Renting out furnished apartments, condos, cottages, villas, homes, etc. for temporary residence to people who are traveling are called Vacation Rentals. These vacation homes are used by people who like to stay in an informal environment  instead of a hotel as they find it more convenient and economical .Using Vacation rentals  has been popular in the United Kingdom for quite some time and is consistently gaining popularity in the United States and around the world.

There are some countries that have passed legislations against vacation rentals, as they have become a threat to the hotel industry, but the vast majority of countries have full government support and try to promote the use of vacation rentals in all possible ways.

Owners of vacation homes rent their vacation rental on daily, weekly and often monthly bases according to their requirements and the requirements of the traveler. All vacation rentals, whether it is a villa in Mexico or a high-rise apartment in Paris, come fully furnished.

Travelers prefer to experience living in vacation rentals, as this way they are at ease and can live informally with all of the available furnished comforts that make them feel at home. Travelers with children find vacation rentals to be especially beneficial for several reasons, including the privacy it provides, along with full use of amenities, such as swimming pools and fully furnished kitchens.

A Few Pros and Cons Associated with Vacation Rentals:

Pros:

People find it more convenient to stay in vacation rentals, as they save money, get more space and privacy, and there is no hassle with exuberant hotel taxes and tipping for services. Living in a Vacation Rental is more comfortable and convenient, allowing the traveler to cook in a fully furnished kitchen and enjoy all of the amenities offered in a relaxed, private environment. Best of all, living in the destination allows travelers to truly experience the essence of living in the local culture.

Cons:There can be a few negative aspects of renting vacation rentals, depending on what the traveler is looking for exactly. In renting a vacation rental, the traveler does have to deal directly with the owner in payments, rules of the vacation rental, including cleaning policies, etc. Some vacation rentals will offer the option of adding maid service or other staff during your stay, but many times the cleaning during your stay will be up to the renter to take care of.

That being said, it really boils down to the type of vacation experience the traveler is looking for. If expecting daily maid service and lots of other people to socialize with in common areas, pools, on-site restaurants, etc., then hotels may still be the more attractive option. On the other hand, if the traveler is looking for a more private, spacious and most times, more economical vacation, then vacation rentals are definitely an option that must be explored. It is a wonderful opportunity to truly experience what it feels to like to LIVE in that destination amongst the local culture.  

*Below is a city vacation rental we just stayed in last week in the heart of downtown Chicago. Beautiful brownstone just steps away from the best restaurants, shopping, fun nightlife and just one block from Oak St. Beach on Lake Michigan. Loved it!

All of us pet owners know the feeling of worrying about our precious little pets while on vacation. Worrying if they’re stressed being in a kennel, or if the neighbor is taking good care of them. Well, there is a solution. There are plenty of pet friendly vacation homes to choose from so next time you don’t have to leave your furry friend behind.

A pet friendly vacation rental home can range from vacation homes, condos, cottages, beach houses, villas, lodges and more. In most cases, vacation rentals are a far better choice economically than renting a hotel room and many hotels do not accept pets or charge an astronomical fee if they do. There are plenty of pet friendly vacation rentals to choose from online and you’ll have more space and freedom for everyone, including your family pet.

As pets can be unpredictable, the owners of vacation rentals set certain rules for their pet friendly vacation homes that need to be followed. These set rules actually protect the vacation rental owners from possible damages that can be caused due to pets. You should research properly before booking your pet friendly vacation rental and speak with the owner about their rules for bringing along your pet.

Some pet friendly vacation rentals provide extra necessities for your pets, and some even have yards for dogs when you go out for the day to play on your vacation. Some vacation rental owners will offer extra goodies for a small charge for your pets. This actually saves you time and money because you won’t need to purchase and pack these things for you furry friend. They will already have food, treats and toys waiting for them when you arrive at your vacation home. If the vacation rental owner does offer this extra service, they will have it stated within their listing or verbally offer this service if you decide to book the vacation rental.

