Friday, February 11, 2011

When Did Cottages and Camps Become Vacation Rentals?

Midcoast Maine Camp
When the internet was born.

It never ceases to amaze me how few people consider a vacation rental when planning trips. I think they are just uncomfortable with the whole "vacation rental" term. Time to get back to our roots?

You see I grew up in an area with a cottage or camp culture: New England. Although my family never stayed or went anywhere but my grandmother's in Ohio, I was fortunate enough to be the guest of friends' families at Martha's Vineyard, Salisbury Beach, a Maine lake, a ski house in North Conway, and to be friends with the "summer people" from Revere MA who inhabited our own Millville Lake in NH. These weren't the summer places of wealthy people like the Bush's of Kennebunkport nor the glitzy places in todays' ads with granite counters. They were the type of vacation rentals where you didn't flush and shower at the same time. There were three things these camps and cottages had in common with each other and with modern vacation rentals: location, location, location.

Camps and cottages were by nature places to get away from everyday life in cities so they were located on lakes, beaches, and mountains. Whereas historic hotels like the Stanley, Hotel Del, and Wentworth by the Sea are becoming rarer and rarer; waterfront, slope-side, and lake front homes are becoming more available as people with second homes turn to renting out their places.

When I first had a family I had no idea how to find a vacation rental. I knew about Bed & Breakfast's, but with 2 little kids, we weren't very welcome. We couldn't afford waterfront hotels for four and we got tired of trying to lie still in a hotel room while the kids fell asleep (my husband always fell asleep first and bedtime was 7:30). Glossy specialty magazines like Down East and on location real estate offices were the primary sources for securing rentals. Some rental weeks were "passed down" generation to generation.

What's really changed is the ability to find these jewels via the internet and middle class affluence. When my family and I bought a "camp" on the midcoast of Maine in 1999 we put an ad in DownEast magazine and the WantAdvertiser and were full all summer and fall. Within just a few years I was building my own website and advertising on A-1 Vacations and Cyberrentals (predecessors to HomeAway). Now they're celebrating their second SuperBowl ad. No longer do families have to rely on knowing someone in a vacation area to beg a borrowed cottage; they can search online and get TripAdvisor reviews from the comfort of a mobile phone.

Why share this? Because I think it's time folks start thinking about todays' vacation rentals as camps and cottages again. We don't need to be compared to hotels because the cottage (condo, camp, villa, vacation rental) experience is unique. Find a location that can't be beat, hop on your favorite vacation rental site or do a search for " vacation rental," pack up the car and be on your way.

Cottage ON Champagne Pond HI
Here are my family's cottage rentals from our holiday stay in HI: Big Island Champagne Pond Cottage and eclectic Oahu Spare Room with Tropical Outdoor Shower. Were they perfect? Yes and No, but we sure had fun.

Monday, February 7, 2011

HomeAway Launches More than Just a SuperBowl Ad..."it's a bird, it's a plane, wait no, it's a test baby."

Update 2/8/11: HomeAway issues sensitive apology AND changes their ads and social media campaign. NICE SAVE. Perhaps they should choose to support a preventing child abuse charity too. Read the HomeAway Superbowl Apology

I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a critic when it comes to $3 million dollar ad buys, but even more so when the company doing the buying is an important part of my own advertising plan. On top of that I'm a bit of a vacation rental nerd. Since 1999 I've been immersed in this world of vacation rental ownership, marketing, and management. When HomeAway placed their "Chevy Chase Vacation" ad in 2010's SuperBowl, I was unimpressed, but never the less very excited for vacation rentals to get national attention and press. After all, according to PhocusWright research, only 10% of US travelers even think of a vacation rental as a lodging option.  So when word started to leak out and the hype for SuperBowl XLV begain, I was a bit surprised, and excited to hear HomeAway would be launching their second ad for the Big Game, and that it would be interactive and have the potential to go viral in social media (since I'm a social media nerd too). Then I watched the trailer for the ad online.



Hmmm.

HomeAway didn't launch an ad campaign: they launched a "test baby."

Daring! Smushed test baby? British accents in the US? Ministry of Detourism? (I suspect they'll be running the ad across the pond). Not promising. Though I have to admit, I laughed the first time the test baby flung at the glass, even though I'm a very serious mom. I didn't laugh the next time when I watched it on the big screen during the big game.  I don't like the ad. I don't think it targets my audience. It feels like it was written by 12 year old boys (kind of like GoDaddy). My guests are a bit more sophisticated and much more family oriented to really think this is funny and want to go book a vacation rental instead of a hotel because of this kind of ad.

Showing a miserable crying baby in a hotel room, waking up the other kid in the hotel room, and the parents trying to have a glass of wine in the bathroom so they don't wake them up would make a commercial that rings true. That's of course because it really is true (Chicago Marriott c.1994). This ad reminds me of the tragic story of a mom recently shooting her two teenagers for talking back. Every mom can at first relate to a mother's frustration with teenagers, but carrying through with frustration with an act of violence? No we get disgusted.  The smushed test baby is pretty disgusting (even if we all know it's a test baby and meant to be funny). I don't see how gramps, mom, auntie, or golf buddies getting away are going to connect to that baby and remember vacation rentals supply more space when they make their next lodging choice. Plus smushed has taken on new meaning compliments of Jersey Shore and I have no patience for ad companies that don't properly vet everything.

