The best booking sites for vacation rental hosts

Airbnb

Founded in 2008, Airbnb is now a household name. Pretty much anyone can advertise their space on Airbnb – whether it’s a spare room within their own home, an entire property or a unique space such as a log cabin, yurt, castle or eco home. Airbnb reach is impressive with over 7 million places to stay in 100,000 cities and 191 countries. To date, over 260 million guests have stayed in an Airbnb.

Why list on Airbnb?

• Airbnb is one of the world’s largest online marketplaces to find places to stay and has worldwide brand recognition.

• The site is accessible in 62 languages, across 220+ countries and regions and has over 150,000 users.

• Airbnb’s website attracted 91 million visits in January 2020 alone, with 50% of traffic through mobile devices.70% of Airbnb bookings in the past three years have been made by guests under the age of 40.

Who uses Airbnb?

According to Airbnb, 54% of it’s guests are female, 46% are male. The typical Airbnb guest is looking for a space which is affordable, functional and in an urban area. The average stay for Airbnb guests is between three or four nights, and the typical booking is for between two and four people.

As well as being hugely popular with millennials, Airbnb is the top choice for people looking for a last minute break, thanks to its instant book functionality. 88% of Airbnb’s reservations are for groups of two to four people and 60% of the reservations are for an entire home/apartment.

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Booking.com

Established in 1996 in Amsterdam, Booking.com has grown from a small Dutch startup to one of the world’s biggest travel e-commerce companies. The Booking.com network also includes the Priceline, Kayak and Agoda travel brands. Its property portfolio is vast and includes everything from apartments, holiday homes and family-run B&Bs, to 5-star luxury hotels and resorts, tree houses and even igloos. On Booking.com, guests cannot rent individual rooms or portions of a property, like they can with Airbnb.

Why list on Booking.com?

• Booking.com is the most visited travel site in the world, attracting over 458 million visits per month.

• Around 1.5 million nights are booked on Booking.com every day.

• The site is available in 43 languages – giving your property a truly global reach. Listing on Booking.com also means your property will appear on popular affiliate sites including Priceline, Kayak and Agoda, further boosting your exposure.

• Booking.com is investing considerably in the vacation rentals side of the business in order to compete with the likes of Expedia and Airbnb – it’s marketing spend was almost $5 billion in 2018.

TripAdvisor

TripAdvisor was founded in 2000, originally as a simple aggregator of guidebook reviews. Although the platform is best known for its traveller reviews, it covers two segments: hotel and non-hotel travel products (attractions, restaurants and holiday rentals). There are over 1,060,000 hotels/accommodations listed on the site, along with 835,000 holiday rentals. TripAdvisor was one of the earliest adopters of user generated content, and has since become the go-to site for traveller reviews, Q&As and interactive travel forums.

Why list on TripAdvisor?

• The TripAdvisor group owns and operates a portfolio of around 25 major travel brands, including FlipKey, HolidayLettings, VacationHomeRentals, BookingBuddy, HouseTrip and many more. Listing on TripAdvisor brings additional exposure for your holiday home on these sites too.

• The TripAdvisor website currently averages around 390 million monthly unique visitors.

• The TripAdvisor App is also hugely popular, and has been downloaded over 370 million times.

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Expedia

Launched in November 1998, Expedia is a travel booking website owned by Expedia Group, with around 590K properties and 1.5M online bookable holiday rentals. The Group has acquired a significant number of well-known travel fare aggregator websites and travel search sites including CarRentals.com, Egencia, CheapTickets, Expedia.com, HomeAway, Hotels.com, Hotwire.com, Orbitz, Travelocity, Trivago and vacationrentals.com. Expedia also offers a range of complimentary travel products like car hire, flights, cruises and activities in addition to hotel and accommodation options. 

Why list on Expedia?

• Expedia has one of the largest networks of affiliate sites across the globe, meaning better exposure for your property on some of the world’s leading online travel brands such as Hotels.com, Abritel, VRBO and Trivago.

• With over 60 million visits to the site each month, listing on Expedia offers unmatched exposure for your holiday home.

VRBO

Formerly known as HomeAway, VRBO was established in 2005, and is now owned and operated by Expedia Group. Specialising in whole property holiday rentals, rather than private homes/rooms and hotels, VRBO is recognised as a leader in the short-term rentals industry. It has around 2 million unique holiday properties on its books. Prior to its own acquisition by Expedia Group in 2015, VRBO acquired many smaller travel brands including Homelidays, Toprural, GladToHaveYou and Dwellable.

Why list on VRBO?

• VRBO operates 50 localised websites in 23 languages.

• Vacation rentals are offered in more than 145 countries, including the US, UK, France and Brazil. 

• VRBO has around 9.5 million unique visitors per month.

• VRBO’s average user is female, 35 to 50 years old who is travelling with family – typically a group of four or more people.

• Holidays and special occasions are the most common reasons for booking accommodation with VRBO, with an average stay of seven days – better than many other booking sites.

Holidu

Founded in Munich in 2014, the founders have made it their mission to change the booking and rental of vacation accommodation so that it is full of joy and confidence and free from concerns. With 23 local branches in some of the most attractive travel destinations in Europe, Holidu has received several awards and is one of the most popular employers in Germany.

Why list on Holidu?

• Holidu offers one of the largest ranges of directly managed accommodation

• The Holidu score will give an indication of the quality of your property

• The app is rich in many features which can benefit the guests and hosts alike

• Holidu is one of the top travel deal websites which focuses on vacation rentals, helping you find the most bang for your buck

Gain access to list your property on these sites and many more when you sign up to Travelnest. We’ll help manage your listings and bookings from one simple platform.