HomeAway's expansion has largely been driven by acquisitions, Yeoh Siew Hoon catches up with Carl Shepherd, co-founder & chief strategy and development officer of the world's largest vacations rental site, to find out more about its plans for Asia.

Q: What's the state of the overall vacation rental market in the US and Europe currently? What kind of growth is it seeing?

The vacation rental industry primarily consists of second-home owners and small vacation rental management companies (overseeing 10 or fewer properties).

As evident by HomeAway's year-over-year paid listing increase of 11% and the 22.1% increase in website visits, the market continues to grow. However, awareness remains the biggest obstacle to consideration among travelers.

Q: Where is demand coming from and what kind of content is most in demand?

The typical owner on HomeAway is generally married and over 46 years old (a "baby boomer"). The traveler booking a vacation rental is typically female, age 45-64, with 1 to 2 children and they are booking, on average, a weeklong stay at a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom rental for approximately US$1,500.

Currently we have more demand than supply for destinations in South-east Asia.  Demand for select cities follows the profile one would find for international travel from Europe and the US: the best known destinations attract the most interest.

Q: Can you also share content split – in US, Europe, Asia?

We don't disclose the content percentages by region because travel is a global industry; a property in England is equally attractive to an American, German, or Brazilian if that family is traveling to the UK.

As a proxy, we can note that about 40% of our revenue originates outside the United States, although this metric can be impacted by swings in the exchange rates from time to time. Revenues from Asia would be a small percentage, as we are only now beginning our work in those markets.

Q: What are HomeAway's plans for Asia, other than opening an office in Bangkok?

HomeAway's mission is to make every holiday rental in the world available to every potential holiday rental traveler in the world. As such, our first goal for our Asia operation is to generate supply for the more than 44 million monthly visitors to our website, and to have high quality options for them when they want to travel to South-east Asia.

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