Experienced vacation ownership industry marketing executives partner on innovative new firm, offering executive consulting, business development, and digital marketing services to clients of all sizes.

Marketing consulting firm Resort Insiders, recently launched by longtime industry professionals Dennis Brisson and Chris Hornbeck, offers an extensive suite of executive consulting, digital marketing, business development, and marketing operations consulting services to developers, resorts, travel clubs and marketing companies in the worldwide vacation ownership industry.

Brisson, an industry-veteran marketing executive with extensive experience in site-level management, call center development, and vendor relationship management, has held senior executive positions at Wyndham/Fairfield, Club Navigo/Island One, and KGI Resorts, and Hornbeck, a digital marketing and technology expert, has an extensive background in tour and lead generation, data analysis, and marketing operations, having spent a number of years as both an independent e-commerce consultant and Director of Internet Marketing at Festiva Resorts.

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The online advertising company for the timeshare resale and rental market becomes a sponsor of Perspective Magazine’s second annual industry networking and awards event.

Perspective Magazine announces that internet advertising company BuyaTimeshare.com will become a sponsor of the Day One Networking Break during GNEX 2012 – A Global Meeting of Minds in Cancun, Mexico.

“GNEX offers an opportunity for the best minds to share their knowledge and experiences, which creates a catalyst for better shared ownership experiences industry-wide,” said Wesley Kogelman, president and CEO, BuyaTimeshare.com.

BuyaTimeshare.com is one of the leading internet advertising and marketing companies online for timeshare owners who seek to sell or rent their timeshare by owner. In 2010, the company provided $90,435,503 in qualified offers to owners who advertised their timeshare for sale on the company’s website. Over 6,300 confirmed offers were sent to advertisers by BuyaTimeshare.com as legitimate offers due to the industry-leading, technological advances of the company’s website. The company’s average offer of $14,197 last year was about 70% of the $20,000 average price of a new timeshare interval, which is excellent value and significantly higher than the usual prices garnered on the resale market.

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Compass President and timeshare veteran Jay Finley, RRP, plans to add Fox Hills Resort to mix of coast-to-coast destinations.

Independent sales and marketing experts specializing in mature timeshare resorts, Compass Resort Group, announced they are bringing Fox Hills Resort, located in Mishicot, Wisconsin, into their family of small-to-mid-sized, resorts.

According to Compass President Jay C. Finley III, RRP, “Fox Hills offers vacationers year-round entertainment, whether it’s a get-away in mid-winter for the kids to enjoy the indoor pool and activities, or a summer golfing vacation on the property’s 45 links. We believe a number of customers in the surrounding market – people from Wisconsin, Illinois and on out to Minnesota – will not only be interested in buying into a vacation here, but will also enjoy visiting our other properties in Branson, California, Florida and Texas.”

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International Private Residence Club Consultancy Brings Sales & Marketing Expertise to Exclusive Costa Rica Property

Leading Private Residence Club consultancy, Peter Kempf International (PKI), announced it has been awarded the exclusive sales and marketing contract for The Palms Private Residence Club, located on renowned Flamingo Beach on Costa Rica’s coveted Gold Coast.

Steps from the sand and with panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean, The Palms is a luxury getaway and the only beachfront private residence club in all of Costa Rica. PKI President & CEO Peter Kempf noted, “We have earned a reputation for being highly selective, and our portfolio includes some of the most iconic clubs ever created,” said Kempf.  “As soon as we arrived at The Palms, we looked at each other and knew that this was the equal of any club anywhere in the world.”

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For more than 7 years, http://www.timesharestaff.com has been the leading force behind online recruitment for the shared ownership industry and a firm favourite of many of the industry’s largest brands and independent developers.

Through its vast reach within the timeshare and fractional industry and highly targeted marketing externally, TimeshareStaff.com generates more than 16,000 employment enquiries per month for its advertisers globally, covering all nationalities and all sales, marketing, management and administration roles.

