The 67 Days of Smiles tour by Kyle Post and Stacey Doornbos visited a vacation home community on Day 62 of their tour. As we have blogged before, vacation homes are becoming a more mainstream choice for Orlando tourists. This promo choice exemplifies this fact.

Acadia Estates villas were also featured in a video tour of the luxurious Kissimmee vacation rental community on the Orlando CVB website. Acadia Estates is an exclusive community of 5 to 7 bedroom vacation rentals in a private gated cul-de-sac. Acadia Estates is located in a convenient location approximately 7 miles to Disney’s Magic Kingdom and 4 miles to Animal Kingdom.

We applaude the Orlando Convention and Visitors Bureau for carving out time for Kyle and Stacey to view and stay in a representative vacation home community. Acadia Estates is/was an excellent choice for the type of quality accommodations that vacation rentals have to offer visitors to the area.

Consult the community reviews section of our website for a review of Acadia Estates villas along with 80+ other vacation rental communities in Kissimmee, Clermont, Orlando, and Davenport.

Acadia Estates

The Orlando Sentinel (1) recently noted that Orlando hotels are now facing the worst economic conditions since recordkeeping began over 20 years ago. These are business conditions possibly worse than the aftermath of 9/11.

We projected that many hotels in Orlando would be facing some type of systemic failure back in December of 2008 (2).

Checking rates for September 28^th 2009 for one night, we identified several major luxury hotel brands offering rates under $99 directly on their websites. The irony is that thousands more branded new luxury hotel rooms have either recently opened or are just opening, further increasing supply in an oversaturated market.

Some related articles are claiming that as many as one in five hotels are now in some stage of foreclosure (3). Hotels are now also facing their most aggressive competition from timeshare rentals and vacation homes.

Orlando vacation homes can now be rented for the price of a typical hotel room, but offer multiple bedrooms, living spaces, full service kitchens and even private garages, pools and game rooms. Based on personal experience, once a consumer has rented a vacation home and understands the concept, they will not rent a hotel room again.

What does this mean for our readers? We think that booking a vacation home with a reputed and accredited vacation home management company is always the best value and solution for travelers.

We have received several reader questions lately regarding a detailed explanation of the “community reviews” area of our website. Although we consider the exact ratings formula award weightings to be proprietary, our community quality awards are based on the following:

• The quality of common area amenities (playground, pool, clubhouse, tennis courts, etc…) as defined by the cleanliness and maintenance of those amenities at the time of the on-site evaluation.
• The cleanliness and general maintenance of other common area grounds including buildings, landscaping, etc… at  the time of on-site evaluation.
• The cleanliness and maintenance of homes in the resort subdivision.
• Location to major parks and restaurants with an emphasis on proximity to the Disney parks.
• Other factors are also considered including whether the resort community is gated and/or guarded. The ratings system is dynamic in the sense that we will re-review each of the communities every six months in case of major community refurbishment which happens from time-to-time.
• The “overall” rating for a resort community is derived from all of the factors above.

Vacation Home Rentals

Our system is similar to the Mobil 5-Star Awards and AAA Diamond Awards for restaurants, spas and hotels albeit an adapted format for vacation homes. The critical component is that these awards should be based on objectivity as much as possible to the benefit of the individual travel consumer. The award system is also formulated to reward resorts for maintaining quality amenities also to the benefit of Orlando vacation rental guests. 

Vacation Home Ratings

Since word-of-mouth and referrals are key to building the repuatation of the industry, our 80+ independent community reviews and profiles are compiled to achieve this goal. The quality of the actual vacation experience with this product will ultimately be the reason whether vacation home rentals continue to emerge in the mainstream of travel and tourism accommodations.

Orlando Vacation Rentals - Do Your Research

Church groups come to Orlando year round from all over the USA and from most parts of the world. A typical church group can be 12 to 20 people so renting a vacation home can make perfect economic sense when compared to a traditional hotel room. For larger church groups, renting more than one vacation home is also an option. Many vacation home management companies in Orlando have the ability to rent multiple vacation homes side by side in the same community.

Some vacation homes can sleep up to 17 people comfortably. Vacation homes also allow church groups to share meal times and relax in a private pool, while still allowing the privacy of one’s own bedroom.

Many of the vacation home communities we write about are close to all the Orlando attractions, spacious and allow you to relax. For about the price of a mid-market hotel room, you can typically rent an entire four bedroom house that can comfortably sleep up to 10 people in a spacious environment.

As church groups look for ways to manage their budgets in a tough economy, a vacation home can make perfect sense. Consult our exclusive ratings information for reviews and opinions on most vacation home communities in Kissimmmee, Davenport and Clermont.

On this post, we develop three scenario forecasts for the Orlando Florida short term rental industry for 2009 compared to 2008. This market includes hotels, vacation homes and timeshare rentals.

As we always indicate, no one can predict the future. If you had listened to economists predictions for Florida over the last two years you would realize that most of them have been stunningly wrong.

Although some Orlando short term rental products will fare better than others, 2009 will most likely be very bad and possibly have longer term systemic consequences than what is generally recognized today.

Best Case:

Occupancy Down 7%

ADR Down 8%

= Total Room Revenue Decline of 14.4%

Expected/Most Likely

Occupancy Down 13%

ADR Down 18%

= Total Room Revenue Decline of 28.6%

Worst Case

Occupancy Down 20%

ADR Down 24%

= Total Room Revenue Decline of 39%

Short term rentals in Orlando will be affected at many levels. Inferior product in inferior locations will be effected the most, while good product in the best locations will be affected the least.

We are advised from professionals in the field that large feeder markets to Orlando such as school groups, conventions and the UK are rapidly evaporating. Gas prices are also sneaking back up and affecting the drive markets. In addition, some theme park ticket prices are now at record highs for single day passes – even as short term rental properties slash their rates.

How we calculate the numbers using an algorithmic statistical regression is not disclosed, so always deem the authors of this blog as incompetent, and read our disclaimer above.

Orlando Tourism 2009

Bike Week in Daytona Beach Florida this year is February 27^th to March 8^th 2009.

Bike week is now a global phenomenon attracting over 500,000 bikers. Due to the limited number of Daytona hotels, renting a room in the area can be an expensive affair. Many bikers visiting the Daytona area will stay at least in part in the Orlando area as the hotels tend to be more affordable.

For those bikers particular about their bikes, renting an Orlando vacation home may make perfect sense, as these homes typically offer full garages to overnight your prized possessions.

Other advantages of vacation home rentals include your own private pool, fully equipped kitchens and most homes have between three and seven bedrooms making them economically viable accommodations when visiting with friends.

While staying Orlando, you can also visit many of the area theme parks as well as Orlando Harley Davidson.

See you in Daytona….