industry association events, it seems like there is an opportunity to migrate supplier focused conferences into hybrid events that focus on property management and industry awareness. For instance, in New Orleans there could have been a day dedicated to exhibiting property managers and vacation travel services to consumers. Are there discussions with VRMA or other associations to create this type of partnership?

At Vacation Home Expo we believe that we need to remain inclusive which translates into getting more of our industry association partners and representatives from the supply community to join us in getting our messaging out to the market place. Too often we meet and exchange ideas amongst ourselves while consumers, the media, and travel trade are left on the outside looking in. We have already considered the concept of potentially co-locating future shows around association conferences or vise versa. This would result in not only creating more industry awareness but also maximize participation by consumers and suppliers alike.


Q: You live in Connecticut, a state notoriously split between the Yankees and Red Sox. FlipKey is not shy about its love of the Red Sox… Who’s your team?

Although I’m from Michigan I grew up with Mantle, Maris, Ford, and have always been a hard core New York Yankees fan and supporter. At the time of this interview there’s not too much to celebrate but as they always say … “There’s always next year”.

Earlier this week FlipKey attended the annual Vacation Rental Managers Association (VRMA) Conference and Showcase in New Orleans. It was a wonderful event, and we would like to thank the organizers, the attendees, and the suppliers for making FlipKey feel like a welcome addition to VRMA. We would also like to thank the Rental Managers who took the time to learn about FlipKey - we look forward to working with all of you.

For those that could not make it, you missed a great time. The main conference events took place at the Sheraton New Orleans - a spacious and elegant hotel located just around the corner from the French Quarter. The unofficial events took place on Bourbon St until the wee hours of the morning. Throughout the four days there were a bevy of activities to choose from - seminars, vendor showcases, meals, parties, and more.

The only unfortunate part of the entire conference was enduring the Red Sox losses. But even that was tempered by being able to drown our sorrows with new found friends from Red Sox Nation.

Below are a handful of our favorite photos from the event - all courtesy of Jeremy’s iPhone.

The Show

Cort from Franconia Notch stops by to chat with TJ as he works the showcase floor.

Carl discusses the virtues of FlipKey with an intently focused Jack Cox.

Dave and Tracy from LiveRez - the happiest guys at the conference.

James from Lake Ozark Vacations - enjoying the conference and waiting for the Red Sox game to start.

William from Sunspots as he teaches the FlipKey team about literature and the lost art of letter writing in the modern age. (William is also a writer.)

TJ chatting with Curt from Skaneateles Suites as Carl checks out the seminar schedule in the background during a rare 5 minutes of downtime.

The After Party

Rumored to be the oldest and youngest members at the VRMA Annual Meeting

George Volsky from Instant Software stops time on the dance floor.

Sara from All Star Vacation Homes owned the karaoke stage as she belted out ‘Pour Me’. Here she realizes the mistake she made by getting Jeremy up on stage for ‘Sweet Caroline’.

Red Sox Nation thanks Beerfest on Bourbon St. for keeping us happy in this photo taken immediately following the Game 4 loss.

About Cort Roussel:

Cort Roussel is the Owner Broker for Franconia Notch Vacations, located in Franconia New Hampshire, surrounded by the White Mountain National Forest. Graduating from the University of New Hampshire’s Whittemore School of Business & Economics with a BS in Hospitality Management Cort joined the vacation rental industry in 2000 after a decade of experience in the resort, hotel & restaurant industry. In December of 2005 He purchased Franconia Notch Vacations and is now the principal owner. He has served on the VRMA Board of Directors for two years and has moderated and presented at many educational events. Roussel is also active in his local community serving as a Member of the Board for the Franconia Notch Chamber of Commerce and as a volunteer firefighter for the town of Easton, NH.


Q: Cort, you are well known for your love of the New Hampshire’s White Mountains. New Hampshire is unique given the sharp contrast in seasonal attractions. What marketing strategies do you employ to manage occupancy rates across the various, and sometimes harsh, seasons?

