How The Vacation Rental Land Grab Stacks Up: HomeAway Vs. Priceline Vs. Airbnb
Skift Take
The Evercore report might be read as ammunition for one of the big online travel agencies to acquire HomeAway. On the other hand, it shows that the commission model in vacation rentals will face much resistance.
Major players from Airbnb and HomeAway to the Priceline Group and TripAdvisor have tapped into only about one-fifth of the addressable $100 billion vacation rental and alternative lodging market and some of these companies, particularly the online travel agencies with their huge marketing budgets, face what might be be considered a surprising obstacle in their way.
That is, namely, those pesky vacation rental owners who are loathe to start paying commissions and often prefer to deal with guests directly and offline.
Those are some of the main findings in Evercore's new report, A Change of Vacation Plans, which focuses on Priceline's and TripAdvisor's opportunities in the global vacation rental market.
As part of the report, Evercore estimates that Airbnb has now surpassed HomeAway with the largest roster of listings, 1.2 million, versus HomeAway's 1.04 million.
There have been issues with Airbnb's own listings' estimates, as Skift previously found, because Airbnb often counts listings twice if they appear in overlapping neighborhoods. Evercore, however, expresses confidence in its 1.2 million figure for Airbnb listings, with one of the report's authors saying the data come from aggregator allTheRooms.com, which counts Airbnb properties, forsaking geog
