Vacation Rentals, Airbnb, VRBO, or something more?
Vacation Rentals have been around for decades now. It has just been since 2008 that they have really started to gain media exposure because of Airbnb. My colleagues and I have seen a shift that is already happening in the vacation rental space that happened in the in the online retail space.
Everyone is jumping on the Airbnb/Homeaway bandwagon, which is awesome, minus the fact that 70% of the worldwide inventory is illegal. However, there is even a bigger problem. . .
I'm sure everyone remembers good old Ebay which boomed in the late 90s to early 2000s. They were all the rage when sellers could market products everywhere.
Then you had little only amazon who was growing step by step. . .
Until now, where you have Amazon with revenue over $100B and Ebay with revenue a little over $8B
What was the difference?? - Guaranteed Quality Customer Experience -
And now you have Airbnb and Homeaway that allow individuals to post their properties, without any real guarantee of service or home quality from a brand, like Ebay. . .
It is only a matter of time before an Amazon takes over the nightly rental market.
I'd love to hear your thoughts or arguments!