The Greek villa specialist courting the trade with real-time availability
Fresh from doing deals with the likes of Travel Counsellors and Hays Travel, Beach Villas is seeking to attract more agent partners, with the help of its exclusive property portfolio
As the villas market continues its period of transition, one of the players looking to move closer to agents is Beach Villas. The business was set up by Nathan Pascoe, 24 years ago, in Corfu. He already owned a taverna at Agni Bay, a beautiful beach accessible by boat only. Princess Diana was one of his famous clientele.
He explains: “Customers used to ask me for accommodation, and so I started selling villas. “Fifteen years ago, I bought the Beach Villas brand, and six months ago we started focusing our efforts on the trade. We are now live with Travel Counsellors and Hays, and in talks with a number of other trade partners.”
Beach Villas sells more than 500 private villas with pools in Europe, mostly mid-range, three- and four-star, with a few high-end options. Destinations include Spain, the Balearics, the Canaries, Portugal, Italy, Croatia, Cyprus and Turkey, but the business is strongest in Greece, where Pascoe started out. “I know most of the owners and their families directly, which is really useful when special requests come in,” he explains. “For example, if there’s a wheelchair user in the holiday party, I can make sure it’s a property with ramps in place.”
With all the properties exclusive to Beach Villas, real-time pricing and availability is offered. Agents book villa-only to dynamically package with flights, car hire and other components for increased margins. There’s also a 24-hour hold period, during which prices and availability are guaranteed, giving the agent time to research the best flights and car hire deals.
Pascoe adds: “Competitors of ours have changed many of their contracts to on-request to reduce liability, which means that from an agent point of view, you may have to wait 24 hours to confirm availability. There has been some consolidation in the market, and we are one of the few independent specialists remaining.”
An additional benefit for agents, he points out, is that Beach Villas has its own technology team and sends its own content producers and photographers to villa locations, to source descriptions, images and drone footage. “You can be sure what we show on the website is authentic and true to life,” he says.
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Place of registration: England and Wales.
Company number 08723341.
Registered address: 6th Floor, 2 London Wall Place, London EC2Y 5AU
