AUSTIN, Texas, April 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- HomeAway, Inc., the worldwide leader in online vacation rentals, today announced it has acquired realholidays.com.au, the Australian vacation rental brand of REA Group Limited.

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The acquisition of realholidays.com.au, which features 21,000 listings(1) not only broadens HomeAway's reach into the Australian market, but also marks its expansion from North America, South America and Europe into Asia-Pacific.

"Australia is a tremendous travel marketplace, and HomeAway is excited to continue the work begun by REA Group to provide even greater choice to Australian travelers," says CEO Brian Sharples. "We look forward to working with the realholidays.com.au customers to help them benefit from our technology and the marketing of their properties to a new, global market of vacation rental travelers."

"REA is proud of realholidays.com.au's success in the Australian holiday rentals market," says Greg Ellis, CEO and Managing Director of REA Group.  "However, we recognized the opportunity to further develop the business and, given our focus on residential and commercial property sites, felt it would be best managed by a specialist.  With an expertise in holiday lettings around the world, HomeAway is ideally placed to provide even greater value to realholidays.com.au's customers."  

HomeAway® plans to add realholidays.com.au's properties to the recently-launched HomeAway.com.au, which will be managed out of the company's Melbourne office by James Cassidy, formerly of realholidays.com.au and vacation rental site, stayz.com.au. HomeAway.com.au already features 105,900 vacation rental listings in 99 countries.

Notes to editors:

(1)  As of March 11, 2011 realholidays.com.au had 21,128 listings. Source REA Datawarehouse – Hyperion Top Agents Report

About the REA Group

REA Group (ASX:REA) is a market-leading online advertising business specialising in real estate.  Established in Melbourne in 1995, the Group operates real estate websites in Australia and around the world. Together, its sites received more than 12.2 million unique browsers in February 2011 (source: Nielsen Market Intelligence, Nielsen SiteCensus, Omniture SiteCatalyst). For the month of February 2011 realestate.com.au delivered 7,204,209  unique browsers (source: Nielsen, Market Intelligence, Australia). For further information visit rea-group.com.

About HomeAway, Inc.

HomeAway, Inc., based in Austin, Texas, operates the world's largest online marketplace for the vacation rental industry, representing more than 525,000 paid vacation rental home listings throughout over 145 countries. HomeAway's websites offer an extensive selection of vacation homes that provide travelers with memorable experiences and benefits, including more room to relax and added privacy, for less than the cost of traditional hotel accommodations. The company also makes it easy for vacation rental owners and property managers to advertise their properties and manage bookings online. The HomeAway portfolio includes the leading vacation rental websites HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com in the United States; HomeAway.co.uk and OwnersDirect.co.uk in the United Kingdom; HomeAway.de in Germany; Abritel.fr and Homelidays.com in France; HomeAway.es in Spain; and AlugueTemporada.com.br in Brazil.

In addition, HomeAway operates BedandBreakfast.com, the most comprehensive global site for finding bed-and-breakfast properties, providing travelers with another source for unique lodging alternatives to chain hotels. For more information about HomeAway, please visit www.HomeAway.com.

SOURCE HomeAway