Short-Term Rental and Vacation Rental News

Lax travel lockdowns and regulations means U.S. and North America overall was much better for Airbnb this year, but will this trend continue in years to come?

Despite the Covid-19 hit, Airbnb stands above its fellow travel rivals due to its ability to continue to book sales during the crisis and turn those stays into cash flow.

As people wanted to escape from cities and wanted more space, they fled to Airbnbs within driving distance of where they lived. We knew that anecdotally. Now we have hard numbers from Airbnb's S-1 filing.

This system malfunction will hardly be a footnote in Airbnb's history, but the timing sucked for the IPO hopeful.

This lawsuit on behalf of hosts will do little to deter Airbnb's proposed initial public offering. Although it will generate negative headlines, large companies like Airbnb often treat class action lawsuits as the price of doing business.

The Airbnb Host Endowment wouldn't turn hosts into investors in the IPO. But by earmarking 9.2 million shares to fund the endowment, it may counteract the feeling among a few hosts that going public would only benefit elite investors and employees. It's a clever and creative move by Airbnb, but more fundamental host issues remain.

An Airbnb pre-IPO stock split gives the company's potential public debut more momentum because its share price in theory would be lower. Of course, none of Airbnb's IPO paperwork is public yet so the particulars of the IPO are just guesswork for now.

On the road toward its IPO, Airbnb has engaged in nonstop publicity about its efforts to crack down on house parties. Another less-noticed part of that effort is when Airbnb blocks these bookings of whole homes, it encourages users to book hotels instead.

Labor Day weekend didn’t provide a much-needed boost for the U.S travel sector. In September, 37 percent of Americans traveled, barely one percentage point higher than in August. The path of travel recovery ahead might be even rockier with summer vacation officially behind us.

With thousands of hotels going out of business and up for sale, and vacation rentals business booming in certain destinations, there will be a ton of disruption and convergence in hospitality. Savvy short-term rental operators can pick off some direct bookings, but the mega online travel agencies will hardly notice.