The Big Collision Between Vacation Rentals and the Sharing Economy Is Happening Now
Photo Credit: Airbnb is making a concerted effort to sign up professional managers of vacation rentals. That's a new strategy to supplement its peer to peer apartment rentals. Airbnb
Skift Take
Expect more fascinating results from this big collision happening on the alternative accommodation side, and not only will it affect the traditional online travel agencies, but also the organized hotel sector as well.
Earlier this year, Skift released its annual megatrends forecast and in it predicted the coming collision between the world of vacation rentals and sharing economy accommodation services like Airbnb.
"On the alternative accommodations side, the world of vacation rentals is fast colliding with the sharing economy -- expect to see some fascinating results from this over the next few years. One big result from all this frenzied activity is the mainstreaming of the whole ecosystem, as consumers become more and more aware of creative options to stay and spend time, and real-time availability of inventory -- a huge hurdle for the sector at large -- becomes a reality."
"On the front end of this, companies like Airbnb, HomeAway, Luxury Retreats, and other new startups will continue to drive the market while on the backend side, a whole new layer of software and price optimization is professionalizing the sector fast. Expect mobile to change the sector in more ways in the next few yea