Now, to ease the rebuilding of sales and marketing teams around the globe, the recruitment website has adapted to accept single position / single location job postings for 30 days at a time (or more), in addition to its longer term continuous recruitment packages and the recent response to this has shown significant signs of recovery within the industry.

“There is definitely movement again within our industry, albeit a little more cautiously than perhaps a couple of years ago. We saw that many companies needed to start recruiting properly again but kept putting it off, so we looked at a decision to embrace short term advertisements very carefully and found that this was one way we could help stimulate growth again.” Said CEO, Paul Mattimoe.

For more information on advertising your job vacancies with TimeshareStaff.com just visit http://www.timesharestaff.com/employers

By Paul Mattimoe, President & CEO, Perspective International

Over the past couple of years I have sat at conferences and listened to many sessions about Social Media and Internet Marketing with speeches from marketing gurus trying to explain why the shared ownership industry should jump on board – but even now in 2010 we still have sessions such as “Social Media: Is it just Hype?” which shows that many people are just not understanding the importance of implementing these powerful tools, and so I thought I would share with you some statistics, guidelines of how to get involved and some defining results we have achieved by using internet marketing and social media, so we can all move forward faster as an industry.

With old-style marketing methods consistently providing less volume or less quality results whilst becoming extortionately more expensive than in the past there is an urgent need for a more cost efficient way to produce qualified tours or sales leads throughout the timeshare and fractional industry. Finally some of the
larger companies are venturing into TV advertising as this is no longer as expensive as it used to be and reaches a mass market, providing results that usually are very satisfactory on a per prospect cost. But for
many this may still not be the way to go yet – however online marketing is, and is scalable to meet all budgets and volume requirements.

But before I tell you how fantastic online marketing is, which it is, I first need to explain, as a magazine publisher, that I am not suggesting that online marketing is the answer to all your problems, you will still need to use other marketing channels and recently print and online have become extensively intertwined to complement each other perfectly in a way that is only noticeable (to the detriment of your bottom line) when one is removed, and I’ll give examples of this shortly, but for now understand that online marketing should be looked at as an additional, affordable spend, not a replacement for other marketing channels in an attempt to reduce overall spend.

So why should you take internet advertising and social media marketing so seriously? Well for the price of one new employee; yes just one person is usually enough for most companies – but the right one, that’s  talented in online marketing, not just SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) as this is not the same thing, but someone that can draft out and execute ongoing and interlinked marketing campaigns who by default implements SEO strategies anyway, you will be able to significantly change your online presence.

Alternatively, you can outsource this, it is more expensive but sometimes more convenient, usually a web specialist company will only allocate one person to do the work also. Therefore, in either case, this one  person can then begin to build your online presence amongst the masses:

• 234 million – The number of websites as of December 2009.
• 47 million – Added websites in 2009.

As you can see there are a phenomenal number of other websites on the internet, but the good news is that means there are many, many more internet users:

• 1.73 billion – Internet users worldwide (September 2009).
• 18% – Increase in Internet users since the previous year.
• 738,257,230 – Internet users in Asia.
• 418,029,796 – Internet users in Europe.
• 252,908,000 – Internet users in North America.
• 179,031,479 – Internet users in Latin America / Caribbean.
• 67,371,700 – Internet users in Africa.
• 57,425,046 – Internet users in the Middle East.
• 20,970,490 – Internet users in Oceania / Australia.

And this is why you should be concentrating on the internet as one of your marketing channels, as with the right marketing campaign you could target your share of the rapidly rising millions of prospective clients.

Where are you going wrong?
Well, hopefully you are not, but unfortunately if all you have is a corporate / resort website or two and they are not on the first page of the search engines for search terms such as timeshare, timeshare resorts, timeshare resorts in (your region), or similar for vacation ownership, fractional ownership etc and all you rank for is your own company or resort name then I’m afraid you are going wrong.