Pet friendly vacation rentals are becoming more and more popular and vacation rental owners do see the need for families to bring along the family pet. Just make sure to check if the vacation rental is a pet friendly vacation rental and always verify with the owner to make sure before booking.

Our little girls are the best road trippers ever! Give them a soft bed, one squeeker toy each and one piece of doggie jerky and they are good to roll for hours. Peanut (the black and white fluffer we rescued almost two years ago) LOVES to hang her head out the window and let her hair blow in the wind. Munchkin (the all black one) is a travelin' trooper. She's been on numerous airplanes going here and there and it always up for jumping in the car and going for a joyride. Snapped this photo over the weekend and just had to share it! Aren't they adorable!

Have a wonderful day!

Angie and Jason

Hi everyone! In our effort to convert those who prefer hotels, we've decided on a video marketing campaign featuring short 'videomericals' that highlight why vacation rentals are "better". Take a look a the video below, there will be several more to come and if you have an idea for one, PLEASE let us know in our forums!

Thanks and Enjoy, Jason & Angie

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Ahhhhh....island dreamin'

We took this snapshot in Grand Cayman while sitting on out on the back-deck of our vacation rental. The colors were amazing and illuminated the sky over several anchored sailboats scattered along Seven Mile Beach. We couldn't take our eyes off of it, so we sat back and enjoyed and raised our glasses to toast Mother Nature.

Hope you enjoy a little island dreamin' time too!

Have a wonderful day,

Angie and Jason

Hi everyone!

Jason and I just got back last week from the trip of a lifetime! We flew to Grand Cayman on the 14th of June and were married on June 16th in a magical ceremony at the Grand Old House in Grand Cayman. After the ceremony, we all dined under the stars with our closest family and friends. It truly was the most special evening we could have ever imagined!

And of course we have to mention that we all stayed in vacation rentals for the trip and everyone loved it! Between us all, we had a five bedroom home and five 3-bedroom condos all located along Seven Mile Beach. Everyone had a blast scuba diving, riding jet skiis, visiting Sting Ray City, the Butterfly Farm....and the list goes on and on. If you haven't been to Grand Cayman yet...trust me that it is a WONDERFUL vacation destination!

Thanks to everyone here on VacaConnect for continuing to send us your thoughts and ideas. Look forward to the new themed sites....they are making their big debut just around the corner! We'll be sending emails very soon asking each owner which four themed sites they would like to be added. Thanks everyone! Have a wonderful week - Angie Volk :)

Hi everyone!

We are so excited our first set of print advertisements came out almost two weeks ago and we've seen a great increase in traffic and lots of interest! Great news!! We are still working around the clock on getting more bookings for all that are listed on the site. It's been LOTS of work but also LOTS of fun!

We'd love to hear about any bookings you have received. We have no way of knowing if you received a booking, so your input would be wonderful! Shoot us an email when you can! That would be wonderful. angie@vacaconnect.com or jason@vacaconnect.com We are going to start posting the great bookings people are receiving on the site. Looking forward to more great stories!!

We are now LIVE with http://www.vacaconnect.de/  , http://www.vacaconnect.co.uk/ and http://www.vacacionesconectan.com/ . All listings are automatically put up on those extra sites for free! We are in the works of getting the themed vacation sites up too! Look forward to www.skivacaconnect.com www.beachvacaconnect.com and many, many more! All owners will have the option of choosing up to four themed sites to be on as well. Everyone will be on 8 sites for no extra charge! We're so thrilled to be able to make this happen. Big thanks to the beautiful design of the site by Beyond Digital and the incredible development team at Element Code, both located in Dallas, TX, for making our dreams a reality!

Cheers!

Angie and Jason

Hi everyone!

Wow! It's been such an exciting time around here at VacaConnect! We are growing and continuing to spread the word to the traveling community on the absolutely fabulous benefits of renting a vacation rental!

