Eagle software developer streamlines vacation plans 

An Eagle company is trying to revolutionize the way Idaho vacation rental companies handle bookings with a unique Web-based “pay-as-you-book” approach.

Called LiveRez, the program provides vacation rental firms – which traditionally rely on phone or email – with access to a real-time booking system, a centralized calendar, accounting integration, a Web site and marketing services like automatic listing on affiliated sites and search engine optimization.
Being Web-based, no software purchase is necessary and IT is handled by LiveRez’s staff. Customers pay a one-time fee of $1,995 for access to the system, after which LiveRez takes one-half-a-percent from every booking.
The increased efficiency and pay-as-you-book approach is working out well for property managers like Donnelly-based Valet Vacation Rentals, who are seeing the effects of this year’s gas crunch play out in fewer long-term rentals.
“I find very few people, unless they’re coming from California, Oregon or Washington, that are staying more than five nights,” said Valet owner and general manager Cyndi Bonetti.
That isn’t to say people aren’t booking – they’re just breaking their normal week-long vacation up into four or five weekends throughout the summer.
“If you’re coming up from Boise or Twin Falls it’s a weekend stay, it’s not the family vacation like people normally take,” she added.
Valet handles 46 properties scattered between Tamarack, Donnelly and McCall, and has been using LiveRez since February.
“Considering the amount of technical support and literal support they give us on a daily basis, it’s a really good deal for us,” Bonetti said.
LiveRez currently serves three vacation rental firms in Idaho – High Country Vacation Rentals in Sun Valley, Valet and Black Diamond Management, also in Sun Valley.
The company is looking to expand marketing efforts to other regions of the state – particularly north Idaho – and year-round resort communities across the country.
With about 40 clients nationwide, LiveRez spokesman Ralf VonSosen says the company hopes to bring some stability to the fragmented vacation rental industry.
“It’s an industry made up of a lot of small players. There are no Coca Colas in this … the biggest players are people who have, say, 500 properties,” he said. “It’s very fragmented in the sense that it’s not something that can be controlled or unified by a few large corporations. That’s why, from a tech perspective, the industry is very underserved.”

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