Also, if you buy email lists to send email blasts you are probably wasting time and money – why?
• 90 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2009.
• 247 billion – Average number of email messages per day.
• 1.4 billion – The number of email users worldwide.
• 100 million – New email users since the year before.
• 81% – The percentage of emails that were spam.
• 92% – Peak spam levels late in the year.
• 24% – Increase in spam since last year.
• 200 billion – The number of spam emails per day (assuming 81% are spam).

That’s why – if more than 4 out of 5 emails are considered SPAM (regardless of whether you bought opt in email addresses or not) then the recipient is unlikely to read it let alone respond to it. This did work quite well a couple of years ago, but with recent growth it just doesn’t now.

Internet Advertising
Internet advertising is predominantly made up of buying banner advertising on selected websites or Pay per Click advertising with companies like Google on their search pages.

Firstly Pay per Click, this does work but is becoming increasingly expensive as companies continue to try to out bid each other for the top spots thus hiking up the prices for each keyword. There are also suggestions that more than 30%-50% of all clicks are not genuine visits for one reason or another and although not yet substantiated either way you do need to weigh up the cost of what you spend on this to the actual results you get very early on to determine whether this is a profitable route for you to take.

Banner Advertising is another strange one – Do you choose another industry related site to advertise on that may well not have that much traffic but results should be targeted, or advertise on a high traffic site such as a news website or comparison site and get a larger flow of traffic to your site that are not targeted at all?

Well, that’s trial and error depending on your marketing campaign style and more importantly budget, it’s a numbers game after all, so the more you have the more sales you may well make – well that’s all OK if you
are paying for the number of click thrus you get to your website, but if you are paying for the number of banner ad impressions (the number of times your ad appears on the screen) regardless of who sees it and
who clicks on it can get very costly as average online click thru rates for banner advertising are just 0.5% of the number of ad impressions.

In all cases try not to buy packages based on impressions, but on results (click thrus) and then base your long term decision on conversions of those click thrus and your new employee or web agency can monitor and track this for you.

Social Media Marketing
Welcome to the new Wild West, where anything can happen and you can win or lose depending on how you conduct your business online – the only sure thing is that you need to play this game.

There are two main reasons why the shared ownership industry are slow to get involved with Social Media Marketing, one is that it’s quite hard to make it work and even harder to explain how to make it work to a novice – so get that expert involved; and two is the fear of drawing the wrong attention to themselves and
encouraging a barrage of negative reviews.

This second reason needs addressing here – there are already plenty of negative reviews relating to our industry in general (and most of the individual companies involved) on the internet, many are inaccurate but damaging all the same. However, take a look at all other industries and they get the same treatment, browse around TripAdvisor.com and you will see fantastic major brand 5* hotels with amazingly positive reviews and right next to them another visitor to the hotel on the same week says it’s the worst place they have ever
been and recommend against going.

Now, I am not going to use the saying “All publicity is good publicity” in this scenario, but whilst the hotels on TripAdvisor.com have no control over what is written on that website, it is beneficial for you as a developer for example to distribute regular positive content onto the internet about your resort(s) and you can do this using social media such as Twitter, Facebook etc for consumer centric marketing. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr These are the best social media channels, particularly for the shared ownership industry and here’s a few more interesting statistics for you:

Social Media Sites
• 126 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
• 84% – Percent of social network sites with more women than men.
• 27.3 million – Number of tweets on Twitter per day (November, 2009)
• 57% – Percentage of Twitter’s user base located in the United States.
• 4.25 million – People following @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher, Twitter’s most followed user).
• 350 million – People on Facebook.
• 50% – Percentage of Facebook users that log in every day.
• 500,000 – The number of active Facebook applications.

Images
• 4 billion – Photos hosted by Flickr (October 2009).
• 2.5 billion – Photos uploaded each month to Facebook.
• 30 billion – At the current rate, the number of photos uploaded to Facebook per year.

