VRBO tips

Vrbo wants to protect consumers better by levying penalties on hosts who cancel reservations and raising eligibility standards for “premier hosts.”

Looking for a short-term rental stay via Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com in New York City for the Thanksgiving holiday? One week after the city implemented tough host registration requirements, you can expect to see listings that violate the rules, more hotels, and stays in New Jersey.

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.

September 5 was the first day of New York City’s short-term rental registration rules, but the city’s electronic verification system isn’t operational yet, Skift has learned from three sources familiar with the new process.

If you search for short-term rentals on Booking.com, Vrbo and, to a lesser extent, on Airbnb in New York City for stays after Tuesday’s deadline mandating that hosts be registered, you’ll still find numerous listings that seemingly flout the rules.

New York City’s Office of Special Enforcement has approved only 257 short-term rental host registrations — out of 3,250 applications — ahead of a September 5 enforcement deadline.

Among the options that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is mulling to remedy what he said is a “huge problem,” namely cleaning fees, is giving hosts the ability to levy “variable” cleaning fees.

A new study on the impact of short-term rentals in Puerto Rico, where the proliferation of Airbnb listings played an outsized role in its tourism recovery following Hurricane Maria, found that a 10 percent increase in short-term rental density in relation to the total number of housing units, led to a 7 percent increase in median rents and a 23 percent jump in housing unit prices.

Despite lots of vacation rental industry talk about making inroads in attracting more direct bookings, a global survey of property managers and individual hosts reported those percentages were stable, if not decelerating.

To hear Expedia Group officials tell it, 2023 is shaping up as a year when lots — but not all — of the tough, behind-the-scenes tech work will have been completed, and the company will start to reap the benefits.

As the founder of a short-term rental software platform dedicated to people with disabilities, Lorraine Woodward said she sees a lot of lip service about accessibility from big travel companies. 

Rumors have surfaced on social media that Expedia Group would announce this Thursday during its fourth quarter earnings call that customers would no longer be able to book vacation rentals on Expedia.com — but that’s not going to happen because it would be self-sabotage.

Airbnb has an answer for all those skeptics who claimed for years that it was a typical Silicon Valley unicorn with a penchant for growth at the expense of black ink — the short-term rental giant in 2022 recorded its first profitable year.

Five years ago, Airbnb toyed with the idea of launching a a “superguest” loyalty program, but CEO Brian Chesky seemed to shoot down the notion of a rewards program a couple of weeks ago.

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

Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, March 1. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

The short-term rental industry can be sustainable, but not without support and structure. As it currently stands, there are few institutional incentives and considerable regulatory obstacles to make sustainability a universal priority.

Thanks to excess supply and lower occupancy, luxury travel brand Inspirato will use online travel agencies including Airbnb and Vrbo to list its luxury rentals — but without the high-end frills.

New York City is in the process of getting all the pieces in place to clamp down on illegal short-term rentals pending a July deadline when fines against both hosts and platforms like Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com for any non-compliance would begin.

Vrbo released the first of three new ads this week focusing on customer service guarantees instead of the homes themselves.

Expedia Group officials hope that its Hotels.com brand, which migrated its technology to the Expedia platform last year and saw 20 percent growth in gross bookings in the first quarter of 2023, is a model for good things to come for its Vrbo vacation rental brand this year and beyond.