Airbnb News

Booking.com faces tough-going in U.S. short-term rentals. Its business model has hosts perceiving they pay lower commissions to Airbnb, and the latter is has a big brand advantage. At the same time, Booking.com needs to defend Airbnb incursions on its own European turf.

The geographic business mix of Booking Holdings has always been a tightly held secret. The trajectory of the uneven recovery, with the U.S. being its strongest and Europe the weakest regions, prompted the company the tell-all. The dynamic proved disadvantageous for Booking's short-term rentals.

With the competition heating up among short-term rental platforms, price parity issues may increasingly come into play, as they once did in the hotel industry. But with short-term rentals, given the ever-shifting guest fee rates, the pricing rules will be difficult to enforce.

Brian Chesky's $120 million stock grant may rankle many, but he's pledging to contribute $100 million of it to a host endowment fund.

Direct-booking advocates in the short-term rental space will face tough going long term because they have to deal with plenty of juggernauts. When the travel recovery gets under way in full, it will be Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia spending billions of dollars to win over fickle, bargain-hungry travelers.

Marriott has been in the vacation rental business for nearly two years, and few see it as a threat to the likes of Airbnb and Vrbo. Recent recruitment efforts for new listings and employees show the fledgling division is on track to be an integral part of future revenues for the world's largest hotel company.

Airbnb is trying to win on brand with a reduced reliance on Google while the smaller Vrbo embraced YouTube big-time, and will spend, spend, spend to advantage.

In Skift's top travel stories this week, we covered antitrust concerns about the American-JetBlue partnership, the hospitality industry's insurance woes, a labor shortage as travel rebounds, and we reviewed Kayak's first hotel.

Airbnb sees recruiting new hosts as vital to its future growth but it hasn't reversed a significant decline in its ranks. Macroeconomic trends will likely reverse the trend, but the competition to win hearts and listings is getting intense.

Airbnb officials fell in love with the perceived artistry of their TV commercials, which don't have a targeted message. That could produce aftershocks later this year if rivals take advantage.