Luxury Travel

As the market for home rentals expands so does the demand for services that provide the freedom of a vacation, or urban rental with the amenities and luxuries of a hotel.

Hey, it isn't all about refurbishing the hotel lobby and placing a touch-screen in there. Millennial guests demand great customer service from staff, and they will quickly sour on a hotel if the staff isn't up to par.

Hotel executives should no longer consider Airbnb solely a budget hospitality brand catering to a fringe element of consumers.

Among the new guard of luxury hotel brands to state Gen Y as a primary target market, Quorvus Collection is positioning itself ahead of the curve in anticipation of a monied Millennial travel boom.

Can Capella Hotel Group make a sustainable business model out of providing highly individualized service to guests who think that run-of-the-mill 5-star properties are too cookie-cutter?

Although these companies represent only a piece of the growing vacation rental market, their calculated combination suggests that other rental competitors could see the benefits in similar deals in the next few years.

By launching this new luxury site, HomeAway is leveraging existing assets and tweaking them a bit with a dose of curation. Given the rise of vacation clubs and the supposed boom in luxury travel, this move makes a lot of sense.

It will be interesting to see whether HotelTonight's user base will really go for 12,000-square-foot, two-story penthouses that are bookable starting "tonight." While some people can afford to shell out $700 for a suite at the last minute, that will probably not be most people's preferred option. Are suite options here to stay in the app? Stay iTuned.

It doesn't matter if a luxury hotel is based in New York City, Caracas, or Dubai. A strong social presence is needed to attract new guests and engage loyal customers, all of whom expect mobile updates and content from their preferred brands.

This level of hospitality in the travel industry is not dead. It just costs thousands of dollars to obtain and is out of reach for 99 percent of travelers that visit NYC.