Videos
• 1 billion – The total number of videos YouTube serves in one day.
• 12.2 billion – Videos viewed per month on YouTube in the US (November 2009).
• 924 million – Videos viewed per month on Hulu in the US (November 2009).
• 182 – The number of online videos the average Internet user watches in a month (USA).
• 82% – Percentage of Internet users that view videos online (USA).
• 39.4% – YouTube online video market share (USA).
• 81.9% – Percentage of embedded videos on blogs that are YouTube videos.

Here is where you realise that just having someone in the office tweeting away or running a Facebook page about your company (as many of you do) is not going to work for you.

It’s all about volume – if you don’t have thousands of fans on Facebook and you are trying to market to a few hundred or less you will not make any impact. There may be 14.5 million Twitter Users, but recent stats show that a staggering 73% of those users are no longer actively tweeting and 74% of those have less than 10 followers. This is because many give it a go because someone said they should, don’t understand it and so then don’t use it. However, that means that 17% of all Twitter users (nearly 2.5 million) are responsible for
27.3 million tweets per day, an average of 11 tweets each per day.

In our own company, after several months we have mastered Twitter and now have nearly 30,000 twitter followers over five accounts (with numbers rising daily) which successfully generates both traffic to our websites and subscriptions to our trade and consumer magazines. We have yet to master Facebook though which we find is hard to attract consumers to Owners Perspective Magazine when our wall (area to post comments) is full of comments from industry professionals on all manner of subjects and we have little or no
control over it.

How do you attract the right demographic?
Well it’s obvious that not all 1.73 billion internet users are prospective clients, it’s more like a fraction of that usually based on age, location, interest and income, but you can target marketing campaigns to all of these factors and more. For example, you may have dabbled with Twitter, but did you know there were external programs you can use to attract twitter followers based on specific keywords or interests within a specific mile radius of any city? A properly structured social media campaign could be concentrated specifically
on potential clients within driving distance of your resort, and then filtered to those that like golf, spas, fine dining, skiing, water sports etc.

Once again though, this is where I would encourage you to spend the money on a social media expert. But imagine the power and difference in cost of this over direct mail advertising and all the while you are also creating an online footprint of positive content about yourselves and your resort(s) which over time builds up your brand awareness and credibility to the generations that turn to the internet for answers, assurances and comparisons before they buy anything.

Is Social Media The Answer To All Your Prayers?
There are many other things you can do with Social Media which I will detail in later editions of Perspective Magazine, such as using it to communicate with just your members to encourage referrals, rentals and upgrades. Social Media will certainly be King on the internet for several years to come at least…

According to comScore, total social networking access via mobile browsers on all mobile phones rose to 11.1% at the start of 2010 — this was up from 6.5% in 2009. Most of this growth was in the uptake in smart phone usage. When it comes to specific social networks, Twitter and Facebook both had increases in mobile browser usage in the triple digits. Twitter usage via mobile browsers was up 347% while Facebook mobile browser usage was up 112%. It’s important to note that these figures are just from mobile browser statistics — they don’t even take into account the use of mobile applications for Twitter or Facebook that have been released recently which are now propelling usage ever higher.

…But, despite all of this the answer to the question is no, social media is not the answer to all your prayers when it comes to lead generation, you still need to market to your existing owners and invest in offline advertising – but you should ensure that social media is added to your core marketing campaigns moving forward.

What We’ve Done So Far With Social Media

Owners Perspective Magazine
Website traffic attributed to:
55% Offline Marketing
26% Search Engine Traffic
19% Social Media Marketing
In this case our offline marketing is the strongest element, but this is because we have our consumer magazine in 150+ first class airport lounges and selected hotels, resorts, golf clubs and spas worldwide as well as individual print subscription which drive people to our website for the latest content and to register.

Our search engine traffic comes from high rankings achieved over the past year. But nearly 20% of our traffic is from Social Media, most of which can be attributed to Twitter on which we post our latest news, articles and reader offers for our advertisers.
Visit www.ownersperspective.com for more information.

