Once you are set-up with the appropriate licenses you will typically need to file your sales and lodging tax each month or quarter, depending on the location.  If you are not properly licensed or collecting and remitting the appropriate taxes you can be liable for potentially significant fines, back tax, penalties and interest.

Historically, compliance and enforcement targeting vacation rentals has been lax.  However, the current economic environment has significantly impacted state and local government’s tax revenue.  The need for more tax revenue combined with the significant growth of leading vacation rental websites is resulting in many communities to start focusing on vacation rentals for tax compliance.

HotSpot Tax Services handles all of these compliance functions on behalf of thousands of vacation rental owners and managers throughout the U.S.  HotSpot will handle setting up all required licenses, filing and payment of the taxes each month, tracking and renewing your licenses, any tax correspondence and will continually monitor changes in tax rates or requirements.  More information about HotSpot can be found at www.hotspottax.com or call 1-877-509-0207.

EPEX is a unique exhibition for companies with a focus on truly luxury property providing them with a platform to market and sell properties to wealthy private buyers as well as institutional & professional investors.  EPEX showcases the finest properties from developers and agents from around the world.

Let us know if you have attended in the past or plan to go this year.

As for the content of the conference, during lunch David, who runs HomeAway Real Estate shared about the vision of the new product.  They have a new tool coming out soon called Rentential that is really cool.  It will help owners, potential buyers, real estate agents and others estimate the rental income potential for vacation properties.  Pretty important considering the number of owners that expect rental income.

There was also quite a bit of discussion around protecting property rights and vacation rental bans in various locations.  Rick Rumrell shared quite a bit.  You should definitely check out his site and his resources if vacation rental bans are a threat in your area.

Selected tweets from the remainder of the summit:

• I’m still unsure how vacationrentals.com, vrbo, and homeaway.com are differentiated for travelers.

• Vrbo to start offering owners to list ’special offers’ @homeawayoc

• Trends: Vacation rental bans are picking up; municipalities looking for cash; industry consolidation; HMOs turning anti-short term rentals

• HomeAway.com to launch new tools for responding to inquiries. @homeawayoc

• “We need an industry association for vacation rentals…owners and managers…”

• “We are going to offer online booking capabilities” -homeaway

• “Protect Your Property Rights” … many questions around vacation rentals and rights around the world. @homeawayoc

• “Excitement about the product” ….. drumroll ….. wireless keylocks. Some cool technology with locks but humorous to hear described

• No more tweets from the conference … back to my normal tweets … which I know you love

Kudos to the HomeAway Owners Community that pulled off the conference.  They did a great job.

“Our vision is to make it as easy to find and book a vacation rental as a hotel. Right now on a scale of 1-10 we (as an industry) are probably at a 4.”

-Brian Sharples

It’s to no surprise that HomeAway is doing their best to better the vacation rental industry. In their own words, “vacation rentals need a big voice” and with $500 million in venture capital, nearly 500,000 vacation rental properties, 35 million visits to their sites monthly, 3.8 million inquiries per month and an estimated 570,000 trips per month they have become that voice.

Some might argue they are getting too big but don’t think they are settling in. They are working on growing traffic, inquiries and bookings faster than ever.

The early sessions included

* State of the Industry (Brian Sharples)

* How to Start an Owners Network (Cindy Hill, Amy Ashcroft Greener, Greg Grant)

* Coexist, Compete and Collaborate (Christine Karpinski, Steve Trover, Kristin Dorsett)

* Sales Tax 101 (Rob Stephens)

* HomeAway Real Estate (David Petty)

Below are a few tweets from the morning sessions:

• Homeaway in 13 countries and 11 languages. 35 million visits/mo. 3.8 mil inquiries/mo. 570,000 trips/mo. @homeawayoc #vrbo

• Homeaway spent $20Mil in online advertising in 09 and growing it to $40mil in 2010. Spending against 2.5mil keywords. #homeawayoc

• Homeaway growing inquiries/traffic every year. 39 inquiries/owner in 2005. 71 inquiries/owner in 2009. @homeawayoc

• On avg if you have 1 review you will have 15% more inquiries, if 5 reviews then 50% more inquiries. How about on flipkey? #homeawayoc

• 1/3 of the room of rent-by-owners use a property manager too. @homeawayoc.

