Articles tagged “vrbo”

Working or vacationing in recreational vehicles could go much more mainstream in a post-pandemic world. On the other hand, gas guzzlers won't be very attractive to an increasingly climate-conscious public.

With thousands of hotels going out of business and up for sale, and vacation rentals business booming in certain destinations, there will be a ton of disruption and convergence in hospitality. Savvy short-term rental operators can pick off some direct bookings, but the mega online travel agencies will hardly notice.

Airbnb banned one-night stays, but only around Halloween in the U.S. and Canada. An outright ban, as is the policy at Vrbo, would be harder for Airbnb because that would hurt its corporate travel business. Still, house parties are a problem that may keep on creating ugly headlines.

In the school of online travel hard knocks, new entrants have learned that barriers to entry can be substantial. Amazon, Google, and Airbnb should realize that the devil is in the details, and the complexities.

Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern is waging a simplicity campaign. Turning the Expedia and Hotels.com loyalty programs into a single plan might make sense. But one thing definitely on the agenda is trimming marketing through Google, a company Kern characterized as a "shark."

The death of hotels was greatly exaggerated. Advantage Booking.com and Expedia — not Airbnb — if travelers indeed are now seeking out both hotels and vacation rentals in comparable numbers.

The Skift Health Score ranked Booking Holdings as the overall leader in August among 100 public travel companies but the entire travel industry faces grave uncertainties. Then there's that little search engine Google, which has an even larger travel business than Booking.

Airbnb looks to be cleaning up some overhangs before its anticipated initial public offering, including being fairly aggressive about promoting its crackdown on wayward house parties in its rentals. In case investors ask about the issue, Airbnb has an answer.

Short-term rentals may be outperforming the hotel industry through the peak summer leisure season, but a fall downturn in family vacations could extend the drag on performance to platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo.

If the future of travel will tilt toward non-urban destinations, which are not Airbnb's strength, its stock market registration papers will have to show how the company is addressing that weakness.