Vacation Rental Market Report Highlights Benefits of Independent Vacation Rental Ownership

If you’re an independent vacation rental owner, you may not see yourself as part of an ‘industry’ that needs a market report. You may not even regard your rental property as a true ‘business’ in the sense of its main purpose being to make money for you.

But to sustain your vacation rental, even to break even and cover your costs, you’ll need to use some business methods. And you’ll need to accept that we, as owners, are part of the ‘hospitality industry’. Major changes in recent years mean that independent vacation rental owners are now a growing force in this £95billion global industry. This is borne out by the results of the Homes and Rooms Global Vacation Rental Market Report 2014.

Vacation Rental Market Report Summarized

Here are some of the fascinating things we discovered from our vacation rental market report survey:

• Globally, the US and European vacation rental markets are worth an estimated $29.6 billion and $25.8 billion each.
• There are over 10 million vacation rental properties worldwide, with 4.2 million in Europe alone.
• Growth in vacation rentals was slowed after 2008 following the recession, but the vacation rental market is now growing at its fastest rate ever!
• Vacation rentals are going online – around 57,000 properties were ‘taken online’ for the first time across Europe last year.
• The average age of vacation rental homeowners is getting younger. Median age is now just 43 and 55% of owners are under 45.
• In 2013, HomeAway found that, amongst its one million listings, the average vacation rental owner made their home available to guests for 36 weeks of the year.
• Florida emerges as one of the most popular vacation destinations worldwide. Across Flipkey’s vast network, 7 out of 10 top reservation requests were locations in the Sunshine State.

Rapid growth of online booking

Our vacation rental market report bears out what we knew to be true. The biggest impact on our industry in recent years has been the introduction of web-based listings sites. Plus, of course, the growing preference of vacation rental owners and guests for online booking. We’re guessing that pretty soon almost every independent vacation rental owner will be online. Supported by some kind of vacation rental service provider. They’ll also be advertising and communicating with potential guests via a number of different marketing channels and services, whether by computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone. Like subscribers to our Homes and Rooms service, they’ll be using these service providers to reduce the time and energy spent on their managing their vacation rental. Our service for example will handle owner’s rental inquiries, availability calendar updates, reservation confirmations, follow-up emails, online payment, reporting and much, much more.

Service pays for itself

Using our vacation rental market report research we were also able to estimate average rental owner incomes around the world. Significantly, at nearly $19,000, owner annual incomes from vacation rentals in 2014 were higher in the USA than in Europe where they averaged just over $7,000. In the same period, owners outside the USA and Europe averaged $9,439. The good news for subscribers to the Homes and Rooms service is that based on these average income statistics, an ‘Owner’ subscription with Homes and Rooms for a US-based property only needs to increase the number of days booked by just 4 extra days over the year to pay for itself! Remember too that using the powerful online tools available through the service will almost certainly increase by more than enough to cover these costs. It’s difficult to over-estimate the impact of the benefits of realtime information and instant guest communications in the fast moving, highly competitive world of online reservations. Generally, if your response to a guest inquiry is not immediate, the browser is likely to move on and book with a competitor who can provide instant answers. On the other hand, if the inquirer can get instant details of cost, availability and more when he or she lands on your serviced website, it not only makes a more professional impression, but greatly increases your chances of securing a reservation. So, when used regularly, the service will more than pay for itself.

Get your FREE copy of the Homes and Rooms Global Vacation Rental Market Report

If you would like a FREE copy of the Homes and Rooms Global Vacation Rental Market Report 2014 just get in contact and let us know.