Daily Mail & General Trust snaps up VillaRenters.com

The deal is the latest of DMGT's digital acquisitions, having splashed £17m on car dealer site Auto Exposure, and two recruitment websites, Interbase and The Appointment in July.

VillaRenters.com, which lists more than 10,000 properties worldwide, matches up property owners with holidaymakers looking to rent abroad. It will be integrated to form part of Teletext's travel assets network.

The company, which was jointly launched by chief operating officer Alan Houghton and Tim Coulton in 2002 as a way of marketing the Coulton family's range of properties to tourists.

Coulton said: "We started the business because, as villa owners, we found it impossible to rent our properties efficiently online.

"We wanted an alternative to simply handling over the keys to a major operator -- so we created one."

DMGT has described VillaRenters as a small but rapidly growing business that enables users to access a wide variety of rental properties not available at rival firms.

Ray Mason, Teletext Holidays managing director, added: "VillaRenters.com is a very exciting and rapidly growing business with a radically different approach to online villa rentals."

If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the Forum.