VRMA 2008 Conference Notes

 This year was a first for DocuSign and VRMA 2008 - or 'Vacation Rental Manager's Association' annual conference held in sunny Phoenix, AZ this year. We're very pleased to have participated and now that things have calmed down a bit there are a few show takeaways we thought were interesting.

Most notably, was how surprised we were on how little of an impact the dark economic cloud had on attendee attitudes. It wasn't that people were unaware of the current economic condition, but with so many in the business for so many years it appeared they've experienced other 'ups and downs' in the markets and have already been taking steps they felt necessary to weather the current situation. A great example of this is a statistic we learned at the show indicating the total amount of vacation spending in the US. versus the percent of those dollars spent through Vacation Rental agencies - the target demographic for VRMA.

According to a LiveRez blog, when booking leisure travel “57% of vacationers do not consider vacation rentals; 23% considered it but do not book; and 20% regularly book vacation rentals”. Considering these statistics, we see plenty of room to adjust offerings or use this time period to streamline costs and aim to close this gap to make up for the overall vacation spending predicted. And a main priority for DocuSign's presence at the show was to also help rental owners looking to book these opportunities streamline their own cost structures through with the help of DocuSign's online electronic contract signature and execution services which is already helping many agencies keep their vacation prices palatable for vacationers looking to book a trip in the down economy.

We received excellent feedback from attendees and look forward to speaking with folks at next year's show to discover if they were successful in propelling the vacation rental space through these economic conditions unscathed.