Chris Mottershead, group chief exec of Travelzest - who recently had some press coverage regarding a rumour that him and his Finance Director would resign from the group (after TUI decided not to acquire Travelzest last year) - introduces the next session "innovators in digital and online travel". This morning, the rumour was overturned with this release.
Brian Sharples Chief Exec and Founder of HomeAway, the vacation rental site (or should we say in Oxford English "holiday hire site") presents his company.
Company founed in February 2005 with a mission to build the world's largest and most trusted online marketplace for the rental of vacation homes. The business model is not that innovative and very simple. The site charges an annual subscription fee of $300-400 to list a property to rent. HomeAway is not a travel agency. Bookings can be handled by suppliers directly. They are also opportunities to list your property higher on the results display if you have a premium subscription.
For €300, a property can expect 75+ qualified email inquires per year. For the traveller, the site is completely free.
The company has offices in the US, UK, Germany and France.
Revenue rose to €100M in 2008 with 40% EBIDTA margin.
Interesting enough, the vacation rental industry is around €60 - 100B gobally but very fragmented with an estimated 4million properties in the US and Europe.
There is no dominant brand in the the vacation rental market due to high fragmentation of owners and property management systems.
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The recent round of financing (€250M in November 2008) HomeAway successed to get was to eliminate the debts accumulated in the past. Also the company was on the acquisition trail and bought some smaller players in countries they were interested to be in (Abritel in France in 2007 and Homelidays in Feb09).
Kevin May asks one tip to give away to start ups today
Answers from panellists: No Fear. You can build a company with little money that we originally thought. Make sure you add value to the users and constantly innovate. If you want to get noticed, don't forget to make money as well.
Thanks for the updates. Keep them coming.
Posted by: Martin | Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 02:02 PM