Steamboat Lodging Properties and www.Vacation.Rentals Join Forces to Combat Online Travel Agency Booking Fees
A seasoned property manager has had enough and has made the switch to a new vacation rental platform.
BRANSON, Mo., July 24, 2018 (Newswire.com) - Vacation.Rentals and Steamboat Lodging Properties are teaming up to combat the burdensome fees charged by the major online travel agencies. Suzie Spiro and Tom Reagan owners of Steamboat Lodging Properties and longtime residents of Steamboat, Colorado have managed upwards of 20 vacation property rentals over the years by ascribing to the “hands-on approach.”
As “chief cook and bottle washer” Suzie became tired and frustrated with the ever-changing dynamics of online travel agencies, the loss of control of who stays in the homes they manage for their Owners and their commission based structures and began to look for a better alternative to VRBO™, AirBNB™ and FlipKey™. She believes she has found it with Vacation.Rentals - a new platform launched in May 2018. This new website returns control to Suzie who is again able to “hold their guest's hands” from booking to departure, by enabling the guest to find the best fit for their needs - much like the original format of these large OTAs.
They simply have changed and made the experience for the traveling public and Owners/Property Managers a maze of incomprehensible options which has ruined what was a very good thing at one time.
Suzie Spiro, Owner
With www.vacation.rentals owners and property managers can list their vacation homes for rent on the website with nothing more than a basic annual subscription. There are no fees or commissions and never a charge to the travelers. Although brand new to the industry, the owners of the website and Suzie believe they have an absolute winner with the combination of an instantly recognizable URL, unique branding, and an eager owner base to work with.
“We were with VRBO™ for years and years before they were bought out by Expedia™,” said Suzie. “They simply have changed and made the experience for the traveling public and Owners/Property Managers a maze of incomprehensible options which has ruined what was a very good thing at one time, and we have had enough. We believe that www.Vacation.Rentals has what it takes to succeed in the short-term rental market, and it is the main reason we chose to list our rental properties in Steamboat Springs with them.”
“Our vacation properties in Steamboat have been very successful over the years, and we have a large repeat base to work with. Without our repeat clients, it would be extraordinarily difficult to receive bookings and pay these exorbitant fees the online travel agencies are charging.” Suzie continued.
“We are honored that Steamboat Lodging Properties decided to give us a shot to prove ourselves. But, we are offering the same to all vacation homeowners. Right now, anyone can list their Colorado vacation home for rent on our site and get six months free. We are so certain of our future potential we are willing to forgo immediate payments to grow the base and improve the product.” said Mike Kugler “Working together we hope to see the time when every homeowner is back in charge of their listings and travelers get a great deal on their reservations. It will take some time – growth in our platform – and for people to drop their dot-com addiction. Once they do that, they will immediately see better options and savings.”
About Steamboat Lodging Properties
Suzie and Tom have been both property managers and real estate investors for over 30 years. Starting out with purchasing and renting their properties on a long-term basis, they fell into managing homes for others “by mistake.” While renting one of their vacation rentals in Steamboat, Suzie doubled booked their home over the holidays, she managed to scramble finding another Owner to rent their home. Saved the day, and suddenly they were hooked on the business of renting vacation homes for others as well as themselves. Their philosophy is very much a “hands-on approach.” Suzie is the front desk handling all the calls for potential guests, asking as many questions as needed to make sure the guest finds the best place to stay and has the best experience they can when visiting Steamboat. Be it making sure they can purchase discounted lift tickets at the best price, or buying flowers for that particular person on Valentine’s Day, we can do it all. Over the years, Suzie and Steamboat Lodging Properties have an incredible return guest rate, and many of our Owners and our Guests have become our longtime friends.
About Vacarent, LLC
Vacation.Rentals is a project that has been pursued for the past three years by the owner and developer of the site, Mike Kugler. Mike and his wife Handan own Hunters Friend Resort in Branson, MO. and have been in the short-term rental market for 14 years. During this time, they noticed a strong trend towards taking more of the owner/property managers’ revenue from listing sites, while giving less in return for owners who did not pay for premium listing services. In August of 2015, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) released new gTLDs to the marketplace in the hopes of spreading out some of the competition for highly lucrative domains. For the past three years, we have pursued and finally won the right of ownership for Vacation.Rentals. Vacation.Rentals launched live to the internet on the 30th of March, 2018 with the desire to bring a more affordable, user-friendly experience to the short-term, nightly rental market. This effort took months of hard work and commitment from a dedicated staff, along with a sizeable commitment in investment. It is our strongest desire to grow this site to over a million listings worldwide, and we will not stop until we have achieved this. We will accomplish this by demonstrating a commitment to owners as well as travelers. We do not collect any fees or commissions on bookings, just a simple annual membership fee for each home listed. We will not strike out contact information from either side and encourage our owners to interact with us directly, to let us know what other features they would like to see added. With this, we will launch a forum for https://vacation.rentals and encourage everyone to use it.
Source: VacaRent, LLC
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