Perspective Magazine
Website traffic attributed to:
42% Offline Marketing
34% Search Engine Traffic
24% Social Media Marketing
Offline marketing is from our trade magazine which is distributed to 9,572 industry professionals around the word and again search engine traffic comes from Number 1 rankings for terms such as “timeshare news”.
The social media element is higher here as news related content tends to do really well and attracts a lot of new traffic.
Visit www.perspectivemagazine.com for more information

Perspective Forums
61% Email Marketing
39% Social Media Marketing
Perspective Forums is our shot at creating a B2B Social Networking site which after just one month has become the largest online social media group for the Shared Ownership industry with more than 1,000 registered users and rising fast. The first two weeks saw the site process more than 2,000 friend requests.
For this we emailed our Perspective Magazine database and used social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to attract the rest, as our site incorporates the best features of each all on one website. In the coming months the search engines will also contribute to our traffic, as will our print magazines.
Visit www.perspectiveforums.com for more information.

Costa Rica-based OSA Resort Club, is the latest company to join with SPI Software as a valued customer. OSA Resort Club has licensed the SPI Orange Enterprise Vacation Ownership Suite including integrated modules for marketing, sales, mortgage and maintenance fee servicing, central reservations, property management and operations.

Matt Brosious, Vice-President of sales for SPI states, “We are very proud to have been selected by OSA Resort Club as their technology platform. Developers are making SPI their overwhelming choice as the benefits of SPI’s easy user interface, quick implementation and rich functionality is a distinct strategic and competitive advantage.”

Paula Mead, General Manager for OSA Resort Club adds” I chose SPI Orange after carefully evaluating available software. SPI has everything we needed for both now and the future, ‘out of the box,’ without additional customization.”

SPI Orange can be deployed on a modular basis for an individual department or as an integrated enterprise suite that is available as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) or as a traditional client-based package.  For companies wanting additional information, please visit SPI at ARDA Booth 343 during the ARDA national convention March 15-18th or email sales@spisoftware.com.

About OSA Resort Club
OSA is a new and exciting resort concept that combines aspects of a private club with a membership resort. The resort club is located on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica near Puerto Jimenez and will feature many exciting amenities. For further information visit http://www.osaresortclub.com/osaresortclub.html.

About SPI Software
SPI Software provides developers and operators of vacation ownership (timeshare, fractional, private residence club and others using either traditional or points-based usage strategies) with Microsoft .NET-based software as either an enterprise suite of software called Orange Systems, or in specific modules to handle marketing, sales, property management, finance, maintenance fee and receivables servicing, centralized reservations or Website access operations. Founded in 1978 and based in Miami, FL, SPI can be reached at 305-858-9505, sales@spiinc.com or www.spisoftware.com.

14 ARDY Entries Selected As Finalists For 2010 Gala

Brand Tango, a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.-based marketing, technology and design firm, has had 13 Advertising and Promotion entries selected as finalists in the American Resort Development Association’s ARDY awards competition. In addition, Larry Talley, Brand Tango’s vice president of application development, is a finalist in the Management and Administration category.

“This is a wonderful way to celebrate Brand Tango’s fifth anniversary; it’s our best showing ever,” says Joe Russoniello, president and co-founder. “We started the agency to provide a much-needed service to the vacation ownership industry, and it’s a thrill to see our work recognized.”

Brand Tango’s work for Blue Strawberry Resorts, Casa Dorado, Floridays Club, GlobeQuest, Hacienda Tres Rios, Royal Palm Vacations, Royal Resorts, and Sunset World—as well as its own electronic newsletter—all received ARDA honors. “We’re grateful to these companies for entrusting us with their brand and image,” says James Kluetz, vice president and creative director. “In these challenging times, we know that what matters is return on investment, and these projects delivered.”

