Is Anyone Interested in Listing Their Property on Other Channels Besides Airbnb?

My point is I know 100% you are on the annual subscription fee for HomeAway. They did that to everyone that was on the same subscription model as you.

You were the one that complained about what they did to your listing.

95% of the high season, which are about 12 weeks in a year. The rest is a good mix of direct bookings and several OTA’s.

1 Like

You might be surprised.
You are stuck in an OTA information bubble.
Maybe you are one of those millennials that think STR started when AirBnB was founded, and nothing existed before.

There are a lot of ways people make reservations.
There are still people that use paper brochures. They go to holiday/travel exhibitions and take brochures.
Many people still call tourist offices and ask for information on hotels end holliday homes.

You are right, global travel is mostly done trough OTA’s. But most of the people travelling from the same continent still us a lot of the “old fashion” ways to find their place and book.

2 Likes

I am Airbnbing. Airbnb did not start out to get into the vacation rental business. What they created was an easy way for someone like me to start offering a room in their home to overnight guests who are complete strangers to them. I never would run a traditional bed and breakfast or any of the other revenue producing uses of a home. I had opportunities to buy and rent out homes, manage a rental for someone who had to move out of town and I wasn’t interested in that either.

Ebay didn’t invent selling used things but it still enabled me to do something that was previously impossible for me.

@beststayzdavid - I hope that by now you have realised that your tone is seen as being incredibly patronising. This forum is a healthy mix of hosts who are new to the business and those who have been ‘hosting’ (in one form or another) for many years. In some cases, probably from a time before you were born. (Forgive me if I am wrong here but you do sound to be a very young person).

Mostly, we do not need your ‘insights’.But I imagine that you’ve realised that already.

2 Likes

I think that the earliest example I can think of is ‘no room at the inn’.

:slight_smile:

3 Likes

The first time I travelled abroad I was a tiny child. This was in 1960. (I know, I’m old. Sorry)

But until this century, everything was done offline, word-of-mouth, printed brochures, old style travel agents, recommendations from friends, etc. etc.

And it worked. And we travelled. And we had great accommodation.

P.S. hostelworld.com has some fabulous accommodation options.

1 Like

Brings back memories of traveling in Europe as a student. Those with rooms to let sent runners to the train station to hawk their rooms. Or a friend of a friend gave you a recommendation to stay with Senora or Madame X in such-and-such city. We survived and indeed had many lovely experiences.

1 Like

Even that is not new. AirBnB made it popular, but boarding houses have been there for centuries.

My grandparents already rented out a private room in their house in the 50’s, “to make ends meet”.
Uncle had to temporarily give up his room and sleep on the floor in my mothers room.

I listed my property almost everywhere I had the possibility. However Airbnb, Booking . com, and Expedia (actually homeaway) are the one that account for 98% of my bookings

Happy to continue this discussion anytime :slight_smile:

Actually, it is. If you re-read what I said ….an easy way for someone like me…

I did not say no one offered their room to strangers in the past. I’ve described my market many times on this forum. I can guarantee that without an Airbnb type platform I would not be renting my guest room. I don’t run a boarding house. I don’t live in a tourist town. There’s no train station where tourists arrive, go to the visitor center and get referred to my single room for rent. I could hang a zimmer frei sign out front and no traveler would ever see it.

1 Like

Booking.com seems to give greater legitimacy to a place, and I noticed the prices are often higher. Is this an accurate observation? I’ve had friends who would search everywhere except airbnb. One of them only grudgingly tried it because he couldn’t book anything at the last minute, but ultimately had a positive experience.

@PETRELLI - many people increase their rates by the 15% commission that Booking .com charges. Trip Advisor increases host rates by 14.5% or more and the guest can’t even tell. They think the owner is charging it.

Your friend would be wise to start googling pics, the description, name of the property etc. to see which sites (don’t charge extra fees/commission) - or to find the owner’s own website. If someone keeps going to the OTA’s to book, then yes…they aren’t going to be saving money at all.

2 Likes