I read with Interest over the weekend a report by PhoCusWright market research about the holiday rental market and it’s massive growth in the US, and therefore inevitably here in the UK.

They specifically note that websites like ours, that bring together Agent and Private managed properties into one place, are set to meet their customers needs best.

Here’s their summary:

Vacation Rental Marketplace: Poised for Change

Large, complex, fragmented, long understudied and definitely underestimated, the U.S. vacation rental market is poised for change.

Vacation rentals represent a more than $24 billion opportunity in the U.S. – that’s more than one fifth of all hotel room revenue and 8% of the total U.S. travel market. And vacation rental consumers are a market to covet. They’re well-off, well-educated, and they travel – a lot. Nine in 10 take at least four leisure trips a year.

The online segment is growing in both transactions and advertising, as some players large and small move quickly to tap this fast-growing opportunity. But not everyone is moving so fast. The majority of bookings are done the old-fashioned way, at a time when nearly $100 billion in leisure travel will be booked online in 2008. Many property managers and vacation homeowners have yet to leverage the emerging business models, technologies and services that are spurring change.

So there you have it. Holdiay rentals go mainstream and we are leading the charge here in the UK. Looks like we are all in the right place at the right time…..

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Holiday chat. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.