Roomfilla does all the work for locals who want to rent out their property to tourists

Thailand’s tourism industry is forecasted to bring in some 155 million tourists in 2015. A fresh supply of eager tourists will be sure to get enterprising locals thinking of ways to earn some money from them. Renting their houses out is one lucrative option.

Stuart Lansdale, founder of vacation rental aggregator Roomfilla, says that about 40 percent of this particular market has been captured by Airbnb so far. However, he feels that individual channels are not able to give owners the reach that they need. At the same time, locals might not be able to handle people of different nationalities on portals that are dominated by them, and ending up avoiding these websites altogether.

“For example, a Thai owner wouldn’t put a property on Wimdu, whereas we are experts and know that Wimdu focuses on German guests and gets bookings, similar with Housetrip and French guests,” he says.

Right now, Roomfilla lists its customers’ properties on over 15 different websites. The icing on the cake is its end-to-end service – the team handles everything from enquiries to welcome documents on behalf of the owner.

“I guess the main thing in this market is that people often have other jobs, so the time saved is massive,” he explains. “Also in Thailand, our key market currently, the language is also an issue.”

Lansdale adds that there are similar services in the US such as Guesty and PillowHomes, but little in the way of competition in SEA.

It seems like Lansdale’s gut feeling is on the mark so far. To date, Roomfilla has earned over US$200,000 for its property owners with just 120 local properties on its platform, despite spending nothing on marketing so far. It wants to bring it up to 900 properties by the end of the year.

Onstage at our Startup Arena contest at Tech in Asia Singapore 2015, the judges asked Lansdale how he intended to bring new customers onboard and retain their loyalty. He says that all of Roomfilla’s properties are exclusive, and its end-to-end service should be attractive enough to keep them. As for acquiring customers, Lansdale says that his team is currently trawling the web looking for vacation renters on other websites who seem bad at marketing, and pitch them.

This is part of the coverage of Tech in Asia Singapore 2015, our event running on May 6 and 7. Check out all the Startup Arena pitches here.