housetrip.com Wins Best Travel Startup

housetrip.com, the European holiday rentals portal launched in September, has already attracted attention at the 2009 World Travel Market.

The free-to-list portal, which covers property and rooms for short-term rent, was chosen as the best of a group of 17 start-ups after two days of product pitches. According to the housetrip.com blog, judging panel member Jason Katz described the portal as having the highest risk/reward ratio for potential investors.

housetrip.com’s award was part of the World Travel Market’s GetFundedShow, organised by online travel news website EyeforTravel. The World Travel Market’s attendees included over 25,000 travel professionals and almost 3,000 press members.

housetrip.com allows property owners to auction rental periods when demand for their property is high, and gives them the ability to create groups where people with similar interests can advertise their properties. The portal charges property owners a commission between 5 and 10 percent when their property is rented.

1. New Portal for European Holiday Rentals

   housetrip.com is free-to-list and covers properties and rooms for short-term rent across Europe. ...

2. Funding Injection for secondporch.com

   Facebook-based vacation rentals application secondporch.com has just closed a US$1 million round of Series-A investment financing, led by the Oregon Angel Fund. secondporch.com's CEO has welcomed the Hitwise figures that show Facebook has just surpassed Google to become the most visited website for the week ending 13 March....

3. Foreclosure Image Wins Photo Contest

   propertyportalwatch.com has already reported on the increase in traffic to foreclosure websites but the winning photograph from 2008's World Press Photo Contest gives the situation a deeper context....

4. Wins for daft.ie, roost.com, zillow.com

   Three property websites have received accolades over the past week: daft.ie was ranked 8th on this year’s Technology Fast 500 list, and both roost.com and zillow.com were included in AltSearchEngines‘ 100 Search Engines in 100 Minutes list....

5. immobilienscout24.de Wins Best Portal

   immoblienscout24.de has picked up an award for best German portal brand. ...