Vacation Rentals Are a Bright Spot at TripAdvisor

Since February, TripAdvisor's share price has dropped 27 percent to $38 amid investor concern about its margins peaking in 2009 and falling ever since. That current share price is far below its $108 high in summer 2014. At issue has been a delay in the shift to a potentially more lucrative business model of instant booking for hotels. In early May, TripAdvisor scaled back this strategy. But there are corners of the company doing well, and one of those is vacation rentals. To get an update, we spoke with Ben Drew, who leads supply for the Boston-based TripAdvisor Vacation Rentals division. Drew has been working on the vacation rentals product since 2012, but this spring he was promoted to vice president of business development and strategy for rentals and attractions at TripAdvisor. Drew reports to Dermot Halpin, who has headed vacation rentals for several years but this January added attractions to his responsibilities. Stabilized Listings Perhaps the most notable change is that TripAdvisor has given up, at least for now, trying to compete with other internet giants to have the most number of rental listings. As of this winter, the company said it had 830,000 listings, but it has since let that number drift downward to "about 800,000." The breakdown on how many are self-managed and how many are professionally managed is roughly half and half, the company says. The company adds that his