It’s a big day for us. Today our latest team member joins us, direct from his mum now that he is 8 weeks old!

Harry, a yellow Labrador, is just the cutest dog and already has the coolest laid back attitude. He loves the attention of all the people who come and go here in the office and, as people keep pointing out, already has more friends than I do!

We have no plans to give Harry his own Twitter account but we’ll post a few pictures now and again on our own Twitter page.

We encourage all of the people who rent holiday properties through our site to leave reviews about it.

As enough time has passed now for the reviews to start, we are getting some interesting issues around what to do with holiday rentals that have bad reviews. For me personally, the answer has always been clear. Providing the reviews are genuine (and we verify every one) then they stay, good or bad. That is the point of a review system.

However over the last few weeks I have listened to some well reasoned argument that once a holiday rental is confirmed as bad, then we should remove their property. The rationale being, if the property or it’s owner/agent is that bad then why should it be listed on a holiday rental website?

I suppose I am thinking that if it is bad, and people are aware through the reviews that it is bad, then that is a good thing. It informs renters about the property and the issue holiday makers have had. It is then up to the renter to decide if they ignore the reviews or ignore the property. Reviews are simply opinions. However, if there are enough of them saying the same thing though you need to be really careful if you ignore them.

So what’s the best way to play this - remove the properties with lots of bad reviews or leave them, informing our customers about the potential problems with a certain property?

I am delighted to announce that Direct Holiday Bookings has won the North East Digital Awards best business website.

While shortlisting is based on votes, the final decision on the winner is made by a panel of leading Internet specialists who look at all aspects of the business, from commercial model through to customer experience. Our whole team were delighted to be recognised at a ceremony held in a renovated museum building in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

I dare say that we had a glass of wine or two to celebrate

Thank you for your feedback and input that has helped us to shape Direct Holiday Bookings into what it is today. I really appreciate all of the help and support you have given us. We have so much more planned for the next 12 months to make Direct Holiday Bookings as good as we possibly can for you.

I may have forgot to mention that we started listing Thomson Holidays villas a few weeks ago.

Anyone looking for a way to start a great commercial relationship with a partner take note! This is a great way NOT to do it.

I really like Thomson as they do great villas and are part of TUI group, largest holiday operator in the world. They also have ABTA approval so your money is protected should anything unexpected happen!

We are delighted to be working with Thomsons and being able to offer you some of the best holiday rentals from the biggest name in holiday travel.

So in a further attempt to make amends, here are a few of their best properties for you to look at:

Nice 4 bedroom villa

Good looking Cyprus villa

We list all holiday properties on our site for free.

Now if I had  a pound for everytime someone said ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’ when discussing us, then I would be…….(you get the idea).

So I was speaking to a holiday home owner this week to answer their questions on our service and after I explained what we do, the chap replied back, “So it’s not a free service, it is funded by airlines, car hire companies and other related services”.

Genius! I wish I had thought to put it that way. That’s exactly it.

Put simply, a small proportion of customers who rent holiday properties through our site will also want a flight, car hire etc, and if they take those services by clicking on our adverts we get a small payment, directly from the company involved. That way, there is no cost to our home owners OR our kind visitors who rent properties listed on our site.

So now I have an easier way to explain why we list properties for free. We are now approaching 100,000 holiday rentals listed on our site, so perhaps we can double that over the coming 12 months - especially now we have a better way to explain it!

I have spent quite a bit of time this week reading various research into holiday homes and the challenges of renting them on the Internet. I think the most interesting thing I read was a survey on why people who rent a hotel room did not consider renting a holiday home.

• An amazing 39% of people did not consider a holiday rental property as they only travelled for 3 days. Their perception was that a minimum stay in a holiday rental is 1 week. So for any holiday home owner who wants to double the size of their market, adding a 3 day option is an absolute must. That message is loud and clear.

• 22% of people wanted the services and amenities of a hotel, in particular a maid service and convenient eating arrangements.  Of particular note is the check-in/check-out arrangements, with lack of clarity striking fear into the hearts of many people who are unfamiliar with holiday rentals.

• 21% of people felt that the extra space meant extra cost, and so went for a small hotel room to save money. In the majority of cases that is simply untrue. We have on Direct Holiday Bookings several well placed rental properties that cost 50% less to rent than a local hotel - and the rental properties look a lot nicer too.

• 18% of people were travelling alone or with a small party and felt that a holiday rental was not appropriate.

I think 2 things strike me here.

Firstly, there is a lot of misunderstanding about how easy and convenient renting a holiday home is, and that is a message we all need to keep pushing at potential customers.

Secondly, customers have a few key requirements in mind when they are beginning to consider staying away from home, and it is up to the holiday home owner to ensure that their listing on our site addresses these concerns quickly and concisely.

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…..

To add to our constantly growing range of quality holiday rental property, we have now added 800 properties from Rent Villas France.

Rent Villas France are an agent with properties available in several regions of France, including Provence, Riviera, Languedoc Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées, Aquitaine, Poitou-Charente, Val de Loire and Pays de la Loire, Brittany and Normandy.

Rent-villas-France guarantees you the quality of the property they offer.

They have local teams that carry out regular quality controls of the properties that they offer for rental.

To see an example of their excellent holiday rentals throughout France, Click Here.

As you may know, Direct Holiday Bookings came about as I am a holiday home owner and wanted to get more bookings for less money (sounds easy doesn’t it!).

I list several of my own properties in Florida and let them take their chances along side all of the other adverts. However yesterday I noticed something quite remarkable.

I had recently let one of my 4 bed properties and asked the renter to leave a review. I didn’t think any more about it.

Then two days ago I had 4 booking requests within around 3 hours. Turns out the renter had left a review and my team had approved it. All approved reviews are shown on our homepage, giving one of my properties massive exposure. With the addition of the review my property was in demand.

So if you want some great homepage exposure while reassuring your customers of the quality of your property, I would strongly suggest you ask your renters to leave reviews.

To leave a review just view your property page and a short way down on the right hand side is a link (in red) that says “write your review”.

We all know about the economy and the woes it’s bringing to many people.

Yet the annual family holiday is one thing that we all try to protect at all cost. When you work so hard all year that we need something to look forward to.

So it’s no suprise that domestic tourism is tipped to “explode” in 2009. Staying in your own country saves the airfair for starters, but also allows you to control some of the other costs that we often get carried away with when abroad.

Tipped for the top is self catering holiday homes, which is a massive 50% cheaper for a family of 4 than a similar hotel based holiday. On top of that the kids get their own bedrooms, you get loads of space to live and you can cook as cheaply as you like.

So if you are looking for a great holiday, with loads of space thats 50% cheaper than a standard holiday, then you are in the right place.

Click here to search and see the amazing value of self catering holidays homes. Starting at £200/week we hope just about everyone can still have a great holiday in 2009.