In addition to the Advertising and Promotions awards, Larry Talley, Brand Tango’s vice president of application development, is a finalist in the Management and Administration category. Talley has created a proprietary Web-based software system that integrates all facets of a developers operation, including all lead and contact management, call centers, referral programs, reservations, maintenance fee and mortgage billing, as well as loyalty points programs. In 2009, his team designed several Web sites, including two for Royal Resorts Caribbean and Sunset World that were selected as ARDY finalists.

“Brand Tango has been a staunch supporter of ARDA and the timeshare industry overall,” says Howard Nusbaum, ARDA president. “We heartily congratulate them on their success as they celebrate this important milestone and wish them luck at the ARDY awards gala in Las Vegas on March 17.”

Brand Tango is a comprehensive marketing, design, and technology company with clients in timeshare/real estate/hospitality, consumer products and services, and financial services. Relying on their decades of combined expertise, its principals and staff help clients define and achieve sales goals and return-on-investment objectives by addressing integrated marketing needs in an efficient, unbiased, and knowledgeable manner with a solid, multi-faceted, results-oriented strategy.

Brand Tango specializes in new-customer kits, loyalty programs, member-retention materials, and annual reports for vacation ownership, hospitality and leisure clients, and for other consumer-products companies. Selected clients include Floridays Club, Pacific Monarch Resorts, OPTX 20/20, GBS International, Premier Estate Properties, Tres Rios Resort, Sunset World, Premier Cancun Vacations, and Casa Dorado.

To view examples of Brand Tango’s recent work, visit www.brand-tango.com. For an online demonstration of Brand Tango’s Web 2.0 customer relationship management system, Tango, go to www.gettango.com.

“Rediscover Sheraton” Campaign Invites Consumers to See What a Difference $6 Billion Makes

70,000 New Guestrooms, 300 New Lobbies and 100,000 Beds Part of Three-Year Makeover

Sheraton Hotels & Resorts announced today the launch of a new $20 million dollar, multi-media marketing campaign created to highlight the brand’s $6 billion revitalization effort. Launching today, the “Rediscover Sheraton” campaign encourages travelers to take a new look at Sheraton, which features an enhanced guest experience following a three-year, global brand overhaul. This is the first new marketing campaign to debut for Sheraton in two years.

The “Rediscover Sheraton” campaign showcases key elements of the $6 billion enhancement, including 300 new lobbies, 70,000 new guestrooms, 100,000 new beds and the brand’s unique wired lobby lounge called the “Link@SheratonSM experienced with Microsoft®.”

A key insight that directed the creative vision for the campaign is the growing trend of travelers seamlessly blending business and leisure – also known as “bleisure”- and the demand for socially driven designed spaces and amenities. As part of the brand’s overhaul, every aspect of the new Sheraton guest experience was designed to promote social interaction and bring people together. The campaign depicts this through clever headlines and striking imagery that blur the lines of business and leisure and unite seemingly disparate concepts to capture attention, build intrigue and encourage consumers to reconsider the brand: “Who brings business suits and bathing suits together” is paired with an image of a conference room table that’s been seamlessly connected to the image of a business executive lounging poolside with a laptop. Other headlines include “Who brings power walks and power talks together” and “Who brings bottom lines and bottom ups together.”

The multi-million campaign marks the first Sheraton campaign to be designed in-house by the company’s global brand design team, led by Phil McAveety, Chief Brand Officer for Starwood. “Rediscover Sheraton” will launch across a multimedia platform that integrates consumer, trade and online and Sheraton will focus a significant portion of its buy on non-traditional media.

“The focus on non-traditional media marks an exciting new direction for Sheraton,” said Phil McAveety. “What sets this campaign apart is the fully integrated, multi-platform approach and how the work uses non-traditional media to convey the new Sheraton experience. Every brand touch-point of the campaign is strategically aligned, across all executions including print, online, mobile, promotional and experiential event activities.”

The campaign will run on key websites, including TripAdvisor.com, NYTimes.com, Kayak.com, BizJournals.com and CNN.com. Print ads will run in USA Today and other key business and travel titles.

