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Castelli's Salt Lake City-based company, Vacations-Roost, said Tuesday it had acquired a similar operation, Mexican Destinations of Aspen, Colo., along with rights to market several hundred luxury villas in Mexico.
Those properties boost VacationsRoost's inventory of vacation beach rental units in Mexico and the Caribbean to 14,000. Overall, the company markets almost 100,000 private homes and rental units at ski resorts in the West and at beach communities in the southeastern United States. It claims vacation rental bookings of more than $200 million since 2001.
Sale terms were not disclosed.
"Clearly, it's not a great time in the travel industry, with consumer confidence being what it is. We book for so many units, so we do see a softening," said Castelli, company CEO. "But we started along this path 18 months ago. We're well into a five-year plan and expect it to be a successful run. The next six to 12 months could be a good opportunity to obtain companies and consolidate. It's good to be strong in a weak market."
VacationsRoost is a product of consolidation. The company began in Park City in 2001 as Ski West Inc., an online travel company specializing in customized lodging and vacation packages, primarily at U.S. and Canadian ski resorts.
It was acquired and renamed OTravel.com by Overstock.com, which then sold it in April 2007 to Kinderhook Industries, a private equity firm, and Castles Media. They renamed it Mountain Reservations. Earlier this year, the company purchased VRGateway Inc., which had thousands of beach rental units from Florida through North Carolina, and its affiliated Web site, www.rooster.com.
Castelli called Rooster.com "a leader in technology that links companies' property management systems with online booking capabilities." With that technology in-house and the purchase of Mexican Destinations expanding its extensive beach holdings, Mountain Reservations also changed its name to VacationsRoost.
The company does not own the properties it represents, but collects a fee each time its service is used to book vacation rentals.
Although the economic collapse is hurting everyone, Castelli feels the high-end consumers attracted to his company's offerings -- average weekly bookings in Mexico are almost $7,000 -- "may have a little more cushion than most. They're cutting back too, taking shorter vacations, but they're still going."
mikeg@sltrib.com
Clearly, it's not a great time in the travel industry, with consumer confidence being what it is.
We book for so many units, so we do see a softening.
"
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- VacationsRoost CEO Julian Castelli, on the industry's consolidation.
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