The role of vacation rental sites and markets is increasing exponentially. Every day, they attract millions of visitors looking for accommodation for their holidays. For hosts, vacation rental sites are the perfect place to reach their target audience at the right place and at the right time. Therefore, if you're looking for new ways to maximize the number of bookings, you should start by listing your properties where your potential guests are.
As a guest, you may want to find the best home away from home for your next vacation. To help both guests and hosts, we've researched the top 10 vacation rental websites.
Airbnb
is the most trusted vacation rental site, giving hosts the opportunity to earn money by advertising their properties and short-term rental experiences. It has the largest community of vacation rental hosts, with more than 7 million properties available to guests in more than 220 regions and countries around the world.For guests, it means plenty of options to choose from. It's also one of the fastest growing vacation home rental websites. Airbnb has the best brand recognition among hosts and guests in the short-term rental market. For hosts, there is no charge to list a property.
However, hosts must pay a service fee per booking. Depending on the location of your property, you will pay a fee of up to 15%, or the guest will pay a fee of up to 15%, while you will pay up to 3%. Formerly known as VRBO (Vacation Rental by Owner), it recently merged with its sister site HomeAway to relaunch as Vrbo. Vrbo is part of the Expedia Group and specializes in offering vacation rentals in the United States.
This makes it an excellent choice for hosts who own or manage vacation rentals in the US. It's also one of the most popular vacation rental listing sites in the world. Although Vrbo has a lot in common with Airbnb, there are some important differences to keep in mind. While you can list different types of properties on Airbnb (including shared rooms, cabins, beach houses, and tree houses), Vrbo only allows hosts to post private spaces.
If you have a spare room to rent, keep in mind that you can't list it in Vrbo. Another difference is the type of audience Vrbo serves - since only private houses are allowed to rent in Vrbo, it tends to attract an older audience traveling with a family and looking for spaces suitable for children. TripAdvisor was founded in 2000 and is one of the oldest and best sites for vacation rentals. As a result, it has great brand recognition, making it an ideal place to list your rentals.
TripAdvisor charges 3% commission per booking. Once you list your property on TripAdvisor, it will also automatically appear on FlipKey - this means more visibility and exposure for your vacation rental. Expedia is one of the largest online travel shopping platforms offering secure booking options for accommodations, flight tickets, car rentals, cruises, and vacation packages. It offers a variety of types of accommodation in addition to vacation rentals, such as hotels, villas, motels, guesthouses, etc.
Users looking for vacation rentals specifically can filter their search results based on the “sort by” functionality. HomeToGo's advantage for guests is that they can quickly compare listings across multiple short-term rental platforms to choose the one that best suits their needs. For hosts, making your listings available on the HomeToGo platform increases their visibility and booking potential. Like HomeToGo, Tripping is also a search engine that aggregates listings from different booking platforms, allowing users to search for offers from several OTAs at the same time.
Tripping offers a map that appears next to the ads on the search results page - it displays hotels and hostels as well as vacation rental properties so users can filter their search options using the “Accommodation Types” filter. Like HomeToGo, one of Tripping's biggest advantages is the wide range of properties it shows users - for guests who offer a wider range of options and for hosts who want to expand their visibility. The main difference compared to other vacation rental websites is that a guest can stay in a host's home without any monetary remuneration - for example, a guest and a host can exchange their homes or a host can stay at a guest's house later. Atraveo is one of the largest vacation rental sites and offers many accommodation options mainly across Europe - this site currently has more than 300,000 vacation home rental listings.
Hosts are charged a 15% service fee on confirmed bookings (plus VAT if applicable). There is no charge to list a property. OneFineStay is a vacation rental site backed by the Accor hotel chain - currently offering more than 5,000 high-end vacation rental home listings in popular locations such as London, New York City, Rome, Paris, Los Angeles and San Francisco etc. OneFineStay works with a revenue-sharing model - revenue from hosting depends on many factors including size layout and location of property - in addition to managing your property OneFineStay promotes it through its network of vacation rental sites and marketing channels allowing you to extend your reach to wider audience of travelers looking for luxury stays.
Interhome has been offering vacation rentals since 1965 - this is one of oldest vacation rental websites - currently offering 95000 holiday home and apartment rentals in 31 countries - company charges 12% service fee for listings that accept immediate booking and 15% for ads that don't accept immediate booking - if you want maximize profits good idea list your rental on several top vacation rental sites explore each options more detail then decide which one looks most promising terms bookings revenues. Hotels aren't always best option families groups traveling when you need perks like kitchen private pool more space relax.
