Cendant Corporation was a New York-based provider of business and consumer services, primarily within the real estate and travel industries, headquartered in New Jersey. Fifteen months ago, Cendant decided to split into four newly named companies, further details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cendant
About half way down the Wikipedia page, it names Wyndham Worldwide as one of the four new companies, and there's a link from Wikipeedia to their "Official Website" at www.wyndhamworldwide.com There you can see that Wyndham has several divisions of it's own, and one of the groups, RCI Global Vacation Network, states that it offers services to more than four million leisure-bound families a year, and operates 50 worldwide offices and a vacation rental business that has relationships with approximately 35,000 independent property owners (my emphasis) in over 22 countries, or so it claims.
RCI also provides consumers with access to a full spectrum of vacation networks, including timeshare condominiums, vacation homes, villas, chalets, cottages, caravan parks, vacation parks, bungalows, whole-ownership condominiums, canal boats, houseboats, ocean-going catamarans, fractional resorts, private residence clubs, condo hotels, destination clubs and more, or so it claims.
The following is a complete list of RCI Global Vacation Network brands: Blakes® Boating & Parks, Canvas Holidays®, Chez Nous® , Vacation Rentals 4 You, Vacation Rentals 4 Agents , Cottages4you.com, Country Cottages in Scotland, Country Cottages in Ireland, Country Cottages in France®, Country Holidays®, Country Manors®, Cuendet®, Dansk Familieferie® , Dansommer®, English Country Cottage, French Life®, Holiday Homes Africa, Individual Travelers Group, Italian Life®, Landal GreenParks®, NorthCourse Leisure Real Estate SolutionsSM, Novasol®, RCI® , The Registry Collection®, Ski Life, Stillwells .
If anybody here has ever advertised their property on English Country Cottages for example, they may be interested to know that it is not the cute little independent website they know and love, rather it's part of a multi-billion dollar network, with a trail leading right to Cendant.
There's a lot more....but I'm splitting the post for reasons of length.
Value Network Circles
Going back to the beginning, when Cendant was broken up, the original shareholders took a stake in each of the 4 new companies, thereby creating a "Value Circle Network."
Included in their new network is everything from small, seemingly-independent-but-not-really operations like English Country Cottages, to the bohemoth that is Realogy, plus all the other names mentioned above and many more.
From reading about all this, I think I call that Realogy earnt something like $7.1 billion in 2005 from those little known Real Estate companies like Century 21, Coldwell Banker, and Sotheby's International etc. Is H-R starting to look a little smaller to you yet?
Add Avis and Budget as players in this game. Those same shareholders also got a piece of Travelport, whose brand names include Orbitz, ebookers and Galileo.
It doesn't stop there. On December 18th 2006, that's hardly more than a month ago, Realogy was acquired by Apollo Management. It cost them $9 billion and they paid cash. According to Wikipedia, Apollo Management has something like $12 billion of capital to spend (or maybe a mere $3 billion now they bought Reology).
Apollo also owns, amongst other things, the Linens 'N Things group of stores. (How convenient to have a bunch of linen stores in your Value Circle Network when you're anticipating kitting out and managing 35,000 changeovers every week.)
Rumors are flying as to where all this is going next........I have my own ideas, but you tell me.
Disclosure: I am a Licensed Real Estate Broker who does business with brokers who are part of the Reology network, as well as renting my own Vacation Rental by owner. If anyone would like to join my new Value Circle Network, please contact me offlist.
Included in their new network is everything from small, seemingly-independent-but-not-really operations like English Country Cottages, to the bohemoth that is Realogy, plus all the other names mentioned above and many more.
From reading about all this, I think I call that Realogy earnt something like $7.1 billion in 2005 from those little known Real Estate companies like Century 21, Coldwell Banker, and Sotheby's International etc. Is H-R starting to look a little smaller to you yet?
Add Avis and Budget as players in this game. Those same shareholders also got a piece of Travelport, whose brand names include Orbitz, ebookers and Galileo.
It doesn't stop there. On December 18th 2006, that's hardly more than a month ago, Realogy was acquired by Apollo Management. It cost them $9 billion and they paid cash. According to Wikipedia, Apollo Management has something like $12 billion of capital to spend (or maybe a mere $3 billion now they bought Reology).
