Why Some Short-Term Rental Tech Vendors Are Turning Away from Independent Hosts
Photo Credit: This photo shows a property in Palm Coast, Florida, that's managed by Vtrips, a U.S. property management company. Companies like Vtrips are increasingly being courted by startups and other travel tech vendors rather than independent Airbnb hosts. Vtrips
Skift Take
Short-term rental tech vendors are increasingly forced to pick a side: Focus on professional property managers or focus on the long tail of independent hosts. There's business in both, but understanding customer needs is paramount.
Blame it on economies of scale or other factors. But some startups that offer tech services to the short-term rental sector are doing more and more to woo professionals that manage multiple units. The vendors are losing interest in independent hosts because the so-called "long-tail" customers often turn out to be tougher sells.
We can define the long tail as consisting of independent hosts who tend to be hobbyists, owners of second homes, or small property managers. They present their properties on limited online channels — often only one, like Airbnb. Each host tends to run their property themselves without much outsourcing to operational providers like cleaning services or tech vendors like channel or yield managers.
At first sight, spurning independent hosts may not make sense. A commonly used figure by the sector's insiders is that independent hosts manage 60 percent of short-term rental property units. That's a big market. The advent of Airbnb has made hosting first or sec
