THE VACATION RENTAL MARKET TRENDS
Key trends that define the Vacation Rental Industry today and explain the recent changes!
Standardisation of the Industry
Convergence is one of many factors that are driving the standardisation of the holiday rentals industry. Today’s travelers expect the same amenities as in a hotel; shampoo, soap, towels, WiFi etc. in the holiday rentals.
Many property managers are providing these amenities as well as well-trained staff to give their guests the best of both worlds.
New entrants from related industries
With the last year acquisitions (Hyatt Hotels investing in OneFineStay, Expedia buying Vrbo and Booking.com launching villas.com), we can only expect that we will see more more investment and merging from related industries in the coming year.
Demand for instant bookings
The demand for instant bookings is a result of consumers having become “professional shoppers”. They want to receive an instant purchase confirmation, this is one of the reasons why the online holiday rental sites are upgrading their technology to offer instant bookings. Vrbo announced that all its listings would be instantly bookable by 2016
New Terms
The holiday rental industry is maturing “from a teenager to a young adult.” The success of Vrbo and Airbnb has forced the industry to re-innovate themselves. This has led the travel industry to focus on “distribution systems” and “sales channel managers”.
Advance in technology
The market is more and more tech driven.
From home automation to popular tech services including business intelligence software, data mining tools and price optimization.
Source: Technavio 2014 & skift.com