• “Homeowners price too low,” Christine Karpinski, “our competitors are not property managers. Its hotels.” @homeawayoc #rbo

• New feature coming “rentential” by homeaway real estate. Displaying the rental potential of vacation rentals. #homeawayoc

UPDATED: The second part of my review of the HomeAway Owners Summit is now available.

• Gerald Barnes, President/CEO, Neiman Marcus Direct
• John McDonnell, COO, Patron Spirits Company
• Parnell Eagle, SVP Marketing and Merchandise Planning, Saks Inc Direct
• Milton Pedraza, CEO, Luxury Institute, LLC
• Marisa Thalberg, Vice President, Global Digital Marketing, The Estée Lauder Companies, Inc.
• Kerry Kennedy, Vice President E-Commerce, Omni Hotels
• Hilary Donahue, Vice President, Michael C Fina
• Russ Moorehead, Vice President Aveda Online, Aveda
• Tom Davis, Vice President of Ecommerce, Kenneth Cole
• Jeanette Garner, AVP Interactive Marketing/Ecommerce, Kerastase Paris &
  SHU UEMURA ART OF HAIR

I’m not sure if any of the presentations will be shared online.  They published 2009’s presentations so hopefully they’ll do the same after this conference as well.

This weekend I’m heading to Austin to attend the first ever HomeAway Owners Summit. It’s a weekend packed with sessions and workshops as well as insider information from HomeAway for vacation rental owners.

We are a client of HomeAway. We have dozens of listings on VRBO and HomeAway as well as several of their lesser know sites. It will be interesting to see how HomeAway hosts a conference for owners, especially in comparision to the VRMA conference and Instant Software’s RezFest. As far as I know, this is the first conference held for owners’ however, I’m sure there will be plenty of managers and other customers attending since many times they are the ones that manage listings.

A few things before Friday…

• The first initial difference I’ve noticed (compared to other industry events) is they assigned a “host”. I received an email from a HomeAway employee yesterday letting me know she would be at my table and was there for me this weekend.

• They have a very diverse speaker list ranging from attorney’s to property managers to CEOs.

• I wonder if instead of suppliers setting up booths they will have various HomeAway products set up so everyone can learn more. I can imagine there will be a HomeAway.com table, VRBO.com table, VacationRentals.com table as well as other tables with information on new products. Maybe the newest HomeAway family member, BedandBreakfast.com, will even be there. I’ll let you know.

Throughout the weekend I’ll publish information about the event as well as tweet about my experience (follow me @McFads).

UPDATED: Both reviews of the owners summit are now live.

A-List Directories

The Affluence business directory is booming – this is the first of our A-List Directories. A-List directories all have advanced search capabilities to make it easy for members to find what they are looking for. Every listing can be rated and reviewed by members, creating a system that will allow you to find the best of the best as rated by Affluence members.

Within the next few weeks, we will be launching directories for Travel, Real Estate and an entire new Marketplace.

Our travel directory will feature over 2500 luxury hotels around the world with photos and video tours. We are also pleased to present to our members the Reserve Collection from our Villa partner,www.thesociety.com . The Reserve Collection is composed of simply the finest, most beautifully appointed private rental properties in the world. Located in the most premier vacation spots with the most ample amenities, activities and services, these properties just cannot be rivaled. Keep your eyes out for this launch – there will be contests with thousands of dollars in free trips for members that post and review within our travel directory!

The Real Estate directory will be limited to luxury properties only – we are not looking to have the most listings in the world, just the best! We are starting to contact the top luxury brokers in the country and will grow this content quickly. Top luxury brokers that have more than 10 qualified luxury agents will receive free featured listings, brokers with more than 25 qualified luxury agents will receive free sponsored listings in this directory.

Last but not least is our new Marketplace. Here you can sell anything – cars, yachts, jewelry, arts & collectibles. Post photos and find the best deals around.

All of our directories allow you to post a full description, URLs, and photo galleries.

