Articles tagged “vacation rentals”

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.

The HomeAway-Expedia partnership is an important milestone for HomeAway, in particular, marking a new era of expanded distribution that starts with Expedia.com in the U.S., but will likely appear in other places, as well.

Whether it is Smart Host, another startup or one of the established players, the short-term rental industry is ripe for disruption in so many areas and someone is going to deliver on the dynamic pricing premise.

Anytime you can talk to TripAdvisor CEO Stephen Kaufer and the discussion ranges from "Mr. Sharples" at HomeAway to William Shatner, the Trivago Guy and the co-existence of the mobile Web and mobile apps, it is a very interesting conversation.

Airbnb has been a true disruptor in travel, and we'll continue to keep a close watch as it matures into a broader industry player.

As vacation home rentals and apartment rentals go more mainstream, you can expect more vacation rental management companies, broadly similar to Turnkey Vacation Rentals, to emerge as owners seek to make the hosting process more efficient and less of a hassle.

Who's going to catch HomeAway? TripAdvisor is going to give it a try, as it acquired the smallish VacationHomeRentals.com to its portfolio, but unlike HomeAway, TripAdvisor has a lot of other irons in the fire.

With so many diverse types of accommodations available these days and with the world getting younger, the timeshare business may be losing its luster (although that luster was tenuous, at best).

Startups that design a product with a target customer in mind often have more success than those that attempt to build a broad travel product with little thought to what their users need and want.

HomeAway's new communications' system was a year-and-a half in the making, and likely was very costly, but it was necessary not only to corral wayward owners, but to restore confidence in light of a phishing epidemic. HomeAway customers will be happy to know the company assembled a war room to deal with their backlash, but battle averted, for now.