Articles tagged “short-term rentals”

Expedia is taking advantage of the travel recovery in the U.S., a region that is the company's strongest, while Booking Holdings got pinched for its weaker presence. Don't read too much into it. These are Covid-impacted developments, not protracted trends.

The geographic business mix of Booking Holdings has always been a tightly held secret. The trajectory of the uneven recovery, with the U.S. being its strongest and Europe the weakest regions, prompted the company the tell-all. The dynamic proved disadvantageous for Booking's short-term rentals.

With the competition heating up among short-term rental platforms, price parity issues may increasingly come into play, as they once did in the hotel industry. But with short-term rentals, given the ever-shifting guest fee rates, the pricing rules will be difficult to enforce.

The quasi-hotel company has announced a deal with Gores' special purpose acquisition company.

It's never any fun when companies are reluctant to speak ill of competitors. But, when it comes to wooing hosts, little Vrbo believes it needs to explicitly tell hosts what it can do that giant Airbnb can't. The pitch may be useful in attracting a segment of hosts.

Direct-booking advocates in the short-term rental space will face tough going long term because they have to deal with plenty of juggernauts. When the travel recovery gets under way in full, it will be Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia spending billions of dollars to win over fickle, bargain-hungry travelers.

Marriott has been in the vacation rental business for nearly two years, and few see it as a threat to the likes of Airbnb and Vrbo. Recent recruitment efforts for new listings and employees show the fledgling division is on track to be an integral part of future revenues for the world's largest hotel company.

It's undoubtedly a boom time for Guesty, which helps streamline and automate key parts of short-term rental management. But what will happen when the publicly held tech giants enter the sector with their wares. Will they dominate, just like they've dominated the hotel tech sector?

Airbnb sees recruiting new hosts as vital to its future growth but it hasn't reversed a significant decline in its ranks. Macroeconomic trends will likely reverse the trend, but the competition to win hearts and listings is getting intense.

The blank check frenzy may be sweeping up companies such as Sonder that would otherwise have had to wait their turn to go public. It would certainly be an interesting comeback for the quasi-hotel company whose prospects were not looking particularly bright a year ago.