VRBO tips

Sonder executives put a positive spin on how the business is trending, but there is evidently very little hope of achieving its previously articulated goal of positive free cash flow in 2023.

In May, two months after the New York City Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) opened the process of registering hosts to lawfully rent out their properties for less than 30 days, Airbnb said the city informed it that only nine hosts had been approved.

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The traditional knock on Expedia Group in its matchup against rival Booking Holdings is that Booking has been way more profitable. And Booking can take those profits, plow them back into marketing, and win more market share.

Expedia Group and Vacasa are both moving forward with tech investments to compete with other big players in the short-term rental industry. Executives from both public companies shared details about current projects during Skift’s Short-Term Rental Summit in New York on Wednesday. 

The major players in short-term rentals — Airbnb, Expedia/Vrbo and Booking.com — seldom work together as a unit when faced with tough city crackdowns around the world.

Expedia Group, which has supplied rival Hopper with hotel and vacation rental inventory for several years, terminated the relationship Wednesday over a variety of practices that Expedia believes are anti-consumer, Skift learned exclusively.

Expedia said it plans to add several new features, such as hotel images and traveler reviews, to its ChatGPT-powered trip-planning features. The generative AI-based trip planner will be available in its Android app in August and these additional features would be available in both apps in the next few months.

Cloudbeds, a San Diego-based software company that helps independent hotels set their set their rooms and market their inventory online, has integrated with Vrbo — the API integration will allow property owners and operators to manage all aspects of their Vrbo listings through the Cloudbeds platform. 

Investors looking for short-term gains may be disappointed in Expedia Group’s second quarter — it missed analysts’ revenue expectations by $10 million. But if things actually work out according to Expedia’s playbook, a carefully laid foundation may start to trigger more lucrative results in 2024.

Expedia Group’s vacation rental brand Vrbo for the first time reversed its traditional guest refund policy, and is mandating that hosts refund guests in Maui.