Instant Software clients experienced record growth in online reservations for Vacation Rentals in 2008. This upward trend, contradictory to the struggling economy, is further evidence that this $20 Billion segment of the travel industry is poised for explosive growth in internet sales. In order to scale with this demand, Instant Software announces significant investment in its web distribution technology, ISILink, the Vacation Rental Industry’s largest distribution system for suppliers and distributors of online vacation rentals.
In a recent industry study, it was estimated that the Vacation Rental Industry represents about $20 Billion (20% of the size of the hotel market), but a small percentage of reservations have been booked on the internet. The industry has traditionally lagged in online sales compared to hotels, because it is highly complex and fragmented. Much of the growth experienced in 2008 can be attributed to ISILink’s capability of removing the complexities with online booking and defragmenting the technology. ISILink is quickly becoming the industry’s only true “Global Distribution System.”
Despite the down economy, last year ISILink experienced nearly 50% growth in the number of online reservations, and approached $500 million worth of web-based transactions. This domestic and international growth is requiring Instant Software to double ISILink’s processing capabilities and enhance its performance to scale appropriately. ISILink is also expanding to new co-location hosting to manage the increasing demand.
ISILink has grown both organically, by continual integration of the 250,000 properties run on Instant Software’s industry leading Reservations Solutions, and through strategic partnerships. Instant Software recently announced the addition of more than 30,000 European properties through integration of ISILink with Interhome, one of Europe’s largest property management companies. The number of real-time bookable properties in ISILink will continue to grow tremendously over the coming months with the addition of many new partner suppliers of vacation rental properties in North America and Europe.
Organic growth will also continue as more Property Management firms realize the opportunities of marketing their available properties online and travelers become more aware of the benefits associated with renting a vacation home. Plus, new distribution agreements will be announced in March 2009 that will increase the number of potential travelers for ISILink properties to over 45 million per month.
“We are ecstatic that travelers are increasingly realizing the benefits of renting vacation homes and to prepare for the explosive growth of internet bookings, we had to scale our technologies for the system demands that we’ll be experiencing in the near future,” explains Ted Miller, COO of Instant Software, “ISILink is now well positioned for our anticipated exponential rate of growth and will be able to support the most online reservations for a web-based system in the vacation rental industry on a global basis.”
Instant Software is the leading supplier of technology solutions for property management companies which manage and rent other people’s homes, cottages, apartments, and condos for vacation travelers. ISILink is Instant Software’s web distribution system that bridges suppliers of vacation rental properties with distributors, such as travel sites and portals.
ISILink is a data hub that consolidates, normalizes, and interprets data from suppliers’ reservations systems and enables seamless real-time automated bookings between the different parties’ systems. Distributors connect to ISILink and automatically pull information such as property descriptions, availability, prices, and guest reviews to market to potential travelers. When a traveler books a vacation property, the reservation information is sent back through ISILink to the property manager’s reservation system and automatically confirms the booking in real-time.
The rollout of the newly enhanced system will take place by early March.
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