Direct sourcing: Why travel agencies book Spain villas via direct wholesale

A client wants a six-bedroom villa near Santa Gertrudis for the second week of August, with a heated pool and room to seat fourteen for dinner. The advisor has until the end of the day to come back with options before the client’s attention wanders to another agency. Whether the answer takes twenty minutes or a day and a half comes down to one thing the client will never see or think about, which is where the villa was sourced. This is the quiet plumbing of the luxury villa trade, and over the last ten years the top of the market has been rebuilding it around direct wholesale. The problem with a layered supply chain Picture how a villa outside Pollensa used to reach a London advisor. The owner hands the keys to a local rental manager, who lists it with a regional agent. That agent passes the stock to a broker, and the broker loads it onto a booking platform, and only then does the advisor find it, sitting behind a price that has crept upward at every handover and a description three different people have retyped. Nobody in that line is sure the calendar is current. Ask whether the villa is free for a particular week and the question has to crawl back down the chain, one inbox at a ...