Vacation rental association continues its listless push for distribution

Sometimes progress can be very slow in the vacation rental industry, and the long-hoped-for vacation rental switch for professionally managed properties is a case in point.

Some positive news comes from the Vacation Rental Managers Association, which reports that 45 companies have enrolled online in an as-yet-to-be launched vacation rental switch, which is being built for the association by hotel-distribution maven Pegasus Solutions.

One of the entities that has committed to using the switch is LiveRez.com, a vacation rental technology company, which says it will have 600 professional property managers distribute their vacation homes through the switch.

The idea behind the switch is that it would enable professionally managed vacation homes to better compete with rentals by owners by giving the property managers a hub to distribute their vacation rentals across vacation-rental listing sites, destination management organization sites, online travel agencies, and other partners.

The problem is that the switch has been subject to delay after delay.

Steve Ingram, VRMA executive director, told Skift today that the switch is still in the planning stage, although a business development staff person is talking to assocation members.

Ingram declined to offer a timetable for launch.

Properties using the vacation rental switch will get charged a monthly advertising fee, plus transaction fees.

After a spat in the summer of 2011, Pegasus Solutions and VRMA came to terms on the development of the switch in November 2011. A lot of the development work had already been done, and the process had been expected to be completed within about 150 days.

Now, more than a year later, the project is still in the planning stages.

Maybe 2012 will be the year for the launch of the vacation rental switch — maybe.