Airbnb Doubles Down on Professional Vacation Rentals in Resort Areas
Photo Credit: A sample vacation rental that has been reservable at Booking.com is this property, Villa Zest, in Suratthani on Koh Samui island in Thailand. Airbnb
Skift Take
The online juggernaut isn't satisfied with dominating urban markets. Airbnb wants to take the beaches and the mountains, too, in the battle for short-term rental bookings. So the company is becoming savvier in how it approaches local property managers.
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Problems to Overcome Full-service property management companies have several beefs with the bookings giant. Property managers particularly dislike Airbnb's so-called extenuating circumstances policy, which lets guests cancel bookings up to 24 hours in advance of arrival. That's a big-time problem on two counts. First, property managers often make revenue guarantees to the owners of houses that they're then on the hook for when a customer fails to show up. Second, property management companies also t