As of Monday, HomeAway’s chief revenue officer Jon Gray and chief marketing officer Mariano Dima are no longer with the company, indicating a change by Expedia in the trajectory for HomeAway’s vacation rental marketplace.
Last week, during Expedia’s Q4 2016 earnings conference call, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said, “We’ve actually brought in some excellent talent to really build up the [HomeAway] team, some talent from within the company.”
Khosrowshahi added, “And I think that HomeAway, as it’s transitioning from a business that whose economics were based on subscriptions and subscription renewals, and there is a certain marketing strategy to drive subscription renewals, to a business and strategy that’s based on driving transactions, that’s our bread and butter as it relates to our OTA brands.”
Jon Gray joined HomeAway in 2004 as the third employee at the company before its landmark purchase of VRBO.com in 2006. Gray served the company in many leadership capacities over the years, and in April of 2015, Gray was named as the company’s chief revenue officer. In this position, he was responsible for the delivery of global revenue and managed the business development, sales and regional business teams.
“After more than 12 years with HomeAway and starting his career as our third employee, Chief Revenue Officer Jon Gray decided it is time to pursue new opportunities,” said Jordan Hoefar, corporate communications manager at HomeAway. “We are incredibly thankful to Jon and all his contributions during his tremendous tenure.”
In July of 2014, former Visa Europe CMO Mariano Dima was named chief marketing officer for HomeAway.
In this position, London-based Dima oversaw all global marketing, corporate communications and brand initiatives and was responsible for the “Whole Vacation” marketing campaign that guided HomeAway’s messaging and simultaneously differentiated the company from both hotels and Airbnb. Mariano also spearheaded the Eiffel Tower vacation rental giveaway campaign about which Dima said, ““We had a big idea to create a HomeAway where no one would believed would be possible, and now it’s here.”
Hoefar added, “Similarly, Chief Marketing Officer Mariano Dima decided it is time to leave HomeAway to pursue new opportunities. We appreciate Mariano’s vision for the HomeAway brand and his leadership as the company invested in and grew the marketing organization.”
In addition, several organizational changes are being reported within HomeAway’s software division. However, HomeAway’s Hoefar said, “There aren’t any significant org changes in our HomeAway Software division to report.”
Updated 4:36 ET, Feb, 15, 2017 with comments from Jordan Hoefar, HomeAway’s corporate communications manager.
Peggy
February 21, 2017 at 6:28 pm
We have seen our inquiries drop to practically nothing since we do not except online booking. As the other person said, they told us that our listings, we have 4, would drop to the bottom of the search criteria if we did not except online booking. We have loyal repeat customers who book with us every year for the same week. They do not always book a year in advance but we know that they will book the week. This is why we CAN NOT allow online booking. We feel we have a responsibility to our repeat guests to hold their weeks for them. If we have a customer who inquires about the same week, we call our repeat customer to make sure that they want that week for the following year.
Right now we have a guest that found us on HomeAway but called us and booked his stay with us personally. This is the way that we like to handle our bookings because we feel it is more personal. He unfortunately gave HomeAway his credit card number because they made it seem like he COULD book online even though we do not except that. They have held $1500 on his card since early February and have charged him the booking fee. They have not released the hold on his card to date. He has called us to see if there was anything we could do, but we didn’t even realize that HomeAway could do this if he didn’t book through them. In addition, we have not received any money from HomeAway for this reservation nor have they contacted us to let us know that they had a hold on this gentlemens card for this reservation. If he hadn’t called us to let us know we would still be in the dark. Who knows how many reservations we have lost because of this practice of HomeAway.
Lisa
February 18, 2017 at 9:05 am
Sorry, since Expedia took over my inquiries have dried up. The name is “Home”Away! My HOME and Expedia is treating it like a HOTEL ROOM, it’s NOT! If Expedia wants to control my HOME, Expedia can start paying my mortgage, home insurance, utility bills, liability insurance, taxes, repair bills, replace linens, cleaners, lawn maintenance, pool man, am I forgetting anything that comes with renting a HOME?
Have been with HomeAway since 2008, I may have to sell my home, which I was hoping to retire in once my children get through college.
Shame on you Expedia, it’s not always about the almighty buck!
It’s MY HOME!!!!!!!!
CB
February 17, 2017 at 5:21 pm
Homeaway is trying to market the properties that are so underpriced that their new 12% booking fee doesn’t affect travelers. It isn’t even capped at 12%. Their new policy says it may sometimes go over 12%. This means they are still testing to see how high they can charge.
Each listing site wants to have a 15% cut off of each transaction. For people who say the booking fee hasn’t hurt their bookings, well it means you are very underpriced to begin with. And if you can still raise your prices in spite of the booking fee, that means you were grossly underpriced.
Bruce Baker
February 15, 2017 at 9:04 am
I got a call from home away in Jan and said if I didn’t sign up for their on line booking where they can charge the customer 5-15% booking fee? That they will put my listings at the end of the search criteria. I still have 4months left and they did & inquiry have dropped to ZERO.
I can search my small town of 400 people and they show property that are 200 miles away and still cant find mine.
Cheryl Preston
February 15, 2017 at 8:27 am
I used FlipKey for several years and added HomeAway later but noticed that most of my bookings were from HA/VRBO so I dropped Flipkey Now that HomeAway has restructured its subscription to one flat rate, I am hoping that I will still get the support and visibility that has helped me to increase my bookings each year with my vacation rental. I have always had positive dealings with HomeAway so I hope this new reorganization proves to be successful for all of its stakeholders.