Sheraton is completing a three-year, multi-billion global brand overhaul that encompasses more than $4 billion in new hotels, renovations and signature brand initiatives in North America and another $2 billion in new hotels overseas. Highlights include:

* 70,000 new or newly renovated guestrooms — 50,000 in North America alone
* More than 300 new lobbies featuring the brand’s innovative Link@SheratonSM experienced with Microsoft®
* More than 100,000 brand new Sheraton Sweet Sleeper all-white, high thread count beds in 211 hotels and 83,000 guestrooms worldwide
* 98 renovated properties, nearly half of Sheraton’s North American portfolio, including high profile gateway properties like the Sheraton Denver, Sheraton Boston, Sheraton Seattle Hotel & Towers and Sheraton Montreal and Sheraton Waikiki.
* Sheraton has opened more than 60 new hotels worldwide since 2007 including new flagships such as the Sheraton Puerto Rico Convention Center Hotel & Casino and the Sheraton Phoenix Convention Center Hotel.

About Sheraton Hotels & Resorts
Sheraton helps guests make connections at more than 400 hotels in 75 countries around the world. It is owned by and is the largest and most global brand of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with 966 properties in more than 100 countries and 145,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. Starwood Hotels is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchisor of hotels, resorts and residences with the following internationally renowned brands: St. Regis®, The Luxury Collection®, W®, Westin®, Le Méridien®, Sheraton®, Four Points® by Sheraton, and the recently launched Aloft®, and Element SM. Starwood Hotels also owns Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., one of the premier developers and operators of high quality vacation interval ownership resorts. For more information, please visit www.starwoodhotels.com.

Escapia Releases National 2010 Vacation Rental Industry Report Providing Most Comprehensive Look at the Current State of the Vacation Rental Business

Escapia, Inc. (www.escapia.com) today announced the immediate release of the National 2010 Vacation Rental Industry Report. This complimentary report analyzes data from over $300 million of bookings at tens of thousands of vacation rental homes in 2009, providing unprecedented insights into national industry trends.

While 2009 was a tough year for vacation rental managers, Escapia’s latest report shows that the actual results were not as dismal as many perceived. Early year booking declines of over 25% largely reversed direction by mid-year, with fourth quarter bookings rebounding by 17% compared to a year earlier. The industry also saw notable improvement in key metrics including the average booking size, lead times and length of stay during the fourth quarter of 2009. Topics addressed in the report include:

–  How travelers responded to the ‘Great Recession’
–  Year-to-Year Booking Dollars by Quarter
–  Booking Dollars by Month
–  Booking Dollars by Region
–  Average Length of Stay and Lead Times
–  Average Booking Size by Quarter
–  Bookings by Day of the Week
–  Bookings by Month: When they happened and when they were made

The National 2010 Vacation Rental Industry report offers the most thorough analysis of 2009 vacation rental data to date. “We are thrilled to release our annual report for the industry,” said Bill Furlong, CEO of Escapia. “This report is by far the most comprehensive analysis on the state of the vacation rental business. We hope that giving vacation rental managers this type of information will help them learn from 2009 and make themselves stronger for 2010.” A summary of the report is provided on the Escapia Blog at www.escapiablog.com. The full report is available for free download at Escapia’s web site at www.escapia.com/market_trends.html. 2010 Vacation Rental Reports by Region for select regions are also available upon request by contacting research@escapia.com.

About Escapia
Escapia, Inc., founded in 2000, is leading the Internet revolution in the $24 billion vacation rental industry with a comprehensive Internet business platform and breakthrough online marketing and booking services. Escapia empowers professional vacation rental management companies to reach new customers, manage guest and owner relationships, and perform trust-based accounting, housekeeping, maintenance and other mission critical aspects of their businesses. Seattle-based Escapia can be reached at 1-800-ESCAPIA, info@escapia.com or via the web at www.escapia.com.