Articles tagged “vacation rentals”

Watch a full session from our recent online event devoted to the short-term rental and outdoor industries.

Awaze is arguably Europe's largest vacation-rentals business for managed properties. While its acquisitions this week are eye-catching, the bigger news is that it's spending roughly $40 million this year on a tech push. That will help it make better use of its assets.

Optimism about recovery, a wariness about the tricky nuances of each sector, and suppliers demanding respect from online brands were among the themes at the Skift Short-Term Rental and Outdoor Summit. Plus: the past year's boom isn't a one-off.

Vacation rental companies want to mimic hotel companies with brand standards around cleaning and other operations, but they're also facing similar problems as hotels when it comes to labor.

Short-term or vacation rentals are being touted as the winners of the pandemic, and in many ways the sector is taking big steps to becoming mainstream. But losers are emerging, too, and the impact of the pandemic will reverberate for years to come.

There's only one question you need to ask of a startup to determine its fate. Did it have a good pandemic? Holidu and its tech services brand Bookiply certainly did, thanks to their focus on the vacation rental sector.

Expedia is taking advantage of the travel recovery in the U.S., a region that is the company's strongest, while Booking Holdings got pinched for its weaker presence. Don't read too much into it. These are Covid-impacted developments, not protracted trends.

It's never any fun when companies are reluctant to speak ill of competitors. But, when it comes to wooing hosts, little Vrbo believes it needs to explicitly tell hosts what it can do that giant Airbnb can't. The pitch may be useful in attracting a segment of hosts.

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.

This deal cements Vacasa status as the largest full-service property manager for whole-home vacation rentals in the U.S. That makes it a rare pure-play bet on alternative accommodations for its private equity backers, which have prompted Vacasa to consolidate more of the sector.