Articles tagged “homeaway”

Interhome is HomeAway's largest catch so far as the professional manager of vacation homes signed on to HomeAway's pay-per booking program. Expect a parade of others to soon follow.

The Vacation Rental Management Association doesn't have the digital savvy or clout to forge a new set of business relationships between professional managers on the one hand, and online travel agencies and vacation rental sites such as HomeAway, on the other. Too little, and way too late.

This will be an interesting dance for HomeAway, which clearly wants to cater more to the major players, meaning professionally managed properties.

HomeAway has been aggressive in offering ancillary products to owners, managers and travelers, and that revenue increased nearly 25% in the third quarter. Ancillary revenue is now 16.3% of HomeAway's total revenue. See, it's not just airlines selling optional products.

HomeAway's history is rollups in the vacation rental space, from around the globe. It has this down.

By launching this new luxury site, HomeAway is leveraging existing assets and tweaking them a bit with a dose of curation. Given the rise of vacation clubs and the supposed boom in luxury travel, this move makes a lot of sense.

The presence of established players such as HomeAway and TripAdvisor, plus a market that isn't as addressable as it might appear, will make the vacation rental startup sector the next bubble.

Expedia's focus will remain with hotels for the forseeable future, but this pilot partnership with HomeAway on vacation rentals is the very beginning of what could be a dramatic change.

HomeAway is making a big bet on its pay-per booking model, but some financial analysts believe it hasn't taken off as expected. HomeAway states that the soft launch "was very recent" and the beta sample too small to get an adequate assessment.