AAA, North America’s largest motoring and leisure travel organization, today released its projections for the number of Americans traveling during the Memorial Day holiday.

AAA estimates that 37.87 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home this holiday. Although it’s a slight decrease (0.9 percent) from last year’s total, that’s still a lot of travelers.

According to the findings, nearly 31.7 million Americans (83 percent of all holiday travelers) expect to travel by automobile, while almost 4.35 million (11 percent of holiday travelers) plan to travel via airplane.

According to AAA President and CEO Robert L. Darbelnet. “More than 12 percent of the U.S. population will be celebrating the Memorial Day weekend away from home.”

And since Memorial Day is the traditional start of the summer vacation season, it may be time (if you’ve been procrastinating) to wrap up your travel planning and start booking.

Posted by: Karen on Thursday, May 15, 2008
Under Family Vacation, Travel.
Comments: none

According to the Travel Industry Association (TIA), it’s National Tourism Week. In fact, it’s the 25th anniversary of this collective effort to promote the power of travel through customized events in communities nationwide.

So in honor of this year’s theme “Discover Great American Traditions,” here are some of the amazing American traditions I’ve been fortunate enough to experience through travel:

• Walking The Freedom Trail (Boston, MA)
• Seeing the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall (Philadelphia, PA)
• Sitting in the bleachers at Wrigley Field (Chicago, IL)
• Enjoying the view from the Gateway Arch (St. Louis, MO)
• Strolling along the River Walk in San Antonio (San Antonio, TX)
• Hiking the Grand Canyon (Grand Canyon, AZ)
• Biking across the Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco, CA)

When we’re planning a trip, we save money by checking into a nearby vacation rental home.

So, how about you? What’s your favorite great American tradition? Post a comment or send us an email.

Posted by: Karen on Monday, May 12, 2008
Under Family Vacation, Travel, Vacation Rentals.
Comments: none

Walt Disney Co. reported its second quarter earnings yesterday, with net income rising 22% from a year ago. The company said the results were helped by strong business at its Theme Parks.

While additional visitors may be coming from overseas, these numbers are further proof that even in a tight economy, travelers are going to travel. What vacationers are seeking though is more affordable ways to travel, which now include:

• Limiting luggage to avoid the newly instituted airline second bag charges
• Renting a hybrid car to reduce the number of times needed to fill up at the pump
• Staying in a Disney Orlando vacation home to get more space and privacy for less cost than a cramped hotel room

Whether it’s to a Disney Park or elsewhere, travelers are going to keep traveling—they’re just traveling smarter.

Posted by: Karen on Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Under Travel, Vacation Homes, Vacation Rentals.
Comments: none

I am thrilled that Erik Blachford, formerly President and CEO of Expedia, Inc. and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp’s travel division, IAC Travel, has joined the PickPackGo Board of Directors.

Erik brings a tremendous amount of travel market experience and insight to our fast-growing vacation rental business. We are delighted to have him join us as we make it easier for travelers to find, compare and book more affordable vacation lodging using PickPackGo.com.

When Erik joined the Board, he said: “Vacation rentals are a growing trend in travel, and PickPackGo is perfectly positioned to succeed by focusing on meeting renters’ needs, while providing a compelling pay-for-performance distribution opportunity for property managers. I think PickPackGo has an extraordinarily bright future and I’m looking forward to being part of the team.”

We look forward to working with him, too.

Posted by: Felix on Monday, May 5, 2008
Under Technology, Vacation Homes, Vacation Rentals.
Comments: 1

This month, many of us will travel to new places and stay in vacation homes, so we can celebrate with friends and family members.

We’ll watch as many graduate from preschool into kindergarten, eighth grade into high school, high school into trade school or college, and college into the ‘real world.’ We’ll listen to speeches and musical performances, and remind ourselves to keep taking pictures so we can remember this day long after it has passed.