We have our first print ad coming out in May in a Houston entertainment publication that is distributed amongst the best restaurants, night spots, coffee shops, etc. etc. It's a publication picked up by thousands every month and a great audience to get the word out. The big TRAVEL issue comes out in May and we're looking forward to the response we get on the site. We'll keep you all posted!

We are gowing and it's sooooo much fun! We have listings in over 40 countries now and more members signing up in the forums every hour. It is so wonderful to see everyone communicating and tossing new ideas around.

Thank you to all of our wonderful members! We have had amazing feedback and we welcome more! Let us know what you are looking for or want added. We are always open!

 Thanks so much and have a beautiful day!

Angie and Jason

This was originally posted by our friend Chris Brogan over at his site here: 

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/ .  Thanks for letting us put this up Chris!

We really can’t deny the fact that businesses are testing out Twitter as part of their steps into the social media landscape. You can say it’s a stupid application, that no business gets done there, but there are too many of us (including me) that can disagree and point out business value. I’m not going to address the naysayers much with this. Instead, I’m going to offer 50 thoughts for people looking to use Twitter for business. And by “business,” I mean anything from a solo act to a huge enterprise customer.

Your mileage may vary, and that’s okay. Further, you might have some really great ideas to add. That’s why we have lively conversations here at [chrisbrogan.com] in the comments section. Jump right in!

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

First Steps

1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you.
3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.
4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( @wholefoods does this well).
6. Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( @jetblue gives travel tips.)
7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
8. Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories. ( @TheHomeDepot does it well.)
9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc.
10. Talk about non-business, too, like @astrout and @jstorerj from Mzinga.

Ideas About WHAT to Tweet

1. Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
2. Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
3. When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
4. Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
5. Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
6. Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
7. When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
8. Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
9. Don’t toot your own horn too much. (Man, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I do it all the time. - Side note: I’ve gotta stop tooting my own horn).
10. Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

Some Sanity For You

1. You don’t have to read every tweet.
2. You don’t have to reply to every @ tweet directed to you (try to reply to some, but don’t feel guilty).
3. Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel there’s no value to Twitter at large to hear the conversation ( got this from @pistachio).
4. Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if someone’s talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense.
5. 3rd party clients like Tweetdeck and Twhirl make it a lot easier to manage Twitter.
6. If you tweet all day while your coworkers are busy, you’re going to hear about it.
7. If you’re representing clients and billing hours, and tweeting all the time, you might hear about it.
8. Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools like TinyURL and all the variants. It helps tidy up your tweets.
9. If someone says you’re using twitter wrong, forget it. It’s an opt out society. They can unfollow if they don’t like how you use it.
10. Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted is a great way to build community.

The Negatives People Will Throw At You

1. Twitter takes up time.
2. Twitter takes you away from other productive work.
3. Without a strategy, it’s just typing.
4. There are other ways to do this.
5. As Frank hears often, Twitter doesn’t replace customer service (Frank is @comcastcares and is a superhero for what he’s started.)
6. Twitter is buggy and not enterprise-ready.
7. Twitter is just for technonerds.
8. Twitter’s only a few million people. (only)
9. Twitter doesn’t replace direct email marketing.
10. Twitter opens the company up to more criticism and griping.

Some Positives to Throw Back

1. Twitter helps one organize great, instant meetups (tweetups).
2. Twitter works swell as an opinion poll.
3. Twitter can help direct people’s attention to good things.
4. Twitter at events helps people build an instant “backchannel.”
5. Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often (especially if the news impacts online denizens).
6. Twitter gives businesses a glimpse at what status messaging can do for an organization. Remember presence in the 1990s?
7. Twitter brings great minds together, and gives you daily opportunities to learn (if you look for it, and/or if you follow the right folks).
8. Twitter gives your critics a forum, but that means you can study them.
9. Twitter helps with business development, if your prospects are online (mine are).
10. Twitter can augment customer service. (but see above)

Still need more?  Here you go!  http://www.vacaconnect.com/Forum/Topic30-11-1.aspx

Enjoy,

Jason & Angie

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