Vacation Rental Management Association Issues Public Relations RFP

Founded in 1985, the Vacation Rental Management Association (VRMA) is a professional trade association that represents the vacation rental property management and hospitality industries. Headquartered in the United States, membership includes professional vacation rental managers and industry suppliers in countries throughout the world. VRMA provides education and networking opportunities, promotes the value of the vacation rental experience and drives industry growth and professionalism. The vacation rental industry has been transformed by technological innovation that has made it easier for businesses and individuals to enter the marketplace. This technology and media attention has also opened the doors to a new set of consumers of vacation rentals.

This growth and the innovation that brought it have also caught the attention of local and state policy makers. Communities across the country are enacting strict rules, outright bans, and new taxation in under the guise of protecting consumers, preserving neighborhoods, protecting affordable housing and a host of other concerns. These concerns are raised because of the disconnect of outdated policy language and the modern sharing economy. Traditional vacation rentals are often unfortunate bystanders of these new regulations even when they are not the problem. There is a growing trend for communities to allow for homesharing and ban the short-term rental of non-owner occupied second homes as a result.

The Vacation Rental Management Association is seeking a PR Agency to assist with strategy and content
development, which aims to engage our membership and our members’ clients in advocacy campaigns to contend with short-term rental regulations and differentiate professional vacation rentals from other short-term rental activities.

VRMA requests proposals for public relations consulting services including:

• Create and implement a strategy to differentiate homesharing from professionally managed traditional vacation rentals.
• Create and implement content to assist members in differentiating homesharing from professionally managed traditional vacation rentals.
• Develop a plan to engage members, their clients (property owners), and consumers in, often localized, issue campaigns.

VRMA goals should contain:

• Development of content and a communication plan that will:
  • Provide talking points to differentiate professional property managers from individuals who share their homes occasionally.
  • Develop talking points to combat frequently used arguments such as housing affordability and deterioration of neighborhood character.
  • Identify opportunities to leverage new communications channels and outreach strategies to convey our policy goals.
• Develop an engagement plan that will:
  • Leverage existing tools and resources to disseminate the communications plan.
  • Develop sharable content for the advocacy toolkit.
  • Provide strategic counsel on events and speaking opportunities worth leveraging.
  • Propose means to evaluate success of tactics.

Submit proposals to Greg Holcomb (gholcomb@vrma.org) by EOD April 7, 2017.