Phocuswright 2015: Vacatia launches family resort holiday rental marketplace

Family holiday online marketplace Vacatia has launched what it claims to be the first resort rental marketplace.

Family holiday online marketplace Vacatia has launched what it claims to be the first resort rental marketplace.

The site features search results and instant booking for resort residences at a “carefully selected” range of the hospitality, timeshare and premier independent resorts.

Vacatia said that until now, access to these resort-condominium complexes was available exclusively through purchase options such as whole, fractional, or timeshare ownership.

Caroline Shin, chief executive and co-founder of Vacatia, said: “We exist to make family vacations better and help family resorts thrive.

“We are driven by the belief that resorts are the perfect accommodations for vacationing family and friends, and our team is working hard to create the easiest, most trusted way for families to discover and book the best resort residence rentals.”

Vacatia secured an $8.8 million Series A funding round in April, led by Javelin Venture Partners.

It has set out to make searching for family resort rentals easier for customers instead of forcing them to trawl through listings from local brokers, offline advertising, general or industry-specific classified ad websites, or buried among results on websites or private homes on vacation rental sites.

Vacatia says this is a fragmented and inefficient experience where the benefits of resorts are not promoted to the customer.

Erik Blachford, an early investor in Vacatia and former chief executive of Expedia, said: “Vacation rentals of private homes have dramatically increased as more consumers are voting for space and utility, over hotel services.

“The new Vacatia rentals marketplace, by focusing solely on resort residences, offers the best of both worlds for vacationing families who can now easily find accommodations that combine home-like amenities, hotel-like professional services, fun and relaxing resort amenities and locations.”