 | This article contains promotional content .(November 2015) |
 | |
| Industry | Internet, resorts, vacation rentals |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2013 |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Area served | U.S. |
| Products | Online marketplace |
Vacatia, founded in 2013 and based in San Francisco, California, is an American Vacation Ownership company that spun out of Vacation Listing Service Inc., launching originally as an online marketplace for buying and selling timeshare interests. [1] [2]
In September 2013, the company raised a $5 million seed round from travel, hotel and vacation rental industry veterans, such as Spencer Rascoff (Zillow, Expedia, Hotwire), Erik Blachford (Expedia), Robert Spottswood (Hyatt Vacation Ownership), Raymond L. “Rip” Gallein Jr. (Starwood Vacation Ownership and Marriott Vacations Worldwide), and Barry Sternlicht and Steve Hankin (Starwood Capital Group). Other investors included Bee Partners, Peterson Ventures and Meyer Ventures, as well as personal investments from Egon Durban of Silver Lake Partners and Gene Frantz of Google Capital. [3]
In April 2015, the company raised $8.8 million in a Series A round led by the Javelin Venture Partners. [4] [5]
At the same time Vacatia announced its Series A funding, it announced substantial management team changes, the most prominent being the promotion of the co-founder Caroline Shin from COO to CEO, with co-founder and former CEO Keith Cox being named Chairman. In addition, Mike Janes, formerly CMO at StubHub and GM of the online store at Apple Inc., joined as the chief marketing officer. [6]
In November 2015, Vacatia publicly launched its vacation rental marketplace. [7]
In May 2016, Vacatia expanded beyond the U.S. by adding 20 resorts in Cancun and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. [8]
In April 2016, Vacatia was integrated with HomeToGo. [9]
In May 2016, Disney Vacation Club approved Vacatia as a seller. [10]
Travelocity.com is an online travel agency owned by the American Expedia Group. It has 12.4 million monthly unique visitors, making it the third most popular website owned by Expedia Group, after Expedia.com and Hotels.com.
Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. was one of the largest companies that owned, operated, franchised and managed hotels, resorts, spas, residences, and vacation ownership properties. It was acquired by Marriott International in 2016. Starwood was founded in 1969 as a real estate investment trust. In 1995, it was acquired and reorganized by Barry Sternlicht, who was its chairman until 2005 and founder of the Starwood Capital Group. Starwood had 11 brands and owned, managed, or franchised 1,297 properties comprising 370,000 hotel rooms in approximately 100 countries.
Accor S.A. is a French multinational hospitality company that owns, manages and franchises hotels, resorts and vacation properties. It is the largest hospitality company in Europe, and the sixth largest hospitality company worldwide.
A vacation rental is the renting out of a furnished apartment, house, or professionally managed resort-condominium complex on a temporary basis to tourists as an alternative to a hotel. The term vacation rental is mainly used in the US. Other terms used are self-catering rental, holiday home, holiday let, cottage holiday and gite.
Tripadvisor, Inc. is an American company that operates online travel agencies, comparison shopping websites, and mobile apps with user-generated content.
Cheapflights is a travel fare metasearch engine. The website is part of the Kayak.com subsidiary of Booking Holdings.
Hotwire is a travel website that offers airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and vacation packages. It operates by selling off unsold travel inventory at discounted prices. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Hotwire, Inc. is an operating company of the Expedia Group, which also operates the website ClassicVacations, Expedia, Hotels.com, Orbitz, Travelocity and Egencia.
Starwood Capital Group is an investment firm headquartered in Miami Beach, Florida. It is managed by Barry Sternlicht. It was co-founded by Sternlicht and Robert Faith in 1991. In 1993, Faith left Starwood to found Greystar Real Estate Partners.
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Rome2Rio is an Australian online multimodal transport journey planner offering travel services globally. The company is based in Melbourne, Australia, and is owned by the German online travel comparison and booking website Omio.
Tripping.com, a subsidiary of HomeToGo, is an online search engine and review aggregator for vacation rentals. It aggregates over 10 million listings in more than 150,000 cities worldwide. It is based in San Francisco, California. Tripping.com partners with and displays listings from booking websites including Booking.com, HomeAway, Vrbo, FlipKey, Roomorama, Interhome, Novasol, Wimdu, ZenRentals, Bedycasa, WayToStay, Gloveler, HolidayVelvet, 9flats, AlwaysOnVacation, RedAwning, and Housetrip. Users can search by price, ratings, location and features and amenities.
Wimdu, powered by HomeToGo, is an online marketplace for booking lodging, accessible by website and mobile app for iOS and Android. The company does not own any lodging; it is merely a broker and receives commissions from every booking. It is set up as a "clone" of similar websites. Wimdu searches and redirects users to the website that has the relationship with the lodging provider such as Expedia, Booking.com, HomeAway, Vrbo, Hotels.com, TripAdvisor, FlipKey, and Airbnb.
Lastminute.com N.V. is the owner of several travel brands including lastminute.com, Volagratis, Rumbo, Bravofly, Jetcost, Crocierissime.it, weg.de, and Hotelscan.
Vacasa, Inc. is an international vacation rental management company based in Portland, Oregon. It provides property management services for over 35,000 vacation rentals in North America, Belize, and Costa Rica. Vacasa manages properties in 34 U.S. states.
Trip.com is an international one-stop travel service provider, available in 24 languages across 39 countries and regions in 35 local currencies.
TourRadar is a privately held global company headquartered in Vienna, Austria that operates an online marketplace and internet booking engine specializing in multi-day tours.
CanadaStays was a Canadian online marketplace for short-term vacation rental properties, with over 250,000 cottages, cabins, chalets and condos available to rent across Canada, the US, the Caribbean, Mexico and South America. Founded in Toronto in 2008, CanadaStays became Canada's largest vacation rental marketplace, with over $24MM in bookings reported in 2017. In August 2019, CanadaStays was acquired by Expedia Group and integrated into its VRBO vacation rental brand.
Gogobot was an online travel business headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The company was rebranded Trip.com in November 2016 and acquired by the Ctrip Group in 2017. Founded in 2010, by Travis Katz and Ori Zaltzman, by 2014 the company was the fifth most visited travel-planning site in the United States.
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