Barefoot Technologies Blog- Vacation Rental Industry News

Although many Vacation Rental Companies are in the thick of your season, it might make some sense to take some time now to plan for the shoulder season, less than 45 days away. Putting some marking campaigns into place now might mean the difference between high occupancy or lower occupancy for those amazing fall months when the weather is still beautiful and there are less crowds to contend with.

Last Thursday, May 11, 2015, Greg Schwartz, CFO of Zillow sent out an email with three stated purposes including lead management, rapid network growth and the announcement of a new product, Zillow Rent Connect.

Tahoe ski resorts that traditionally made their money during the ski season are racing to turn themselves into vacation experience providers by turning into an outdoor sports mecca in the summer.  Designed as a way to bring tourists to the majestic mountains almost year-round, the “non-snow” activities have never been more important to the bottom lines of the businesses. The drought that has ensued for several years has taken a severe toll on the Tahoe ski resorts and according to a recent article in the Modesto Bee, “climatologists are predicting long-term declines in snowfall throughout the Sierra Nevada.” 

Barefoot is growing again! We have brought on board a new Partner Manager, Janice Brunelle.

Well another Eastern VRMA show is under our belt. I took a couple of days to think about what I consider to be my top five takeaways from the show. You know that I try to keep our blog half about the industry and half about Barefoot, and the takeaways fall into this same pattern.

From time to time I try to highlight an aspect of Barefoot’s Vacation Rental Software solution when I think that I can make a good case that we are different in what we can bring to our customers. In this blog, I would like to focus on how we are different when it comes to a successful implementation.

I recently interviewed George Volsky, Vacation Rental Management Industry Expert. Barefoot is pleased to announce our integration with George’s pricing tools. George has wide ranging industry knowledge and I wanted to explore the topic of his evolving opinion about what is important in vacation rental management software. I share his thoughts below.

If you think Coca-Cola and Pepsi have slugged it out over the years, it’s time to watch the online vacation rental industry go at it. The competition is fierce with the major players gunning for each other (even if they say otherwise). Two weeks ago, a Skift article honed in on the competition between HomeAway and Airbnb. Lynn Atchison, HomeAway’s CFO, stated that the two companies have a 12 percent overlap in listings, stating that “we know they are coming after our space.” 

Please be aware that we received the following notice from Janet Jassen, AIG, Director- Property Management, AIG Travel Insurance.