Airbnb Vacation Rental Exec Says Instant Booking Going Mainstream
Skift Take
Once again it is consumer behavior that is driving change in online travel -- this time for vacation rental bookings and instantly confirmable online bookings. OK, Expedia's acquisition of HomeAway and Airbnb's goal to curb racism on its platform are also pushing things in the instantly bookable direction. When companies are sluggish in adapting to consumer trends, as HomeAway was to a certain extent in its standalone incarnation, they suffer.
The tide seems to be shifting in the vacation-rental arena as instantly confirmable bookings -- as opposed to giving owners or property managers 24 hours or more to decide -- is finally gaining momentum.
That's the view of Michael Endelman, who heads Airbnb's vacation rental efforts in North America, and others, about the burgeoning instant booking trend in vacation rentals.
"Instant booking has not been as tough a sell for us as it once was," says Endelman, who says Airbnb is making it a priority to increase its current roster of 500,000 vacation rental listings out of some 2 million listings overall.
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It used to be that instantly confirmable bookings was a key differentiator among major vacation rental players: Airbnb was doing it and the Priceline Group's Booking.com unit insisted upon it while HomeAway and its brands and others countered that vacation rentals are different than hotels and owners want the time to vet prospective guests before accepting bookings and welcoming strangers into their homes.
There are a several factors bolstering the instantly confirmable bookings trend: Online consumers don't want to be bothered with an inordinate wait; online travel giant Expedia acquired Hom
