A Season Away villa vacations to close
A Season Away villa vacations to close down
It is with great sadness that we let you know that A Season Away will be closing down and will not take any new bookings for 2012.
This is a decision we have made in the past few days after looking at advance bookings for 2012.
As you know, we had great hopes for a full-service villa rental company in Italy & France to stand out from the rest of the crowd.
And those of you who know company president Kevin Abell from his days as a Virtuoso agency owner in Baltimore and as the Director of Communications for Virtuoso itself, know that he put his heart and soul into the business.
Bad timing
Unfortunately, a combination of starting the business during the worst recession since the Great Depression and a lack of perception of value for the full-service concept in the face of online villa rental companies like Villa Rental by Owner (VRBO) and others conspired to produce lackluster sales.
While our number of bookings almost doubled in 2011, our average revenue per booking dropped almost in half from 2010, from an average booking of about $31,000 to $16,400.
Larger villa rentals for multi-generational travel evaporated as guests sought to economize with smaller property bookings. Based on the average booking revenue in 2011, we would have had to more than triple our bookings in 2012 just to break even, something that is very unlikely as we face a continuing recession with a higher-than-average priced product.
Humbling Experience
Obviously, this is a humbling experience, forcing us to second guess whether it was the right product at the wrong time, or simply the wrong product at the wrong time.
Either way, our financial advisors have recommended shutting down the business in an orderly fashion now, before we get many commitments for 2012 that would obligate us to stay open and continue to lose money.
Will honor 2012 bookings
We WILL honor our existing 2012 bookings.
But we will no longer be a preferred supplier to Virtuoso.
A million thanks
We want to thank all those who trusted us with their clients over the past three years.
Company president Kevin Abell is available to talk or email, and we are comforted by the fact that we will always consider ourselves part of the Virtuoso family.
Best regards,
Kevin Abell and the entire A Season Away team
877-291-AWAY (2929)