Review App

Case Study: Safarium

Vacation homes can be a strain on personal finances but some have found an easy way to help pay the bills: vacation rentals by owner. In the "old days" vacationers called property management firms to find homes for rent but today shoppers are cutting out the middle man and renting directly from the owners!
Safarium.com was launched in 2003 to improve the online vacation rental by owner search and management process, both for owners and potential renters. The site offers powerful filters that allow renters to search properties based on geography or attractions and facilitates secure communications between owners and renters. And hey, we like the safari theme as well - very exotic ;)

What they wanted

  • The ability to organize rental listings by location
  • Payment system for managing listing upgrades and annual fees
  • An easy listing management interface for property owners
  • Multiple photo uploads for each property listing

How we helped

Safarium certainly was not the first vacation rental by owner website but the founders wanted to improve upon the experience offered on competing websites. It was important for renters to be able to zero-in on vacation hot-spots without wading through hundreds of irrelevant listings and Review App provided the perfect solution for organizing properties using pre-built state categories. Review App enabled renters to filter properties within a particular state to just those located in a single city - plus added the ability to sort listings based on price, number of bedrooms, etc.

Traditional property management firms typically charge vacation home owners up to 25% of rental receipts for their services - and for high end properties this can add up to thousands of dollars in fees PER WEEK. For a small annual fee property owners can add their listings to Safarium.com and Review App provided an administrative interface to manage payments and permissions. Once the Safarium guys receive payment from an owner they simply update the property owner's online account and the listing is placed online. Dead simple.

Review App also created a custom property owner admin interface to make managing property listings simple. Need to make a rate change or add an amenity to your listing? No problem - property owners can login and make the change on their own control panel.

For years the Safarium competition was using1990s tech, requiring owners to email (or mail!) photos so they could be posted online. Review App provided Safarium customers the ability to upload photos to their listings putting Safarium light years ahead of the competition and providing a far superior online user experience.

The Safarium founders have not chosen to offer renters the ability to review vacation properties but with Review App the option is just a single click away. How can Review App help your website improve upon your competitors ideas?