Entrepreneurs Bring Technology Innovation to the Vacation Rental Industry

August 30, 2007; 03:28 AM

SAN FRANCISCO—August 28, 2007—The founders of PickPackGo (www.pickpackgo.com), a new website for travelers to easily find, compare and rent vacation homes, are applying patent-pending technology to improve the search for the ideal vacation rental online. Through smarter search, streamlined Web 2.0 site design, security features and personalized travel assistance from local city hosts in popular destinations, PickPackGo is bringing innovation to a more traditional travel industry segment to improve the process of renting a vacation home online.

PickPackGo is the first online vacation rental search site to take advantage of dynamic Web 2.0 technologies, including Ajax and JavaScript, throughout to address the growing demand of travelers, as well as property managers and owners, booking vacation homes. PickPackGo offers property managers and owners free property listings and a new performance-driven, lead generation marketing program designed to produce more rental income with less effort.

PickPackGo Delivers Smart Search and Stress-Free Bookings
Until now, vacation rental listing sites have primarily focused on vacation rental advertising, paying little attention to the entire vacation rental booking process. Travelers have had to individually click through hundreds of listings and links to view primarily text-based pages with no easy way to comprehensively search, compare and rent vacation homes from a single website.

Unlike text-based classified-style listings sites, PickPackGo uniquely integrates dynamic web services, such as advanced search and mapping, with availability calendars, photos and other property details to enable travelers to review and ask about specific properties. PickPackGo has also developed a patent-pending approach to keep availability information up to date and reliably determine if a property is available during a renter's preferred travel dates, and is integrating its site with property management software applications to enable direct online booking.

"Today's online consumers, regardless of what they are buying, expect to quickly view and evaluate their choices in order to make informed decisions. Travelers are no exception. They want to be able to search, compare and complete a booking from one website," said Felix Lin, founder and CEO of PickPackGo. "PickPackGo uses technology to showcase rich, dynamic property information, and makes it easy for travelers to rent a vacation home from start to finish."

PickPackGo Refines Online Advertising Model for Vacation Rental Industry
PickPackGo offers vacation rental property managers and owners the ability to cost-effectively market their vacation properties online using a refined cost-per-action advertising model. Managers and owners decide how much they are willing to pay for bookings or inquiries during the travel seasons they define, and they only pay when the action is completed.

Today, well-known online advertising programs charge a cost-per-click for relatively unqualified web traffic. For example, advertisers might pay $5 per click from someone searching for "Disney vacation rental," regardless of when that person might be traveling. Using these programs to advertise vacation homes often means that advertisers pay for traffic from a large number of visitors interested in popular holidays and travel dates for which they have no availability.

In contrast, PickPackGo allows property managers to specify what they are willing to pay for inquiries about a specific property during a specific travel period, enabling the delivery of more highly qualified and valuable inquiries. Rather than paying a fee when a listing is viewed, a property manager can bid one amount for inquiries from renters traveling during the summer, a different amount for inquiries from renters traveling during the fall, and nothing for inquiries during major holidays.

Founding Team Unveils PickPackGo Blog
CEO Felix Lin and the management team's previous successes include mobile Internet service AvantGo (acquired by Sybase), anti-spam software leader Qurb (acquired by CA) and web development software provider iAmaze (acquired by AOL/Time Warner). The team has now applied its collective expertise to create the best place to find, compare and rent vacation homes online.

"Our founding team has a great deal of experience solving complex technical and usability problems to deliver valuable services to mainstream audiences," added Lin. "We believe our collective experience will benefit renters, property managers and owners, as well as partners in the vacation rental industry."

The PickPackGo founding team will comment on travel and technology, the vacation rental industry and vacation trends on the newly launched PickPackGo Blog at www.pickpackgo.com/blog.

About PickPackGo
PickPackGo is changing the way families vacation by connecting renters with property managers and homeowners to rent vacation homes. PickPackGo is an online search site dedicated solely to vacation properties. It provides a safe, easy to use and efficient way for travelers to easily find, compare and rent vacation homes. Every rental transaction processed by PickPackGo is protected by the Security Blanket™ Guarantee. PickPackGo is online at pickpackgo.com and headquartered in San Francisco.