The Rise of Collaborative Communities
For the past 24 months we have weathered endless policy changes, deceptive practices and poor performance by what continues to be an adversarial relationship with the big listing sites. The latest salvo came a few days ago with VRBO’s major announcement to no longer allow you to have external links to your site. Despite what you read in some media, our brands continue to perform amid this continued chaos. Some realities are coming into play:
- The big sites continue in their attempts to strip away your brand in order to control as much supply as possible. Hiding your property names and mandating OLB are just some of the recent actions that are forcing change in our industry. Here is the latest example:
- Owners and Managers are getting wiser by pulling back on valuable inventory and investing in themselves by diversifying their inventory across different mediums and regional opportunities. As a countermeasure, VRBO is now looking to disaggregate us from our owners by pointing them to “select” property management vendors. This represents the biggest threat to our industry. Imagine, if you are operating on HomeAway software….you are pinned in while they recommend your owners to competitors. Read more
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