Ask Skift: Expedia's Short-Term Rental Strategy

Although business travel has made significant progress in its recovery in recent months, it’s uncertain if and when it will fully rebound from the pandemic.

In the world of short-term rentals, there are many ways people can book a stay. Offline bookings continue to make up a significant chunk of the market, albeit a declining one, and there are many niche online booking platforms, as highlighted in our Skift Short-Term Rental 250 map.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, September 6. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

In addition to booming tourism numbers worldwide, travelers this summer have experienced scorching temperatures. That blistering heat has made travel difficult and could potentially create chronic health problems.

The vice chairman and CEO of Expedia Group, Peter Kern, covered a lot of ground during his session at Skift Global Forum in New York City in September. Kern gave his perspective on mergers and acquisitions, technology, and micro-services.

“I’m really excited about the quality of the brand portfolio,” IHG CEO Keith Barr said at Skift Global Forum. Barr goes on to describe the current realities of the hotel business: it’s a real estate business at the end of the day, after all. But IHG has been hyper-focused on its brands and its franchise partners. “It’s been great because there’re such clearly defined brands that enable us to work with a number of opportunities,” he told Skift’s Sean O’Neill.

At at time when the travel industry is still grappling with a labor shortage, you have to think some companies in the sector are “labor hoarding,” hanging on to workers that might have otherwise been downsized for costs savings or seasonality reasons, simply because of the fear of not being able to fill roles later.

In the era of slow travel and quicker planning, those who wait until late might win. 

There is now another subscription service for short-term rentals.

Portugal’s move to end its “Golden Visa” program and curtail new short-term rental licenses will not impact the vacation rental market in the country — not in the short-term anyway. 

While the tech sector faces the blues, the travel sector is still moving in a positive direction. You can see this in the last month of earnings reports, as well as from exclusive Skift Research surveys. Although not fully recovered completely, the travel industry gained substantial momentum at the start of the year. All regions have almost recovered from the pandemic blues, Asia Pacific being the only exception. But with loosening travel restrictions and China reopening, we expect a stronger travel industry to be less uneven this year.

Exactly a year ago Skift reported private equity chasing investments in short-term rentals and vacation rentals. At the time though, a short-term rental real estate investment trust (REIT) seemed distant.