Since we can’t imagine attending such special occasions without a high-quality camera, we’re giving away another new Kodak digital camera in our May PickPackGo Getaway Giveaway contest.

Register to win today!

And congratulations to Raymond of St. Paul, Minnesota, the winner of a new Flip Video Camcorder in our April Getaway Giveaway contest.

Posted by: Karen on Friday, May 2, 2008
Under Web 2.0.
Comments: none

Seth Godin’s “Nearly infinite” blog post today is interesting. While I agree with him that “Search makes the infinite finite (at least for a while),” I disagree that “Except search (no matter where you look) is pretty lame, and it doesn’t really turn infinite collections into manageable choices.”

Maybe that’s because people are still counting on horizontal search engines to provide the best outcomes, when they often now provide more choices than anyone could possibly quickly review. That’s where vertical search engines, like PickPackGo, have begun to provide a more satisfying user experience.

By allowing renters to search for vacation rental properties by location and their personal dates of travel, our site helps avoid the phenomenon Seth describes whereby: “In the face of infinity, many of us are panicking and searching less, going shallower, relying on bestseller lists and simple recommendations.”

When renters can easily search through and view thousands of properties, narrowing down choices as they go, PickPackGo search is succeeding in helping turn the infinite collection of vacation rentals into manageable choices.

Posted by: Karen on Monday, April 28, 2008
Under Technology, Vacation Homes, Vacation Rentals.
Comments: none

Online search engines have become one of the most popular forms of advertising for small businesses. So it’s no surprise that property managers have readily embraced search engine marketing (SEM) as a way to attract new customers. The question, however, is whether it is cost-effective and manageable for them.

SEM campaigns work particularly well for businesses that have unlimited inventory to sell. A few years ago, we were selling packaged software applications as downloads from our website. Our “inventory” was limited only by the network bandwidth available to customers interested in downloading the software from our website. We paid a few dollars whenever someone clicked on one of our ads, and as long as at least 10% of those visitors bought our software, we were bringing in more money than we were spending.

However, SEM tends to be far more challenging (and costly) for businesses with perishable or limited inventory. Take for example, property managers with vacation rental homes. Many property managers sell out their inventory on popular travel dates (e.g. Memorial Day weekend) a year in advance. However, if they advertise their property looking to book dates that are still open, those ads attract a significant volume of clicks (at significant cost) from renters interested in traveling during times the property is no longer available. As available inventory gets sold, it costs more and more to generate each additional reservation, because fewer and fewer dates are bookable.

For example, if you have a property for rent in Maui, you’d probably need to pay about $10 anytime someone visited your site after clicking on a search engine ad for a Maui vacation rental. If one in 10 visitors generates a booking, your advertising cost per reservation is $100. However, near popular travel dates, such as the week before Memorial Day, the majority of clicks would likely be last-minute travelers looking for homes that are available for Memorial Day. If your campaign is still running, you could easily spend a few thousand dollars for traffic interested in houses that you’ve long ago booked for Memorial Day.

PickPackGo is an efficient, cost-effective, pay-for-performance online advertising solution. Property managers never pay for unqualified clicks from travelers interested in travel dates that are no longer available. Instead, they define travel seasons and bid what they are willing to pay for qualified inquires during specified travel seasons. With traditional SEM programs, advertisers pay for relatively unqualified clicks, which can lead to exorbitant costs for a qualified lead when there is limited inventory available. With PickPackGo, advertisers can bid for qualified leads, and know for certain that the cost for each qualified lead is capped at their bid amount—regardless of the how much inventory is available.

For small businesses with perishable inventory, online advertising services that cater to their markets can be a more effective and ultimately less costly way to reach customers than search engines.

Posted by: Felix on Thursday, April 24, 2008
Under Property Management, Vacation Rentals.
Comments: none

Next month, the U.S. government is expected to start sending out the economic stimulus checks. So this week big retailers, including Kroger, Sears and Kmart, announced promotions to help consumers spend their IRS refunds and stimulus checks. This got me thinking about the purpose of the stimulus checks, and why travel is a good way to spend them.

