VRBO tips

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, May 3. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Sponsored listings on Expedia.com and Hotels.com are a “significant” portion of Expedia Group’s advertising business, and the company is considering ways to launch them for the first time on its vacation rental platform Vrbo, as well.

TravelNet Solutions laid off around 15 employees Thursday, roughly 7.5% of its 200-member workforce, a decision the CEO said was about shifting resources toward engineering and its core property management business.

More than four years after Airbnb pledged to verify all of its listings, the company said Monday it will soon have nearly 1.5 million verified listings, and that badges will be pinned to listings that have completed the process.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, February 16. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel.

Expedia Group has pulled a Vrbo ad in Canada because its use of a traditional Newfoundland and Labrador folksong triggered a backlash.

In December 2019, Ariane Gorin, president of Expedia Business Services, moderated a fireside chat with Chairman Barry Diller and Vice Chairman Peter Kern at an all-hands employee meeting. Expedia Group had just parted ways with its CEO and CFO, and Kern would soon be named CEO.

In a stunner that few observers saw coming, Expedia Group announced CEO Peter Kern will step down from his post and Ariane Gorin will succeed him, effective May 13.

Vrbo took some not-so-veiled shots at the quality of properties one might get from Airbnb in two commercials that ran in the pre-game and NFL divisional championship games Sunday.

Outgoing Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern said a technology platform migration completed late last year hurt Vrbo’s ability to convert lookers into bookers, but that now the company’s vacation rental unit is ready to get back on offense.

Vrbo reversed its longstanding guest-refund policy for the wildfires in Maui – for the first time, guests would be entitled to full refunds. But that won’t be the case with Hurricane/Tropical Storm Hilary, which this week ripped through Baja California, Mexico, and then turned to Southern California and elsewhere in the U.S. Southwest.

Welcome back, it’s a brand new day to talk about junk fees — as discussed on TikTok. A viral video posted by a comedian scoffs at short-term rentals and sometimes-exorbitant “host fees.”

Happy hump day, folks – let’s get into it. I was reading this latest report from Skift’s director of research Wouter Geerts: Airbnb vs Vrbo in 20 Charts, and here are a few stats I find interesting.

Canada introduced tax measures on Tuesday to ease a severe rental housing shortage by limiting income tax deductions on short-term rentals on services such as Airbnb Inc and Vrbo, joining many countries that are enacting similar laws.

Latin American travel agency Despegar is gaining market share in Brazil now that a competitor some claimed was a Ponzi scheme filed for bankruptcy.

Expedia Group has been consumed with, and weighed down by, launching a new loyalty program and transitioning its three core brands — Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo — to a common tech platform. But now those tasks are behind it.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, October 26. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Expedia increased spending 10 times over five years to advertise vacation home rentals on Google, but the online travel agency saw no increase in traffic because the search giant has been prioritizing its own flight and hotel products. 

It’s a tough U.S. real estate market with high mortgage rates and home prices still in the stratosphere. For investors looking to buy a second home as a vacation rental, how can they be sure it won’t be a dud on Airbnb or Vrbo?

Airbnb is finally ending its Airbnb Plus program after several years of it being an inconsistent priority, Skift has learned. The official end date is November 6.

Two months after Expedia Group abruptly stopped providing Hopper with hotels and vacation rentals, Hopper announced Wednesday that it struck deals with two hotel bedbanks — Hotelbeds and WebBeds — to add more than 700,000 properties to its roster.