David and Nancy Meyer, Owners of Dauphin Island Beach Rentals, started in the vacation rental industry in 2004 when they purchased their first beach house.  “We started renting it ourselves, and when it wasn't available for us to use, we decided to build another one. That led to other owners asking us to market their properties, which led to our present business,” David said.

Dauphin Island Beach Rentals is located on Dauphin Island, a little stretch of Alabama on the Gulf of Mexico. It's a 7 mile-long Island connected by a bridge to Mobile, with a car ferry to nearby Gulf Shores/Ft. Morgan.  Dauphin Island Beach Rentals specializes in pet-friendly, gulf-front beach houses. In addition to that, they also manage bookings for other area Rental Companies.

“When we were first starting out with vacation rentals, V12.NET was still in beta, and we were looking for a browser-based solution. Nancy and I work ‘on-the-go’. . .I am also an airline pilot, and Nancy spends a lot of time working from her home office during the school year, so we needed a browser-based vacation rental management system,” David said.

“We started with Escapia for only a short time.  Once we got more involved in the Industry and started doing ‘referral bookings’ for other rental companies, we noticed that most of them were using Instant Software, so we made the decision to transition early to the industry leader.”
 
Dauphin Island Beach Rentals made a seamless change in software solutions and have been using V12.NET since mid-November 2008. “I was very impressed with the training and implementation! I understand that V12.NET has also undergone a major transformation recently with the installation and training process. I commend their efforts in making it so streamlined and easy to follow. It went very, very smoothly, and when they saw how quickly we were progressing, they accelerated the schedule to meet our progress. I think we may have set some sort of record!” David says.

The Meyers are also very pleased knowing that V12.NET allows you to work from anywhere.  “Car, airport, beach house, you name it! The new interactive grid that is in beta right now has some great features, and our Accountant gives V12 high marks, as well!”

Not only has Dauphin Island Beach Rentals found a software solution that matches their needs and performance expectations, they have recently formed a business relationship with Instant Software at another level. The Meyer’s are strong believers in finding where your strengths are, and specializing in that area. For them, the internet marketing of vacation rental properties has emerged as their area of expertise, hence their Channel Partner site, Best Southeast Rentals.

“Dauphin Island is a small Island, and inventory is pretty limited. We presently manage about a dozen beach houses and also some condo units- all short term rentals. We also do referral bookings for a number of larger companies in the area, and have found that preferable to expanding our own program. These "referral bookings" led to the development of our Channel Partner site, www.bestsoutheastrentals.com, which went live on Monday, January 12,” says David. This site features vacation rentals in the Southeastern USA offered by a number of Instant Software clients.
 
Look for updates on our Channel Partner site www.bestsoutheastrentals.com coming in the February edition of The Insider.



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