We spoke this month with Christian Jagodzinski, an experienced technology entrepreneur, who has launched a new service in Europe and the U.S. for very discerning vacation home “renters.” His company, Villazzo, is essentially a hotel operator for luxury villas, providing their clients with access to the finest vacation homes, but with typical 5 star services and amenities. It does not come cheap, although nor does a membership to a destination club or the nightly rate for a three bedroom suite at a top resort hotel.

Jagodzinski believes that he will find a market of affluent families frustrated by the lack of consistency and services with a typical vacation rental house (even very high-end ones), but who are not willing to commit to a destination club membership. In particular, he feels that the destination club membership makes sense only if a member really uses the plan for three to four weeks a year and many families are unable to do that – thus increasing their ‘effective’ nightly cost. Experiment with our cost-per-night calculator to find out for yourself.

Villazo’s customer is the family that wants to stay in a luxury home with four plus bedrooms, as well as enjoy daily housekeeping and concierge services while at the residence. Villazzo locates these homes, puts them under contract for two years with owner, and invests to bring the home up to hotel standards – with wireless internet access, home theatre upgrades, high-end bedding and so on. The owners’ personal items are put away in storage when clients are using these homes so you don’t feel like you are sleeping in someone else’s bedroom, with a picture of grandma over the bed.

Villazzo intends to operate a minimum of three homes per location and as many as ten, so that they can afford to hire a full-time guest servives manager in each location. In Europe, they operate homes in Paris, St. Tropez and Marbella; in the U.S., homes are in Aspen and Miami.

Helium Report believes that the concept is strong. Luxury customers, without a strong word-of-mouth reference about a vacation rental, are probably reluctant to use a typical vacation rental service, as information about the home, its location and any services included can be hard to pin down. Photos of the bedrooms taken with a wide angle lens always seem to make those rooms look bigger than they really are.

At an approximate cost of $400-$500 per room per night ($2000 per night, or $14,000 per week) the homes and services that Villazzo provides are at the high end of the rental market. But, with a website that is comprehensive in terms of home information, along with an onsite staff member to assist clients, Villazzo is taking vacation rental to a new level. Email us at tips@heliumreport.com to share your experiences if you’ve stayed at a Villazzo home.