HomeAway Expands North American Footprint with Minority Stake in CanadaStays
AUSTIN, Texas (PRWEB) April 01, 2015 -- HomeAway, Inc. (NASDAQ: AWAY), the world leader in vacation rentals, today announced its investment in CanadaStays, Canada's largest vacation rental website. HomeAway® led the round of fundraising with participation by Torstar Corporation.
In addition to the investment, HomeAway has entered into a long-term partnership with CanadaStays, which will give property owners and managers on CanadaStays the opportunity to reach the more than 65 million travelers each month who visit HomeAway websites around the world.
“This investment is important for HomeAway as we currently feature less than 10,000 Canadian properties,” says Jon Gray, HomeAway senior vice president of the Americas. “Thanks to this strategic partnership we can increase the number of Canadian vacation rentals available to HomeAway travelers while also making it easier for Canadians to access the more than one million listings on HomeAway sites.”
CanadaStays, which was founded in 2008, lists properties ranging from cabins to condos, to fishing lodges and ski chalets. The company estimates there are approximately 220,000 homes in Canada available for rent on a short-term basis.
“The decision for HomeAway to partner with a young Canadian start-up is a testament to our leadership in the Canadian travel market,” says Mark Bordo, CEO and founder of CanadaStays. “CanadaStays’ supply of quality Canadian vacation rentals satisfies the demand of the HomeAway audience – together, we fill the gap.”
Canada is an increasingly popular destination for travelers, HomeAway data shows. Destinations such as Montreal and British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast saw double-digit percentage increases in demand during 2014.
HomeAway plans to make CanadaStays online bookable listings available on HomeAway.ca this year, with the opportunity for CanadaStays customers to pay for additional exposure on HomeAway’s other sites. Gray will serve on the board of directors of CanadaStays.
About HomeAway:
HomeAway, Inc. based in Austin, Texas, is the world's leading online marketplace for the vacation rental industry, with sites representing over one million paid listings of vacation rental homes in 190 countries. Through HomeAway, owners and property managers offer an extensive selection of vacation homes that provide travelers with memorable experiences and benefits, including more room to relax and added privacy, for less than the cost of traditional hotel accommodations. The company also makes it easy for vacation rental owners and property managers to advertise their properties and manage bookings online. The HomeAway portfolio includes the leading vacation rental websites HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com in the United States; HomeAway.co.uk and OwnersDirect.co.uk in the United Kingdom; HomeAway.de in Germany; Abritel.fr and Homelidays.com in France; HomeAway.es and Toprural.es in Spain; AlugueTemporada.com.br in Brazil; HomeAway.com.au and Stayz.com.au in Australia; and Bookabach.co.nz in New Zealand. Asia Pacific short-term rental site, travelmob.com, is also owned by HomeAway.
HomeAway also operates BedandBreakfast.com, the most comprehensive global site for finding bed-and-breakfast properties, providing travelers with another source for unique lodging alternatives to chain hotels.
About CanadaStays:
Founded in 2008 in Toronto, Ontario, CanadaStays is Canada's largest vacation rental marketplace with more than 50,000 whole-home vacation rental properties including cottages, cabins, chalets and condos. CanadaStays also offers travelers unique vacation rental properties in the US, the Caribbean, Mexico and South and Central America. With an easy-to-use backend system and a strong distribution network, CanadaStays provides property owners with a simple and effective marketing solution that gets their property listings in front of millions of people, while providing travelers with unique accommodation options in destinations where they travel to most.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking" statements, subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are based on HomeAway management's beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. Forward-looking statements include information concerning HomeAway's expected, possible or assumed future results of operations, growth and business outlook; and the anticipated adoption of online booking across all of our listings. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts and may be identified by terms such as "continues," "plans," "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "could," "look forward to," or similar expressions and the negatives of those terms. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause HomeAway's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to the following: (a) HomeAway's inability to continue to attract and maintain a critical mass of property listings and travelers, (b) HomeAway's and CanadaStay’s inability to increase the number of Canadian properties on the HomeAway websites, (c) the Canadian vacation market and demand for Canadian properties and (d) such other risks and uncertainties described more fully in documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). All information provided in this press release is as of the date hereof and, except as required by law, HomeAway assumes no obligation to update this information, even if new information becomes available in the future.
Jordan Hoefar, HomeAway, http://www.homeaway.com, +1 512-505-1857, [email protected]
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