Apollo also owns, amongst other things, the Linens 'N Things group of stores. (How convenient to have a bunch of linen stores in your Value Circle Network when you're anticipating kitting out and managing 35,000 changeovers every week.)
Rumors are flying as to where all this is going next........I have my own ideas, but you tell me.
Disclosure: I am a Licensed Real Estate Broker who does business with brokers who are part of the Reology network, as well as renting my own Vacation Rental by owner. If anyone would like to join my new Value Circle Network, please contact me offlist.
Last edited by A-two on Wed Jan 31, 2007 2:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
Isn't it the way of the world Joanna, everything small and sucessful seems to be eventually tartgeted by bigger players for a too good to resist sum......think supermarkets / dvd rental....then the bigger boys get taken over by the giants, an unstoppable juggernaut 
Don't waste energy on things you can't change.
Costa de la Luz apartment rental
www.ownersdirect.co.uk/spain/S5386.htm
Costa de la Luz apartment rental
www.ownersdirect.co.uk/spain/S5386.htm
The worst thing about this, to me, is that they keep all the little companies as independent-seeming operations, and don't disclose their connections, so that the consumer feels exposed to variety, but in fact isn't.
Competition creates quality -- real competition, not just the appearance of it.
Competition creates quality -- real competition, not just the appearance of it.
Brooke
No truer words spoken. I'd like to know what the behemoth would do if/when Ebay enter the fray with a service targeted at vacation rental owners. Now, Ebay certainly offers a value network circle.Competition creates quality -- real competition, not just the appearance of it.
The thing about juggernauts is they are hard to manoeuvre.then the bigger boys get taken over by the giants, an unstoppable juggernaut
Last edited by Garri on Wed Jan 31, 2007 8:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Paul Carmel
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The problem with a one-size-fits-all template is that it tends not to fit anybody very well and all the properties start to look the same after a while. It was for exactly those reasons YHM was created.....Maxd wrote:In some ways it is good for distribution. The more consolidated it becomes the easier it will be for joe bloggs to add his cottage in cornwall to the compatable systems. The bad will be if few people control distribution they can force commissions/subscriptions up.
Also, there's another white elephant trying to get into the room that nobody has mentioned. It's called Property Management. An owner may have to buy into it as a precondition to listing.Interesting feedback, thanks all, and let's hear from some listing sites as well!
Partridge wrote
We all moan about the lack of service and corners shops in the community
But we soon scurry of to the nearest Supermarket for the money saving offers .
Maybe the same might be said later for Holiday Rental Companies and I do agree small is better[to some extent
]
But if we were offered a really good deal with one of the big boys...would we really say OH NO we will pay 3 times as much with this little local site.....
But I know this would be false economy as then the big boys will close the little ones and then whack theyre prices up
....
Of course Im Sure YHM will flourish as its sooo good and you are all so keyed up on all this...
Long May it continue[but I really dont think you give it the exposure on here it deserves] ....
Please blow your OWN trumpet a bit more and very loudly ...
[I can say this as I am not a member of it so am unbiased.....]but I know LOTS of great people who are
But dont we the consumer have to take some of the blame for this..........think supermarkets / dvd rental
We all moan about the lack of service and corners shops in the community
But we soon scurry of to the nearest Supermarket for the money saving offers
.Maybe the same might be said later for Holiday Rental Companies and I do agree small is better[to some extent
]But if we were offered a really good deal with one of the big boys...would we really say OH NO we will pay 3 times as much with this little local site.....
But I know this would be false economy as then the big boys will close the little ones and then whack theyre prices up
....Of course Im Sure YHM will flourish as its sooo good and you are all so keyed up on all this...
Long May it continue[but I really dont think you give it the exposure on here it deserves] ....
Please blow your OWN trumpet a bit more and very loudly
...[I can say this as I am not a member of it so am unbiased.....]but I know LOTS of great people who are
It's called Property Management. An owner may have to buy into it as a precondition to listing.
I hope that by the time that happens my own website brings in enough business on its own, because that'll be the day that I leave listing sites entirely!
...which is why I think there will always be another option (I'm sure I'm not unique in this case).
Brooke