Star Wars Tells the Tale of Vacation Rentals — [NO Spoilers. Don’t worry]

With the latest installment in Star Wars set to release this week, now seemed like a good time to see what Luke, Leia, Solo, and of course Yoda, can teach us about the past and future of vacation rentals. The long and short of it? “This is a new day, a new beginning.”

Phantom Menace

Like the “first” Star Wars movie, this story has commercial beginnings. Whereas it was a long time ago in a galaxy far away that an interplanetary trade dispute kicked off the Star Wars we know so well, it was 30-years ago in one of Bill and Doll Jelavich’s rental homes in Monterey Dunes Colony, CA where this story starts.

While it was not really a trade war like in the movie that precipitated that first meeting, that meeting is a natural point with which to launch this tale. Vacation rentals, and professional vacation rental management, had been around for decades, if not centuries before that first meeting. What the attendees of that meeting realized, however, was that their trade, their business, the business of vacation rental management, could be better if there was more cooperation and best practice sharing. With that mission, the Vacation Rental Managers Association (VRMA) was born.

Attack of the Clones

Success begets success. That first meeting in 1985 had 8 attendees representing 5 companies. Humble beginnings for sure, but those attendees were onto something, and it was not long before “clones,” i.e., new members, began joining. Realizing the positive impact such a professional association would have on the industry in general, and their business in particular, more and more Vacation Rental Managers joined the VRMA.

Thus, in 1999 this “clone” army had grown from 5 companies on 14-years earlier, to 500 VRMA members nationwide. The movement was growing.

Revenge of the Sith

This was the point in the industry’s evolution that we began to see the “dark side” of increased professionalism. Professionalization and scale appeared to have obvious benefits, so what better way to take advantage of them than an aggressive roll up strategy?

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Andrew McConnell is the CEO of rented.

Originally published at www.linkedin.com.