Vacation Rental Novices Forge Online Success
Retired couple lists vacation rental home on the Internet back in 1996. Recently their Web site, www.greatrentals.com, surpassed the 10,000 home listings mark and caught the attention of the industry's largest group of companies. Not bad for novices working from home with the help of a few family members.
AUSTIN, Texas (PRWEB) July 22, 2005 -- Back in 1996, a Michigan couple began
tinkering with a Web site, posting a handful of vacation rental properties for
themselves and a few friends. No venture capital, no talk of a ‘new economy,’ no
business plan. Just a guy recently retired from the Lansing, Mich., school
system and his wife, a programmer analyst for a utilities company who got her
college degree at age 40.
This year their family-run online business, www.greatrentals.com, surpassed a key milestone in property
listings and caught the attention of the industry’s largest organization, WVR
Group (www.wvrgroup.com) who recently acquired the
company.
“When we first started the site we never discussed success,
especially this level of success,” says co-founder Pat Van Voorhis. “We did it
because we got such a kick out of starting something from scratch and at the end
of the day helping people rent or find their dream vacation home.”
The
couple traveled an unlikely path to online success. Jan Van Voorhis earned his
master’s in math in 1970 from Michigan State and spent much of his career in
data processing. Pat soldered transformers at an Illinois factory for minimum
wage and worked her way up as a single mother to a programmer analyst position
at a Michigan utility company. The two married in 1993 and bought a Florida
condo in April of 1996 before Jan retired. A management company failed to keep
the space rented, so the couple decided to experiment with the
Internet.
They ignored the glitz of the dot.com boom, entering every bit
of data manually, asking their kids and friends to help out, and personally
answering customer calls and emails at all hours. By December, 1997, Jan and Pat
counted 88 ‘customers,’ though they didn’t charge the property owners for the
service until the following year.
Pat’s daughter, Aimee Faulkner, and
Jan’s daughter, Amy Potter, who have handled everything from marketing to
programming out of their respective homes in Mississippi and Michigan, recall a
time when their parents debated whether or not they could afford to buy a $20
deposit stamp for the business.
Now greatrentals.com lists 10,000
properties across the globe, is one of the fastest-growing vacation rental sites
in the industry and has roughly 900,000 travelers who search the site’s listings
each month for the perfect ‘home away from home.’
Not bad for two
Internet novices, who started an online company by chance, learned the business
as they went along and enlisted the help of family members like Pat’s sister
Barbara Lebow and longtime family friend Amber Schlappi who allowed the Van
Voorhises to run their business from essentially anywhere. Set to ‘retire’ in
August, the couple’s first trip will be back to Australia, where they spent
their honeymoon 12 years ago. This time, however, they’ll rent a vacation
property rather than stay in a hotel and have already picked out a quiet
waterfront apartment with stunning views of Sydney Harbor.
After their
overseas adventure, the pair will continue to play a role in the vacation rental
industry that has come to trust their personal and dedicated customer service.
They have invested in WVR Group and will serve on the company’s advisory board.
“We put a lot of time and effort into greatrentals.com,” Pat explains. “WVR
Group shares our dedication to both owners and renters and we’re thrilled to be
a part of their team that will mean great things for the industry.”
About
the Company:
Great Rentals, Inc. was founded in 1997 and began as a free
vacation rental listing source that grew to more than 10,000 properties in 2005.
In early 2005, WVR Group acquired the company, securing WVR’s position as the
largest international online distribution channel for vacation rental properties
with more than 55,000 homes that serve nearly 20 million travelers annually. For
more information: www.greatrentals.com.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/7/prweb264397.htm