While it may be early to forecast for the summer of 2010, if we look at the luxury retailers and specifically Dubai, we may be in for a rude awakening. While the valuation of luxury brands on the world’s exchanges has rebounded, the renewed optimism and subsequent spending has not materialized.

Even in high-flying Dubai there seems to be a retrenchment in the luxury retail sector which may foretell the overall luxury marketplace. According to the consulting firm of Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL) Dubai “The focus on luxury brands within existing and future shopping malls in Dubai is likely to diminish as the retail sector put increased emphasis on competitive pricing.”

The report mentions landlords providing more flexible lease terms including free rent with incentives continuing into 2011. Retail centers are reorienting towards value and new major shopping center development will halt for the foreseeable future. The report advises “the local market was seeing a shift away from luxury goods with “increased emphasis on competitive pricing, creative marketing programmes, convenience shopping and value for money”. Dubai landlords and retailers are meeting the demands of their consumer base.

How does this translate to the luxury vacation rental market? To begin, while there is light at the end of the tunnel, economic concerns continue to dominate the marketplace. While equity and commodity markets worldwide have rebounded, we are still 25% to 35% off the highs of 2007. As oil breaks $80/barrel, there is concern about inflation and the potential of an even slower recovery.

For the owners and estate managers of luxury vacation home rentals, it is more important than ever to fine-tune marketing efforts for the best ROI. The days of saturating your messaging is over. The challenge today is to pin-point and target market to your constituency. This is not the time to lower rates just to increase short-term capital infusions; that is a recipe for long-term branding and rate issues.

  A few tips:

-Increase communication with your past and existing clients.
-Ask for referrals from your past and existing clients.
-Provide incentives for referrals i.e. every referral you send, you receive one-night gratis.
-Review your marketing strategies and streamline from saturation to pin-point accuracy.
-You reallocate your personal portfolio, time to reallocate your marketing spend.
-Update your web and social media presence i.e. new pictures and client accolades.
-Partner with “like” vendors and consider co-op marketing.

The Luxury Interactive Global Conference may be of interest to those desiring additional options and opportunities to penetrate the luxury market niche. The Luxury Interactive Global Conference is scheduled to be held in London on May 18th and 19th, 2010 at The Waldolf  Hilton.

For additional information and access to many intriguing white papers and support, check out:

Luxury Interactive Global Conference

Integrity, inspiration, intelligence, innovation: these elements of excellence and success are the foundation of the 2010 Luxury Summit. Thought leaders, visionaries and provocateurs will explore and examine the ideas and experiences that have and will continue to shape marketplace revolutions. Experts and authorities on culture and economics will illuminate the trends, tastes and attitudes that are forming on the horizon and will shape luxury marketplaces and appetites.

Summit delegates will be challenged to rethink the customer/employee relationship, the potential of team achievement, the rising demands of customer service, and the cascading, far-reaching role of integrity. They will gain clarity and insight in consumer behavior, the balance of price and value, and the reshaping of the media landscape. And they will have exclusive insight to the trends and attitudes that will impact and reflect consumer habits in the coming decade and beyond.

About the Summit: The American Express Publishing Luxury Summit gathers top marketers from the world’s leading purveyors of luxury goods and services to analyze critical issues and trends, share best practices, and examine the evolving needs of the affluent consumer, as well as the effects of the current economic, social, and political climate on today’s luxury companies.

Established in 1999, the Luxury Summit is the premier US event dedicated exclusively to the luxury industry and features top caliber speakers, global representation, and a strategically focused program led by the editors of Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, Departures, Executive Travel and Black Ink.

The Luxury Summit 2010 will take place at Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas on April 25-27, 2010. Several of the luxury industry’s leading figures will contribute over two information packed days of top level presentations, panel discussions and networking, including dinners, general sessions featuring keynote speakers, interviews/debates, case studies, research findings and networking.

Participation is by invitation only and limited to CEO’s, CMO’s, and senior level executives from the world’s leading purveyors of luxury good and services. For additional information, please contact:

Kristy Bauer
Director, Marketing Services & Events
American Express Publishing
Email: kristy.m.bauer@aexp.com