Worldwide: Vacasa has announced the acquisition of Oasis Collections, a short-term rental company with listings in U.S. and major cities across the world.
With listings in cities such as Barcelona, Chicago, London, Milan, Paris, and Santiago, Vacasa has become the largest vacation rental management company in North America with 10,600 properties in its database.
Despite Oasis raising $35 million in funding, the company had been struggling over the year.
In 2016, AccorHotels invested in Oasis, and the company accepted a further $2.5 million in funding from an undisclosed investor in early 2017. Oasis now lists more than 2,000 properties in 22 cities worldwide and ensures that its urban properties are marketed specifically for business travellers.
In August 2017, Hyatt injected a ‘significant investment’ into the company, and AccorHotels took the opportunity to exit.
Oasis founder and CEO Parker Stanberry said he hoped the partnership with Hyatt would help Oasis achieve its objective of being in 50 markets by 2019 and broadening into the Asia-Pacific market, in addition to increasing brand awareness for Oasis and accessing an even larger customer base.
However, after working with Hyatt, Oasis’ inventory actually declined by 59 per cent in 18 months by displaying only 826 listings in 17 non-exclusive markets. By that time, the company had been sold to Vacasa.
Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian said about Hyatt’s investment: “We are high on companies that have control over the inventory. I believe we will see consolidation of platforms that don’t have control over inventory.
“But you have to have control over the inventory. We’ve learned a lot from the B2B and B2C sides of this business, and we see more opportunity in B2C; and we are going to continue to look at this business on the home front,” he added.
Vacasa will now seek to convert Oasis’s nonexclusive listings into exclusive contracts.
Founder and CEO of Vacasa, Eric Breon, said: “For us, it’s crucial that in every market we manage homes, we offer our guests the same, high-quality experience that they have grown accustomed to across the world with Vacasa.
“Our acquisition of Oasis enables us to enter new and popular urban markets in international destinations, while bringing on employees in those areas that know the local communities,” he added.
Vacasa plans to maintain the Oasis branding and retain all of the company’s employees, including Stanberry, who will join the team with a brief of growing the corporate and international business. Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed.
