Guest interview – Darren Cronian of Worldwide Holiday Homes
Written by Karen Bryan
Some of you may know Darren of Travel Rants. Darren’s business is the online UK based Worldwide Holiday Homes.
1 What is the aim of your business?
I think the aim has probably changed over the four years that I have
been operating Worldwide Holiday Homes, but primarily the aim is to
offer something different than the traditional holiday package, by
allowing holidaymakers to rent a private villa, or luxury apartment or
holiday home and then book their own travel insurance, flights, etc.
2 What prompted you to start your own business?
Before starting the business, I’d had very little interest in the
internet or travel, and in 2002, my parents bought a holiday home in
Spain which they wanted to rent. I visited the internet and at the
time found few choices, and the choices available were expensive, so I
got this mad idea in my head that I could create a website, and ask
holiday homeowners if they were interested in advertising.
At the time it seemed so simple.
3 What has been the hardest aspect of having your own business?
In the start it was creating an attractive website, and getting
advertisers wanting to pay to advertise, then the next challenge was
learning about how the search engines work, and then getting the site
seen so that advertisers would receive enquiries.
Nowadays, the biggest challenge is the sheer number of accommodation
sites on the internet, so marketing the site on the search engines is
hard work and very time consuming. In the past 12 months I have had
to look at how I market the site and introduced a holiday forum and
blog to attract holidaymakers and keep them on the site after
searching or renting a holiday home.
4 What is the funniest thing that has happened to you running your own
business?
I get some very strange requests for accommodation, ranging from mud
huts in Kenya to houses made out of Bamboo in Costa Rica [which I
actually found them!] I have helped arrange honeymoons in the Bahamas
and stag parties in cities across the World.
5 Is there anything you would do differently with the benefit of
hindsight?
Good question Karen. Oh yes, there are many things I would have done
different with hindsight, including the choice of the business name
and domain name, down to the actual niche of accommodation. Four
years down the line its very difficult to change, so my advice to
anyone starting up a travel business is to plan, and research before you
jump in with both feet.
Thanks very much for taking part, Darren. It’s interesting that you mention the importance of niche markets, I agree that this is the path a small travel business has to follow. I would have given my business a different name too, with hindsight. I thought that Europe a la Carte was a good name because you could be more flexible in your holiday choices rather than the set menu of a package holiday. However Europe a la Carte doesn’t mention travel in the title and people can think it is a catering business.
[...] In a recent interview in Europe a la carte we learn a bit more about Darren: [...]
Happy Hotelier, Darren lives up the ideals of the internet by offering encouragement and advice to new travel bloggers, as you have commented and I have experienced, instead of having the attitude of thinking my blog’s successful why should I bother with others.
Karen
We concur :-)
Regards
gje
aka Guido
aka Happy Hotelier
[...] Guest interview – Sam Daams of Travellers Point Sam Daams is co-founder of Travellers Point, who “nurture your travel addictions”, sounds good to me! 1 What is the aim of your business? Well, the ‘corporate’ objective reads this: “Travellerspoint’s objective is to enrich the travelling experience by offering numerous services, content and products that have significant perceived and added value for travellers worldwide. To travel means to meet other people, experience their cultures and to make, but also to keep good friends. By bringing more people together – albeit before, during or after travelling – Travellerspoint will create more understanding for different cultures and countries and ultimately a better world for everyone to travel in.” Basically we try to create features that bring travellers together on our site, regardless of whether they are planning a trip, already on the road or have returned! 2 What prompted you to start your own business? It actually started out as a hobby more than a business. My brother Peter and me came up with the idea in 2002, when Peter had just developed a few websites. He was interested in building one around travelling and I was working in the travel business, so we teamed up and launched Travellerspoint as a ‘Travel Friends Reunited’ type of site. It’s come quite a way since then, but we still have quite a few reunions through the original feature! 3 What has been the hardest aspect of having your own business? Personally I’d say trying to find the balance between work and a private life is the toughest. It’s easy to get carried away and when you run an online business you can pretty much work from anywhere. So being able to walk away from the computer and spend some time with family and friends while there are 100 emails waiting to be answered is an absolute necessity! 4 What is the funniest thing that has happened to you running your own business? Hmmm, I don’t know if anything really funny has happened, but it’s been heaps of fun seeing the business grow and being able to travel more because of it! 5 Is there anything you would do differently with the benefit of hindsight? To be quite honest, there’s not much when it comes to the site and it’s features! We were really lucky in hindsight to have chosen the name Travellerspoint since it was broad enough to allow for adding other features without needing a new brand/domainname. Imagine if we had gone for ‘travelreunions.com’ or something similar!! My comments. Thanks for talking to us, Sam. Interesting that you mention the importance of choosing an appropriate name when you start your business, as Darren of Worldwide Holiday Homes touched upon this, when he spoke to us. You really want a name that is specific in describing what your business does but not limiting your possible diversifications in the future. You really don’t want to have start changing domain names once you are becoming established. As Sam says, I think it’s really hard to say enough is enough when you have your own business. I know I say to myself I’m going to have a day off today, then I just go to check my emails and end up sitting for hours at the computer. [...]
[...] a recent interview in Europe a la carte we learn a bit more about [...]