CR: Franconia Notch Vacations employs a “Catch-n-Release” method when enjoying our area’s lakes and streams, however we are all about “Catch-em and Keep-em” when it relates to marketing new guests and owners. We cast as large & varied a marketing net as possible using traditional print, and as much of the emerging Web media as we are able, and we have our not-so-traditional yet productive methods as well. We then follow up with exceptional personal professional grade service that ensures our guests’ return or good words and good will otherwise. With 3 to 4 months of “off-season”, we must be sure to capture as much of the market as possible and then maintain it as this is where the real growth & potential lies.


Q: You made mention of some non-traditional marketing methods. Might you elaborate on this a little?

CR: One example has to do with our Green Franconia Notch Vacations company pen. Having worked for years in and around restaurants I understand they serve us all; guests, residents, second homeowners, contractors etc. I also know that most wait staff are left scrambling for pens. So- every few weeks we make sure to visit our area restaurants, gas stations and other points of popular interest deliver a handful of pens. Now folks see me coming and smile knowing their day will turn out all “write”. We have gained many owner and guest referrals in this fashion.


Q: To the extent you are comfortable sharing, what specific efforts are you pursuing to grow your business?

CR: Quality Care for our owners, their properties and their guests. I have little doubt these will be the corner stones of growth for Franconia Notch Vacations. Most anyone can sell for less, most anyone can invent the next greatest hype; however few can gain a foot hold against top quality care and the services to match. Below my monitor and in front of my key board reads the following: “Be it Owner or Guest, We aim for Vacation Rental Success” and along with that there is favorite Fortune Cookie fortune, “With integrity & consistency your credits are piling up.” Constant reinforcement of the principles - that’s what it takes to us forward day by day.


Q: Franconia Notch is simply beautiful - especially in the Fall Season. To what extent have you gathered positive feedback, pictures and testimonials from past guests to help tell the world about Franconia Notch?

CR: We do indeed dedicate a fair amount of time to capturing what a Franconia Notch Vacations is all about by way of photographing “daily life” in Franconia and by requesting our guests’ comments on the same. The Franconia Notch Vacations comment card has 2 distinct sections. One section is devoted to asking about the Agency & Vacation Experience where the other section is all about the Property. We then use these comments, in conjunction with our psychical attribute requirements when formulating a property’s rating as Grand, Deluxe, Standard or Rustic. We have also designed the comment card so that we may easily separate the guests’ comments about their experience at a property and we forward these to our owners. The agency can and does tell owners what they ought to invest in or upgrade, however it always seems to carry more weight when they read it coming from their guests.


Q: You are a volunteer firefighter - have you ever had to jump into a burning building on the verge of collapse? (I’m sure you have been asked this a million times)

CR: No- however I have responded in uniform to one of my rental properties that experienced a furnace malfunction which left the guests wondering to what length we will go to assure their comfort. I think most professional managers might agree… we are all “fire-fighters” on some level if we are doing our jobs to the highest degree.

See you in the Mountains!

The FlipKey Blog’s tagline is, “Expanding the vacation rental market through insight and community.” We have received a lot of great support and compliments for the Blog; however, our efforts are out-shined by Rick Fisher’s new venture. We’re happy to announce that Rick is expanding the vacation rental market through direct consumer marketing with the launch of the Vacation Home Expo.

The Vacation Home Expo is a dedicated consumer show focused on educating consumers on the benefits and availability of vacation home rentals. The first of its kind Expo will be held in Atlanta, GA April 11th-13th. For more information visit the Expo’s home page (click here).

To help bring some additional insight into how to effectively market vacation home rentals as a mainstream lodging option, FlipKey conducted a recent study of over 100 consumers who considered renting a vacation home, but choose to stay at more traditional lodging accommodations (e.g. hotels/B&B).

We are finding that the industry would be well served in emphasizing its commitment to ‘eventless’ lodging experiences. “On-the-fence” vacationers are most likely to convert to vacation rentals if they are confident someone will assist them in the event something goes wrong with the house. In fact, this level of security rated significantly more important compared to price.

Side note: We continue to contend that these types of qualitative guarantees and services are more valuable to the industry than refund guarantees offered by a handful of listing services.

We will dive deep into our survey results in our next Vacation Rental Research Report - due for release in November.

In the interim, Rick Fisher has agreed to a guest interview to explain more about the motives and goals of the Vacation Home Expo. Rick’s interview will be published next week on the FlipKey Blog.

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.

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.