There is a saying in publicity that no publicity is bad publicity, so at least HomeAway has some definite buzz happening. In fact "test baby" trended on Twitter for quite a while after the commercial.

What do you think? Is this ad a good thing for vacation rental owners and guests? If you are a vacation rental owner, are you excited about the message and buzz? If you are a guest, does this ad call you to take action? Will you play the games online (you can put your face in and choose the baby's fate or put your vacation rental in the ad)? Will you consider a vacation rental for your stay?

Looking forward to the buzz on this launched test baby.

Update 2/7/11

As the buzz comes in I wanted to share some more links with discussion on the HomeAway test baby ad. It looks like a cold blast is coming into Austin.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2011/02/07/2011-02-07_super_bowl_2011_commercials_top_five_best_and_worst_ads_of_the_game.html

http://www.facebook.com/HomeAway (comments section)

http://yourlife.usatoday.com/parenting-family/babies/story/2011/02/Parents-recoil-at-Super-Bowl-test-baby-ad/43392036/1

http://www.sbnation.com/2011-super-bowl/2011/2/6/1979154/super-bowl-commercials-2011-test-baby-homeaway

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/theticker/entries/2011/02/07/homeaways_super_bowl_ad.html?cxntfid=blogs_statesman_business_blog

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/breaking-news/will-these-super-bowl-ads-make-advertisers-money.html

http://mypostpartumvoice.com/2011/02/06/test-baby-superbowl-commercial/

@LizSzabo is tweeting about the issue and wrote the USA Today article.

http://kelloggsuperbowlreview.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/kellogg-super-bowl-advertising-review-2011-results/

http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011/02/homeaways-smushed-baby-super-bowl-ad-creates-controversy/141996/1

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

HomeAway is it all hype?

View from Palm Desert Golf Condo
I just did an analysis of vacation rental stays in my Palm Desert California vacation rental home for the last 12 months. I've been in this particular market for 5 years now, so I've seen a lot change. Just when you think you have an advertising and marketing plan figured out for your particular location and property(ies), something changes. Like the formation of HomeAway in 2005. They bought up the big 4: Cyberrentals, A1 Vacations, VRBO, and GreatRentals. Next in was vacationrentals.com, and it continued. By 2010 the VRBO and Vacationrentals.com brands were still holding their own identities, but the others were really now distant memories and HomeAway got it's big launch with a SuperBowl ad.

By all measures things are good at HomeAway. Their inquiries are up, I'm told their inquiry per property is up, and the number of homes listed is up. However, as a homeowner, I wondered if they were up for me, since in the past the individual companies that made HomeAway worked.

So here are my top producers for the last 12 months. The numbers are based on revenue generated, not inquiries as I certainly got plenty from all parties.

VRBO 63.5%
FlipKey/TripAdvisor 10.7%
Bettervacationrentals.com 8.9%
Vrconnection 4.6%
Coachella 3.9%
Unknown 3.1%
Craigslist 1.3%
Email Marketing 1.3%
Referral 1.3%
Repeat 1.3%

Keep in mind if we add up Bettervacationrentals, Coachella, Craigslist, Email, Referral, and Repeat we get 17% of revenue generated by efforts under my own control. I truly wish that number were much higher as advertising costs have become out of hand for VRBO because of their charges for photos (which are what sells a listing).

Interestingly 37% of my inquiries were from VRBO, whilst 50% of my bookings were. That's a high quality lead. Ironically, I don't like the payment and listing priority model of VRBO, nor their stiff arm management, but that's another blog post. FlipKey/TripAdvisor for whom I have so much hope yielded 19% of inquiries but only 13% of bookings which means they are a lower quality lead. I noticed that even though my calendars are up to date on both, I received more inquiries via TripAdvisor for dates that were already booked.

How is it, though, that there was not 1 single booking sourced from HomeAway? This is the biggest vacation rental listing site in the world! I received at least 30 inquiries from HomeAway guests in the last 12 months. I should have statistically booked 3 stays if they were an average inquiry source. How can the biggest vacation rental listing site underperform so badly? Is it all just hype? Bad luck? A poor presentation of my property? The wrong customer base?

Finally, should I renew my listing with HomeAway?

Would love to hear. Please weigh in.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Tax Reporting Burden Buried in Health Care Reform Impacts Vacation Rental Owners

beach parking
2/11/11 STATUS UPDATE: According to Accounting Today in the 2/2 issue:
"Senate votes to repeal 1099 reporting requirement
The Senate has approved a measure that would repeal the expanded Form 1099 reporting requirements that were part of last year's health care law. The move has broad support because the Form 1099 rules, which are set to require businesses to report any purchases of more than $600 of goods and services from vendors in a year to the Internal Revenue Service, are expected to increase accounting costs for small businesses. The AICPA supports repeal of the expanded Form 1099 reporting requirements; however, it has asked the Treasury Department for guidance on several pressing issues if the rules are not repealed."

Vacation Rental Owners and Property Managers who pay for goods with cash or checks now have an extra IRS reporting burden in 2011. Our solution: use credit cards for every purchase possible. Unfortunately, we all know that using a credit card is not always possible and often can cost us more as cash prices are often lower because the retailer saves the processing fee.

You should already be issuing 1099s for service providers that are not corporations. Keeping good records and saving receipts just got more important, all at a time when our costs are going up, rentals are still soft, and rates have come down from historical highs...

For an excellent review and explanation of the changes visit HomeAway's Community forum.