Holiday cottage

A holiday cottage, holiday home, vacation home, or vacation property is accommodation used for holiday vacations, corporate travel, and temporary housing often for less than 30 days. Such properties are typically small homes, such as cottages, that travelers can rent and enjoy as if it were their own home for the duration of their stay. The properties may be owned by those using them for a vacation, in which case the term second home applies; or may be rented out to holidaymakers through an agency.

Terminology varies among countries. In the United Kingdom this type of property is usually termed a holiday home or holiday cottage; in Australia, a holiday house/home, or weekender; in New Zealand, a bach or crib.

Today's global short-term vacation property rental market is estimated to be worth $100 billion. The holiday cottage market in both Canada and the UK is highly competitive – and big business.

Holiday homes and second homes make up 14% of the housing stock in Snowdonia, Wales, compared to the figure of 1% for the whole of Wales. Only in Gwynedd has the council put in place measures to control the number of holiday homes. But they only control new developments, by withholding permission where consent is likely to raise the figure in any community above 10%, they do not stop anyone from buying a holiday home. In Wales, a traditional group of holiday cottage agencies still exist as a network, and many of which still work collaboratively under Visit Wales, which used to be the Wales Tourist Board.

The number in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly was calculated to be 5.6% in 2004 and 2006, this was the region which had the highest number of second homes in England. Within a year alone, between 2004 and 2005, the percentage of holiday/second homes in England increased by 3.3%.

There were 29,299 holiday/summer homes in Scotland on the 2001 Scottish Census, which accounted for 1.3% of Scotland's housing stock. This figure was 19,756 in 1981, but the majority of the increase occurred during the 1990s. The greatest increase was seen in urban areas, contrary to the usual trends, and increased especially in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. But the majority of holiday/second homes are still to be found in rural areas, notably, 47% of these are to be found in the remote rural areas, where one in every eight houses is a holiday or second home.

The figure in France was also fairly high in 2008: approximately 10% of all the housing stock was a holiday or second home, but the majority of these were owned by French. There were approximately 300,000 homes, or 1% of the total housing stock which were the property of owners from abroad. Of this percentage 28% were owned by British owners, 14% Italian, 10% Belgian, 8% Dutch, 3% Spanish and 3% American.

In 2000, 3,578,718, or 3.1% of the American housing stock, were holiday or second homes, compared with 2.7% in 1990, and 1.9% in 1980. 26% of all these are located in the north-eastern states, with approximately 250,199 (7% of all the second homes in the U.S.) located in New York, and Maine having the largest percentage of its housing stock as second homes.