10 Questions for Caroline Allison – founder and president of Viscape

 

10 Questions. For 20 years Caroline Allison has traveled the globe enjoying all Europe, South America, Asia and the United States have to offer. Now she wants to share her passion for travel with the world and make it easy for everyone to “Viscape” their perfect vacation destination, house or trip. Viscape.com will connect vacation home owners to prospective renters in a social networking platform that makes planning a dream vacation as easy as a day at the beach in Cancun. Viscape unofficially launches on June 19th, 2008 in Washington DC. The official launch will be in the Dewey/Rehoboth Beach area in late August. Caroline Allison will now take your questions.

1.) What is Viscape.com?

Viscape is a Web 2.0 social marketplace for vacation properties. It is Web 2.0, meaning Viscape.com allows users to share travel experiences. It is social like Facebook. And it is a marketplace like Ebay, where all participants in the marketplace can see each other, see each other’s network, and see each other’s business track record.

 

With Viscape, the consumer comes first. We provide the tools to let vacationers get ideas on a big picture level.  Once they figure out which destination, they can quickly create a shortlist of vacation homes. We want people to be able to plan their perfect vacation in 5 minutes or less.
 

2.) What did you do before you started Viscape.com?

 

Viscape is actually my third company. Prior to Viscape, I was a real estate developer in Washington DC area.

 

Before I got into real estate I was working with technology and telecom start-ups and medium-sized companies, helping them with their business strategies and provided third party validation for their ideas for securing funding.

 

Up until Viscape, I always felt like my work was about making a living. Now it’s more about making a difference and bringing joy into people’s lives, wherever possible.

 

3.) What inspired you to leave a successful career and chance everything on Viscape.com?

 

I like Helen Keller’s quote:“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

 

Not doing Viscape was not an option for me. It is just so badly needed in the travel world. It needs to exist. I would rather risk everything and fail than to have gone my whole life wondering what might have happened had I made a different choice.

 

4.) Describe five unique features of Viscape.com.

 

Powerful search – You can find your perfect beach house or ski house in 5 minutes or less.

 

Relative mapping – You can see where your housing choice is in relation to another housing options.

 

Review-writing – This enables reviewers to exchange information and travel ideas. We have reviews for homes and for destinations.

 

Attractions markers – You can see where the attractions are relative to where you want to stay. If you want to stay close to the ski slopes, you can see how far of a walk or drive you house will be from the mountain.

 

Trip planner – This is our killer application, where a group of friends can plan their dream trip together and all have a say in where and when to go on a trip and what house to stay in.

 

A GREAT tool for Vacation Home Owners – Vacation home owners can use Viscape to advertise their great properties to a global audience for FREE.

 

Describing Viscape.com’s features may give you a sense of the site, but you really need to experience Viscape.com for yourself to know it’s a kick-ass (excuse the French) piece of technology. www.viscape.com

 

5.) What can you do on Viscape.com that you can’t do on other travel websites?

 

On Viscape, you have a powerful way to search for properties, which is the number one frustration vacation consumers face. If the search is too exhausting or confusing, consumers simply won’t travel.

 

6.) Describe the thinking behind “visual escape.”

 

We chose the name Viscape because it is short for “visual escape.” We want our travelers to be able to visualize their trip and escape to their ideal vacation on our site.  One amazing photo could be the reason you might decide to go to a new place. We like Viscape because it’s short, funky, interactive—and it can mean a lot of things to different people.

 

7.) If you had 24 hours to come up with the perfect vacation home for you and 3 of your closest friends, how would you do it?

 

Great question. What I will say is that Viscape is a new site. It doesn’t have the inventory of listings we’d like to have—yet! However, owners and agents can list their homes for free on our site. Yes – I said – FREE! And it only takes 3 minutes – not even – to list.

 

We did not want to have any barriers to entry; our goal is to be the “go to” place, the first place people think of to going to for finding and planning a trip around vacation homes.

 

For right now though, if you’re looking at the Delaware Beach area or Key West , Viscape is focused on building these two markets first.

 

8.) What vacation planning websites did you use before Viscape.com?

 

I’ve used the popular travel sites out there.  They sort of got the job done, but I got so overwhelmed with ads and deals that I either wanted to just get it over with or not go at all. Plus, I couldn’t communicate with anyone or get feedback.

 

9.) What was your favorite vacation of all time?

 

This is a hard one because I’ve had a lot of great trips for different reasons. I really loved the Galapagos Islands. The animals there were so friendly and had no fear of humans. I couldn’t believe how close we could get to the sea lions.

 

Another favorite trip was visiting the pandas in Woolong, China. I’ve never heard the word “cute” used so much in my life!

 

10.) As a former real estate professional, what do you think about realtors and technology?

 

I’m not sure if I totally understand this question. But I look at real estate professionals in the case of vacation homes as your on-location business partner. Real estate professionals are crucial in helping owners manage their homes when the owner lives elsewhere.

 

My challenge with a lot of realtors and agents is that they tend to be reluctant adopters of technology.  The technology-savvy realtors realize that technology can help them and make their lives and their clients’ lives better.

 

But I think that real estate agents will always play an important role in real estate transactions. Viscape.com has an “open” philosophy. We want to bring everyone together in one place – real estate professionals, owners, buyers, sellers, and traveler-renters.

 

Ride the wave… http://www.Viscape.com