When Victoria O’Connell’s London home was robbed and vandalized by a guest who had booked her home through a popular vacation rental platform in 2017, she was understandably terrified.
“I got a call at three in the morning from the police and the counselor [at law] saying, it’s really dangerous; there’s something going on,” Victoria recounted. “The next day I went round with some friends, and everything was gone: the furniture, the TV, the barstools, all my clothes, everything. The whole place was trashed.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t feel safe doing this again.’”
Yet, instead of letting fear paralyze her from short-term renting her home again, she decided to create a safe travel community specifically for female hosts and guests.
Founder and CEO of Golightly vacation rental platform
The community took the form of Golightly, a vacation rental platform launched in January 2020, that serves as a private home-sharing and vacation rental club for women.
Members can only join the community by invitation from another member, and only women can host or book the short-term rentals listed on the site – though men are allowed to accompany female members on vacation rental stays.
The idea behind the members-only platform is to provide a safer environment for female hosts and travelers as well as create a sense of a travel community.
“I want to be able to rent, I’d like to have some kind of connection with people I rent to, I’d like to know a bit more,” Victoria said. “And many of the online platforms at the same time were removing all that connection, removing all ideas of who anyone was and who you’re renting to. So to me, that is quite important.”
All women’s site for safe vacation rentals
The women’s travel community concept was inspired by her experience at an all-girls boarding school that she attended in England and female working spaces and networking groups where she had found an elevated level of trust and openness between women.
“We decided to make it private in the sense that it’s not out there for everyone,” Victoria said. “There are a lot of people on our site who will not be comfortable renting on any other site. You know, a lot of women feel that they’re fine as the single mom with their kids renting out a bedroom in their house, knowing that it’s going to be to someone they know and to another woman.”
The niche: Women helping and hosting women
Golightly, based in Austin, Texas, achieved nearly instantaneous popularity because the concept hit a vein in more than one way.
“The concept is that you know who you’re renting from, and whether it’s a property manager with 100 properties or someone with a room in their house, everybody’s part of this network of women who love to travel and women who support women,” Victoria said.
Less than a year after Golightly launched, Forbes selected Victoria as one of The Next 1000 in 2021 in the category of consumer technology.
The platform launched with just 100 properties and less than 400 members, who came from the contact lists of Victoria and her new team.
In 20 months, the company has grown to 11,000 members and over 35,000 properties in over 100 countries.
“That’s the network effect,” Victoria said. “We had a lot of support from the industry and women who love to travel, so we have been very lucky to grow a lot of people looking for safer spaces to be able to travel.”
Golightly’s women advisors
Many of the advisors who helped Victoria build Golightly were former HomeAway executives who had assisted with the sale to Expedia.
“They all jumped on board; they loved the concept,” she said.
For example, Eileen Buesing, the former vice president of public relations at HomeAway, provides all of Golightly’s PR advice.
“She’s always telling me, you gotta get out there and do more speaking,” Victoria said. “I’m like, I just can’t; I get so nervous. I’m learning, and I think it’s important to have a voice.
It’s that kind of support and encouragement that blossoms in women’s networking groups and that creates value for members.
“I want to give the same support that I got from others,” Victoria said. “It’s always got to go around.”
Lower fees on vacation rental bookings
Part of Golightly’s effort to support women means keeping fees lower than mainstream short-term rental platforms. The company takes 3% of the price of a booking from hosts and 8% from travelers.
Membership is free for everyone, but the company plans to introduce a paid Diamond membership later this month. Diamond membership is an annual subscription that removes all other fees and offers perks to allow travelers to enjoy “recession-proof travel” while also helping Golightly hosts to maintain a minimum level of income, Victoria said.
Community of traveling women
Whether or not they’re traveling, members can connect with each other on Golightly’s Go Social site, a safe place where members can swap travel stories, questions, and travel tips.
“Women can ask, ‘Hey, I’m traveling in Bali. Does anybody know a good place where I can get my hair done?’ or whatever. It’s just an extension of our community online. That side of it is quite fun,” Victoria said.
Going solo (travel)
Earlier this summer, Golightly launched its GoSolo Getaways, a full-service travel program for solo travelers during which Golightly books accommodations and takes care of planning.
The program allows members to feel safe staying together within the Golightly community while still having the autonomy to do their own thing on the trip.
One of the first GoSolo Getaways is staying together in a palazzo in Malta.
“It’s cool because we can use some of our hosts’ homes that are bigger and may not be constantly booked whilst also giving our members the opportunity to stay in places they may not be able to go as a solo traveler,” Victoria said.
The GoSolo Getaways are open to all members, but Diamond members get discounts on the trips.
Women in vacation rentals
The vast majority of solo travelers – about 63% are women, according to a Solo Traveler survey of 1,340 readers in 2018.
Women also account for over half of short-term rental hosts, according to the 2022 State of the STR Community Report by Rent Responsibly and the College of Charleston.
“The female solo world of traveling is incredible,” Victoria said. “Right now, it seems to be at its peak, and you can see it from these groups.”
Golightly gives these female solo travelers a safe place to stay and a community of other female travelers.
One Golightly member in her 70s said her husband had died last year. She said she never thought she could travel again.
“‘Now I feel like I can because there’s a safe network for me to be able to travel,’” Victoria quoted the woman as saying. “So, there’s a lot of ways that community support for travel is helping to drive the future of solo travel.”
Victoria wants to encourage women to embrace solo travels.
“We want to help them take that step, to give them that confidence,” she said, “because when you know someone when you go to another country that makes you a lot more comfortable.”
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