With 52% of the UK holiday rental properties standing empty each year, there is clear room for improvement and a new start up believes it has the solution, writes Pamela Whitby

Got a great idea to tackle the shortcomings or gaps in the online travel market? Fine. But that’s just 30% of the battle, according to Matt Fox, chief executive of Snaptrip, and one of the founders of a new startup in the UK’s self-catering segment. “You can have a big idea but when it comes down to it, it’s really all about execution,” he says.

Although this part of the UK’s online travel industry is robust, nobody according to Fox, has captured the last-minute segment for the mass market - yet. And with the average annual occupancy of UK holiday rental properties currently at 52%, there is still significant unsold inventory each year and a clear opportunity.

You can have a big idea but when it comes down to it, it’s really all about execution

Snaptrip believes it is on the way to helping to solve this problem and so far has grown its inventory to 12,000 cottages since April, significantly more than its closest competitors. “The plan is to grow this to 40,000 by this time next year,” says Fox, adding that mainland Europe and the US are also very much in frame.  

Against this backdrop let’s hear what Snaptrip has learnt while executing a big idea in a highly competitive world.

1.     Know that data does matter

There are many companies offering last-minute holidays in the UK but in researching the segment, Snaptrip found that the biggest break down for consumers was accuracy of availability and pricing data. “This is crucial to serving last minute, and is what we are doing differently to others,” says Fox.  

So Snaptrip’s guarantee is that it will only offer content that is accurate at the time of booking. While many aggregation sites have a portion of accurate inventory, Fox argues that many also rely on feeds that don’t give availability or pricing for specific periods. “For people in our world, that are are going away this weekend they can’t be doing a 100 searches and going backwards and forwards to then discover a shortlist of what is available and what isn’t,” he says.

…the biggest break down for consumers was accuracy of availability and pricing data

What Snaptrip does is create custom integration systems so the agency doesn't have to do anything. “By doing this we are able to do whatever is necessary to represent their inventory in a total accurate manner,” says Fox.

2.     Talk to people, be humble  

Just because you have a good idea doesn’t mean you should be arrogant about it, or just assume it’s going to work. You need to validate your idea and you can only do that if you speak to enough people - potential customers but also people from industry, who are willing to share knowledge.

Before launching their minimum viable product in April this year, the Snaptrip duo spent five months doing consumer validation and testing the market.

This was achieved by talking to people in coffee houses, bars and in businesses about their travel habits. Interestingly, how people defined last-minute travel varied. For most people it was between a day and two weeks but for some people it was as much as three months.

Some deal-driven people were willing to leave their annual holiday till the last-minute but others would never risk this approach. “By talking to people we found that people willing to book last-minute is really an attitudinal thing rather than a demographic thing.”

…people willing to book last-minute is really an attitudinal thing rather than a demographic thing

Talking to people is one thing, but Fox also cannot stress enough the importance of asking the right questions. On this score he found The Mom Test by tech entrepreneur Rob Fitzpatrick an invaluable resource.

3.     Get your branding right

“In the self-catering segment people had a lot of different opinions about what last-minute meant so we had to make sure we served all those needs and to find a name that didn’t pigeonhole us,” says Fox. Choosing the right name, and developing the logo, was an important part of this process.

That proved more difficult than expected. Four to five months were spent batting around ideas but few worked and eventually they changed track and identified those that were actually available.

…one URL farming business had a price tag £50,000 on some names

After validating the name with colleagues and friends, the duo finally settled on Snaptrip and they have lucky to secure the dot.com and dot.uk domain names. Fortunately the URL was owned by an individual who was willing to sell it for a reasonable sum, says Fox, who explains that one URL farming business had a price tag £50,000 on some names.

Work in progress

Although a high percentage of searches are coming via mobile, Fox says bookings are still taking place predominantly on desktop which mirrors the findings from EyeforTravel’s latest research. As an early stage company there is still work to do on many fronts including mobile optimisation and search engine optimisation, but the startup is working closely with partners at Forward Capital, which provided the initial seed capital.

The firm knows only too well how long it takes to build an organic presence so for now the focus is SEO. It has done this by:

• Focusing on creating useful on-site content by providing information on the towns and regions where visitors are searching.
• Building links with partner websites.

As a consequence of these efforts, Snaptrip has started to appear on the first page of Google for certain targeted keywords.

By harnessing the power of technology, paying close attention to design and customer need, and filling a gap in the market, it’s no longer just a big idea – it’s on the way to execution.

Let’s see what happens next.