Short-Term Rental and Vacation Rental News

For all the challenges facing this year's Summer Games, chief among them a lack of hotel rooms, the beauty of Airbnb's flexible supply scheme makes it ideal for major events like the Olympics.

With the likes of Airbnb playing up the sheer number of properties available, it makes sense for Wyndham to make a point of some of the advantages you get when booking direct with a company.

Metasearch sites such as Kayak, Hipmunk, Trivago, TripAdvisor and Tripping have a lot of heavy lifting to do because consumers will increasingly be demanding better ways to comparison-shop for alternative accommodations that are often unique and difficult to define. All things being equal -- and they aren't -- that's a big market opportunity for these sites.

We're not sure if this promotion alone will prompt anyone to sign up as an Airbnb host or take a cruise. But Fathom, which is still an up-and-coming brand, may earn some attention — and hipster cred — for partnering with the high-profile company.

Can such a thing exist? Yes, but if we want it to work, we need short-term rental platforms and local governments to cooperate with each other.

Last-minute Airbnb bookings are not impossible. You just need to know how to navigate the system.

These are the hospitality trends we were talking about this week.

Hiring Holder is a smart move and it shows Airbnb is finally taking some crucial steps to address discrimination on its platform. The next step? Figuring out if there are some tangible tech or design solutions that can back up the creation of a new anti-discrimination policy.

According to Kayak's CEO, Airbnb is preventing traditional hotels from implementing surge prices, and Brexit is impacting tourism far more than recent acts of terrorism.

Does this tax-collection agreement mean Airbnb is completely legal in Los Angeles? Not really. But if you're renting out your home as a short-term rental, the city wants to make sure it gets its cut of the business, even as it's revising its short-term rental laws.