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Note on the Bruges Holiday Home Industry Meeting

Note on the Bruges Holiday Home Industry Meeting
Wednesday December 11, 2013. Crowne Plaza Brugge.

EHHA
European Holiday Home Association Limited (EHHA) established July 2013, founded in
London, UK, (Articles attached).
Accountancy, UK.
Company office: 3 Rue du Luxembourg, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, c/o Strategis Communication.
Secretary General, Carlos Villaro Lassen, CEO at the Danish Holiday Home Association.

Purpose:
To give an European voice to the holiday home rentals industry.
To create a network of European associations and holiday home companies.
To help creating national associations if they don’t exist.
To spread best practices in legislation and regulation to the members and the
European countries.
To promote awareness of the holiday home rental business, through fact based studies.
To organize meetings for members and interest groups in the industry.
To address political topics throughout Europe primary on an EU level, but also in the
European countries supporting national or regional associations.

Participants
In total 1 million units or approximately 5 million beds were represented around the table at
the first industry meeting in Bruges Dec 2014 (list of participants attached).

The participants came in three categories:

National or regio nal associations of Holiday Hom e Rentals: FEVITUR (Spain), SPLM
(France), UNPLV (France), VDFA (Germany), BAA (Berlin), ASAP (London), ASSC
(Scotland), APARTUR (Catalonia).
Big cross boarder holiday home companies: InterHome, DanCenter, Novasol,
Wyndham Vacation Rentals.
Listing Sites/Portals/Media: HomeAway, Tripadvisor, Expedia, Housetrip.

Purpose of the meeting
To discuss how the holiday home industry can work together in Europe to improve the
conditions and to give a voice to the industry.

Discussion of focus areas:
1

EU Package Travel Directive and consumer protection.
Special VAT scheme for Travel agents (TOMS).
Quality, European Tourism Quality Label (ETQ Label).
City problems in Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam (eventually spreading to London,
Hamburg, Brussels etc. and to the coastal holiday home rental industry).
Spanish legislation.
Taxes on house owners.
Statistics.
Quality.
Neighbourhood .
Safe and security.
E-commerce.

Organising a united holiday home voice:
Establish a professional association for the industry, depends on the following set-up:

Founding an association (Done).
Establishing office in Brussels (Done).
Primary foundings (Done).
Making a structure that can permit an effective organisation (Outlines done).
Three kinds of membership according to the three categories: Associations, Companies
and Portals (Done).
Securing representation of the three categories of members (To be discussed).
Agreeing on relevant common focus areas (To be discussed) .
Scheduling meetings for relevant groups among members (When established).
Structure of member fee depending on type of members (To be discussed).

Next steps
Proposal for structure.
Proposal for member fees.
Discussion with all interested parties.
Proposal of policy priorities 2014 -2015.
Arranging meeting in Berlin at the ITB Me
Arranging assembly in Paris, May 2014.

/Carlos Villaro Lassen, December 17, 2014.