Travel has a very large ecosystem that supports a lot of different employees and suppliers. Consider how many people work in jobs that support air travel—from designing planes to loading baggage carts to serving food to driving taxis. Think about destinations with large attractions and the people it takes to successfully operate a theme park such as Walt Disney World in Orlando or SeaWorld in San Diego.

Personal travel within the U.S. is one way consumers can spend their checks to stimulate the economy. As you are driving or flying to your destination, think about all the people behind the scenes who are employed to help you along the way. Once you arrive at a destination, think about the local businesses, including restaurants, attractions, vacation rental property managers, and more that benefit.

While you might wonder if you have enough for a vacation, there are easy ways to stretch those dollars, including staying in a vacation rental home, shopping at the grocery store and cooking in the rental home’s kitchen—all of which still support the economy of the town you are visiting.

Whether you agree with the program or not, how about taking the unexpected money to spend time with friends and family away from the daily grind, knowing that you get to relax, away from work, but are helping other people in the economy, too.

Posted by: Karen on Thursday, April 17, 2008
Under Travel, Vacation Homes.
Comments: none

An article in this weekend’s New York Times summed up in a single headline what many of us believe: “Sure it’s frustrating and expensive, but travelers just have to travel.”

It’s really not an option for many of us. We travel to see new places. We travel to experience new lands and cultures. We travel to see friends and family. For many Americans (just as it is for many Europeans), travel is part of who we are, and we won’t give it up easily.

According to the NYT, “Despite the many flight cancellations in recent days, the slowing economy, rising gas prices and the weak dollar, Americans appear to be sticking to their summer vacation plans… The only change from last summer is the new emphasis on finding ways to cut costs.”

The article cites a Smith Travel Research report which says hotel room rates in the United States increased 5 percent in the first quarter of this year. Since hotels don’t appear to be accommodating our wallets, one way for us to reduce our lodging costs is a vacation rental home.

The selection of vacation rentals around the U.S. and the world is plentiful, and not only is it more affordable for a weekend or longer stays, but it’s more spacious and way more fun for families and groups of friends traveling together.

Travel on.

Posted by: Karen on Monday, April 14, 2008
Under Family Vacation, Travel, Vacation Rentals.
Comments: none

With the arrival of Spring, many of us immediately feel busier. There is cleaning to do, there are new teams to coach, there are graduations, reunions and vacations to plan, and so much more. Some days, it would be nice if we could add a few hours.

Since we can’t give you more time, we designed PickPackGo to help you save time as you find, compare and book a vacation rental home online. Here are three easy steps to help quickly narrow your choices:

1. Once you enter your location or some descriptive text on the home page (e.g. Orlando, Disney, Destin, golf and beach are popular), always provide travel dates. Our results will automatically filter out properties that aren’t available on your travel dates. Select Find.
2. Further narrow the results that display using the “Refine Search” box. Select one or more refinement links to open your choices. When price is an issue, be sure to choose which “average nightly rate” best meets your budget. If you require a pool, choose it as a primary amenity. You don’t have to use all of the Refine Search options, just the ones that help you narrow your choices.
3. As you review mini- and full property details, photos and other tabs, use the yellow pushpin to save your favorites. Once you have your favorites, click “Saved/Viewed” and then select “Share” to email them to yourself and your traveling companions. If you don’t have time to inquire or book immediately, quickly revisit your Saved/Viewed properties the next time you return to the website.

With booking online, PickPackGo also saves you time by securing your reservation immediately with a credit card—any time of the day or night.

Spend less time finding, comparing and booking your vacation rentals, so you have more time for all of those other important Spring tasks.

Posted by: Karen on Friday, April 11, 2008
Under Vacation Homes, Vacation Rentals.
Comments: none