CEO Paolo Macchiaroli of My Private Villas, offers the most exclusive villas and properties for rent. My Private Villas is one of the world’s largest and most renowned providers of luxury properties. Whether you are looking for a historic property or something modern, with My Private Villas you will always find something spectacular.
Kevin Underwood spoke with CEO Paolo Macchiaroli about his absolute dreamlike properties and the business idea of My Private Villas.
Kevin Underwood< /em>
Mr. Macchiaroli, how do you get that kind of business idea? Why did you want to start My Private Villas?
Paolo Macchiaroli
The villa rental market has plenty of agencies that promote properties for rent, but the owners often don’t know these agencies or anything about their promotional activities. Therefore, I realised that it is most important to first establish a real relationship and rapport with the owners, offering them not just the publication on a portal, but extra visibility. With open communication and the utmost professionalism, we develop tailor-made marketing and promotional activities for the villas we represent, some of which include: publicity via editorials in important magazines like Forbes or Architectural Digest, FAM trip organisation, events for presenting a villa and participation in worldwide awards. These are just some of the extra activities that MPV is able to offer, for free, to the villa owners.
Once we have established this preferred partnership, we are then able to CONSISTENTLY obtain the absolute best price available on the market, and often include some extra services to offer our clients.
Kevin Underwood
How would you describe your business in your own words?
Paolo Macchiaroli
Transparency and personal relationships.
Transparency with the owners regarding how we promote their villas, and transparency with clients on the real prices.
Developing personal relationships with the owners allow us to get the best villas at the most competitive prices, usually with extra services included; whereas developing personal relationships with our clients helps us to better understand their individual needs, enabling us to recommend properties and services that fulfil their requirements.
Kevin Underwood< /em>
The properties that you are offering are always top-shelf. What are your criteria to include a property in your rental selection?
Paolo Macchiaroli
Location, quality, services.
The location is extremely important as the majority of the clients choose the destination first.
The quality of the villa is, of course, a fundamental criteria and we individually inspect all villas following very strict procedures to ensure that all aspects of the villa meet the deluxe standards our clients expect.
The services, then, are potentially the most important thing; a client can rent the most luxurious property in the most idyllic location, but if the services do not provide the five-star excellence that is expected, the clients will be hugely disappointed and will likely not remember the beauty of the location or the quality of the villa.
Kevin Underwood
If someone wants to rent a top property, how should one approach you?
Paolo Macchiaroli
They are welcome to either call our office in London, email us or contact one of our 12 PR and representative agencies worldwide.
Kevin Underwood
Which clientele suits best your business?
Paolo Macchiaroli
High Net Worth Individuals and Ultra-High Net Worth Individuals are our usual clientele, with many celebrities and Business CEOs using MVP.
Kevin Underwood
Many areas in the high-end luxury segment depend on the economy and crises. How do these things affect your business?
Paolo Macchiaroli
Actually when there is a crises, the medium to high standard villa rentals might be affected, but the high to super-high end villa rentals instead always seem to increase.
Kevin Underwood
What did you do before founding My Private Villas?
Paolo Macchiaroli
For twelve years I was in communications and marketing. I then jumped into the luxury villa rental market thirteen years ago when I became the CEO of a travel company. This company was dedicated to promoting luxury villas and luxury travel experiences to some of the most important agents worldwide, including Amex, Knight Frank, Christies Real Estate and John Taylor International, thus providing a foundation to grow MPV.
Kevin Underwood
What does the term luxury mean to you?
Paolo Macchiaroli
Authenticity and details at the highest level
Kevin Underwood
Did you or do you have role models?
Paolo Macchiaroli
Probably Steve Jobs: a visionary entrepreneur that worked incredibly hard, with passion and, as he used to say, “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”.
Kevin Underwood
How do you see the development of My Private Villas?
Paolo Macchiaroli
TOP SECRET!
Thank you for the interview.