KEY POINTS:
She can't command the weather, but Leslie Preston has a good handle on almost everything else you need for a good bach break.
Preston's company, Bachcare, organises private holiday home rentals, and she knows that when it comes to clients' hard-earned holidays, no pillow can be left
un-plumped.
Her aim is to create a consistent "experience" for renters and owners, similar to the McDonald's "experience" that remains constant whether the restaurant is in Beijing or New York.
"You know the bach will be clean and tidy, that the description will match what you see in the photo, that there'll be a friendly local manager who knows the area to welcome you and suggest places to go and activities."
That attitude has stood Preston in good stead. Set up in 2003, Bachcare's offerings have increased from five houses in the Coromandel to nearly 950 houses in New Zealand, Fiji and Australia.
The growth spurt is partly thanks to the company's merger last month with a similar, Coromandel-based operation called Blue Penguin, and the purchase of online booking service Kiwigetaway.com in July.
Preston and Blue Penguin co-founder Glenda Mawhinney met and discovered they both had the same vision for their companies. With 280 North Island houses on her books, Mawhinney wanted to expand south, and says working together rather than in competition will make growth easier.
The country's slide towards recession has also helped increase the number of houses on the books, says Preston. People rent their holiday homes to earn a little on the side and to help pay the mortgage and the rates bills. And they're not doing too badly: a Bachcare survey showed that last year its owners earned on average $6000 in gross rental returns. Some earned more than $20,000.
While there's "plenty" of potential in the local market, the company is also targeting international tourists, promoting "the typical Kiwi holiday" as a viable alternative to a hotel or motel. Since 2004, about 15 per cent of guests have been from offshore, and because most of Blue Penguin's 280 houses are in places tourists tend to go - the Bay of Islands, Taupo and the Coromandel - Preston believes that percentage will increase.
The company was born of Preston's frustration at trying to organise care of the family's Hahei holiday home while they weren't there. She and husband Stefan, Bachcare chairman and former Bendon managing director, had two young children and both worked full-time, so taking care of the house from their Auckland home was a hassle. Preston says she often spent the first few hours of her holiday cleaning, and reckoned there had to be an easier way.
She discovered a fragmented holiday home industry, with small localised companies and various websites that offered little more than a point of contact between renters and owners. What was needed, she believed, was a national organisation offering management and real-time booking.
When her mother-in-law, Julie Ferne, moved to the Coromandel, the idea took root. Preston took care of the administration in Auckland and Ferne oversaw the homes. A national support office with four staff now handles bookings, administration and marketing. Locals are contracted in each area to work as holiday managers and be the renters' point of contact.
The company now has 40 holiday managers and is recruiting for more in the central North Island and parts of the South Island.
Feedback is vital, so the company asks owners and renters to complete an online survey each time they use Bachcare. So far, about a third have responded each year - "pretty high", Preston says.
Preston is no business greenhorn. After completing an MBA at Stanford University (where she met her husband), she spent five years in management roles for Boston Consulting Group in Auckland, Bell South and Vodafone, before setting up her own consulting company, Ingenio, which she still runs.
Setting up Bachcare involved "a fair bit of blood, sweat and tears" she acknowledges. The company was self-funded, and while Preston did approach several angel investors - and has been approached since - she turned down all offers because their aims for the business were different from hers.
She hasn't been afraid to make some tough calls to get the details right, including pulling the plug on the first version of the company's website, resulting in a financial setback of "several thousand" dollars and a two-month delay in getting the site up and running.
Last year, organic growth - increases in occupancy levels and the number of houses - was about 30 per cent, and revenue has been growing between 30-50 per cent year on year since 2003.
Each of Preston's businesses spark ideas for the other, she says.
"I'll see a great idea [while consulting] and I'll look at how I can bring it back into the business. Likewise I can take the experience of starting a small business and bring that reality to a bigger businesses I'm consulting to."
And her own ideal holiday? Time out with the family at a bach, of course.
