Checking into Buenos Aires: a devalued currency means business for online apartment rental procurers

Latin Trade, June, 2004 by Wayne Bernhardson

When the Argentine economy imploded in December 2001, Pablo Blay and Mariana Travacio were facing disaster with their three-year-old business, ByT Argentina Travel & Housing, an online listing of rental apartments in Buenos Aires's posh neighborhoods designed to link largely foreign tenants with landlords. Tourists avoided the crisis-ridden capital in 2002. In 2003, the number of foreign visitors to Buenos Aires more than quadrupled from 2002, and that growth trend is expected to continue in 2004 thanks to a weaker peso. Landlords, meanwhile, are warming up to listing their properties on online apartment procurement services.

"At first, it was hard to convince landlords to accept having 'guests' instead of 'tenants,'" says Travacio. Landlords were uncomfortable with temporary "guests," whom they feared were going to be unprofitable tenants able to sidestep paying for damaged property, Travacio says. ByT also faced problems convincing landlords to accept all-expenses-included payment plans, or those with utilities included.

Blay and Travacio spent most of 2002 rethinking their business plan and adapted it to a growing industry--tourism, which ignited from the peso's collapse. ByT'S original customer base consisted of two demographics, international students visiting to learn Spanish or corporate clients working in Argentina when the country's one-to-one exchange rate made tourist travel expensive.

"We were doing something that nobody had done before," Travacio says. Blay, 39, and Travacio, 36, who have been married for 14 years, are now catering to a wider variety of travelers. Assembling the roster, which exceeds 200 apartments now listed online, was not easy. Landlords were skeptical not only of all-expenses-included rentals, but were even more so because their properties were located in the upscale neighborhoods of Recoleta and Palermo. Gradually, property owners caught on to the value of flexible terms and tenancies.

Competitors such as Alojargentina are telling similar stories. Alda Miccolis of Alojargentina says her business began to recover with increased tourist demand beginning late 2002. She also points out to a unique segment, medical tourism, as a big push behind rising occupancy rates. "The quality of medical care here is high and the cost low, so people bring their families for a couple weeks while they undergo treatments that are expensive in their own countries," Miccolis says.

The Internet has been critical to the industry's success, as it allows potential clients continents away to check out the listings and photos online. "We already knew something about computers," says Travacio, "but we had to hire someone to do the original [Web] page, and we've since gone through five more versions." ByT also takes reservations online.

The site's no-frills photographs of available units comfort potential tenants by their honest simplicity. "I could tell that the pictures of apartments were pretty realistic, and not 'enhanced' like most hotel photos," says Elizabeth Zaenger, a University of Michigan computer programmer who rented through ByT last November.

Tourism will fuel business for the industry, as Argentina remains affordable for visitors from abroad. Traditionally, more Argentines vacation in Chile, although that trend has reversed since 2002, according to tourism statistics. About 40% of ByT's clients come from the United States and Canada and another 43% come from Europe, mostly from Germany and Great Britain.

WAYNE BERNHARDSON * BUENOS AIRES