Articles tagged “vrbo”

The party house problem is a persistent one in the short-term rental industry. The more industrywide collaboration the better.

Booking CEO Glenn Fogel's "connected trip" strategy has drawn critics, but he did make a compelling case for the need for it, and just how broken the travel experience still really is.

Both Sonder and Vacasa need to clean up customer service issues, but they are probably not so acute as to give investors much pause.

Critics blasted Airbnb for relying too heavily on Google advertising to obtain customers in 2019. But in the beginning of 2021, Expedia outspent all of its rivals on paid marketing and made some gains. Expedia and its Vrbo brand are making no apologies for it.

Peter Kern is correct that Expedia Group currently offers broader travel services than do Airbnb and Booking Holdings, but whether Expedia can gain ground on its rivals and can execute on its strategy are entirely different questions.

Business school students can probably debate this question endlessly and there would be merit in either position: Should smaller companies copy their larger rivals or vice versa? In the Google era, marketing power often wins the day — but differentiation still counts.

In Skift’s top stories this week, a legal battle between Southwest and Skiplagged continues, U.S. airlines are a mess this summer, and hotels see first growth since the pandemic.

Vrbo was leaving money on the proverbial table by sticking with whole homes. That seems to be changing, but it remains to be seen how far Vrbo will meander into hotels and other inventory types.

Six years after uniting the Orbitz, Travelocity and Expedia brands within Expedia Group, the company is now undertaking the grand experiment to differentiate their value propositions and target markets. If it doesn't work, brand consultants never get tired of offering their advice.

Expedia's Vrbo isn't a global Airbnb killer, nor does it have to be. Vrbo will pick its spots, but that will be a disappointment to those hosts, frustrated and angry with Airbnb, who are looking for some company to take Airbnb down a peg.