Articles tagged “vacation rentals”

Now-former Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston's decision to emphasize organic growth, his insistence that all properties sold on Booking.com be online bookable and instantly confirmable, and his strategy to keep Booking.com solely focused on the hotel business all set his tenure apart from those of his peers at Expedia. If you can set aside his apparently reckless behavior for a moment, it's a shame Huston won't be around to see his strategy through or to pivot, as required.

To some extent, Expedia is molding HomeAway to its liking. Unlike Booking.com (for now, at least), HomeAway is backing off its goal of making all vacation rentals online bookable. Expedia is also adding apartments in urban areas to better compete against Airbnb and Booking.com.

TripAdvisor, Expedia, and other big booking brands will never have the buzz that Airbnb commands, but they do have the consumers. Whether or not they can get them interested in their urban products is another matter.

Unlike Starwood's deal with Marriott, which definitely had its share of ups and downs, its timeshare spin-off to Interval Leisure Group went pretty smoothly by comparison.

Professionally managed vacation rentals, when done right, offer an increased level of confidence for consumers. Vacasa's $35 million in funding is an endorsement of its growth trajectory and that of a key segment of the industry.

Choice Hotels recognizes that traveler behavior is changing. For the sometime-business and other-times-leisure traveler, Choice Privileges members can earn points whether staying in a hotel or in a vacation rental. And because "millennials want instant gratification," according to CEO Stephen Joyce, Choice is giving it to them in the form of perks at check-in.

This likely will be a year of building out what TripAdvisor already has in hotel Instant Booking, vacation rentals and tours and activities. One big challenge will be how to focus effectively in so many huge areas simultaneously without some getting short shrift.

Clearstone Venture Partners claims that funding LeisureLink is a better investment than in Airbnb or HomeAway. That may be a frivolous boast but what's clear is that a lot of people are going to make a ton of money on the business and distribution side of the vacation rental and alternative lodging industry.

Consider the big changes ahead for HomeAway, including making its listings online bookable, supplementing subscription fees with commission payments, introducing a booking fee for travelers and getting integrated with Expedia. When you further take into account competition from Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor and a bevy of local rivals, there is a helluva lot of risk ahead.

Priceline Group CEO Darren Huston touts his company's organic growth versus Expedia Inc.'s strategy of mostly acquiring companies that need to be put back on track. Rest assured, however, that Priceline would plunk down a few billion dollars on the right acquisition target. It just wasn't HomeAway, and TripAdvisor and Airbnb are too expensive.