Awaze boosts rental portfolio through further acquisitions in Europe

Vacation rental group Awaze has acquired three new holiday home companies.

The acquisition of Amberley House and Portscatho Holidays in the U.K. and Bornholmtours in Denmark add about 1,000 homes to Awaze’s existing portfolio of more than 100,000 properties.

Henrik Kjellberg, CEO of Awaze, says the company is continuing to look for further expansion opportunities across Europe.

“There’s a lot of fragmentation, a lot of local small players active across Europe," he claims.

He adds that the sector remains competitive but Awaze’s focus is on homes in rural areas.

On the drive to bring on more hosts from both Airbnb and Vrbo, Kjellberg says you need demand on one side and hosts or owners on the other and “it’s hard to get scale doing both well.”

“From my perspective, Airbnb seems to be looking for hosts that want to manage properties themselves, we are specialized in something different. Our owners want to outsource it because it’s time consuming to do it well but they want quality guests and good revenue.”

The company recently set up a hub in Manchester to help fulfil its recruitment needs and has just hired its 50th employee for the hub.

Kjellberg says Awaze is recruiting across various commercial and technical roles and plans to further develop its technology both for owners and guests.

“We’re investing aggressively into the technology platform and upgrading it both on the owner portal side as well as the guest experience side. We thought Manchester would be a good location with a bigger pool of candidates.”

Awaze, whose brands include Hoseasons, James Villas and Novasol, was formed in 2018 when Wyndham Vacations sold its European businesses to Platinum Equity for $1.3 billion.

Kjellberg would not be drawn on pressure to sell from Awaze’s private equity owners to sell given the popularity of the sector currently and the noise from large online travel agencies about expanding their vacation rental inventory.

“My focus is on providing a great product for guests and a great experience for employees. The owners will decide when they think the time is right and if things go well, we will be sold.”

* Check out this In The Big Chair LIVE interview with Kjellberg from November 2019.