Expedia's Vrbo Looks to Poach Discouraged Airbnb Hosts With New Incentives
Skift Take
Midway through 2020, Expedia Group and its Vrbo short-term rental unit took the high road by not wanting to appear to be taking advantage of host anger at Airbnb's early-pandemic refund policies. But when your new host recruitment plan targets "superhosts," it's clear those calculations are long gone.
After months of downplaying efforts to take advantage of anger among some Airbnb hosts, Expedia Group's Vrbo unit conceded it had opened a dedicated phone line to handle what it calls an "influx" of defectors.
Cyril Ranque, president of Expedia's Travel Partner Group, said short-term rentals have been a hot market over the last year following the onset of the pandemic, and that "a lot" of hosts from Airbnb have sought to join Vrbo's ranks.
Asked to quantify those alleged gains, a spokeswoman would only say that Vrbo had more than two million whole home listings at the end of 2020. She declined to cite how many Airbnb hosts Vrbo has signed, but added, "I can tell you there was a significant influx from March (2020) onwards. We did open a dedicated phone line for Airbnb hosts to join Vrbo because of this influx."
Expedia Group announced on Monday a new host recruitment program, Fast Start, and the spokeswoman characterized it as specifically responding to the requests of Airbnb hosts joining Vrbo.
Although Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern said in May that his company was not seeking "to drive a wedge" between Airbnb and disgruntled hosts, who disagreed with Airbnb's refund policies to guests at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, the strategy has apparently become more aggressive.
Pointedly, Expedia said the program would be open to "any superhost or host," including individual owners and those with multiple properties, who have at least a 4.5 out of 5.0 review rating that Expedia culls across other travel websites, and has earned
