Vrbo Launches Fast Start to Bring Established Hosts From Other Sites

On 29 March 2021, Vrbo, the vacation rental brand owned by Expedia Group, launched Fast Start in the United States, a program for hosts who arrived with a record on other sites. Vrbo said a qualifying host's new property would carry a New to Vrbo badge for 90 days, show a review score based on reviews from other travel sites and hold a higher place in its sort order, and that the host would receive dedicated support.

Any Superhost or host with a review rating of 4.5 or higher and who had earned more than US$3,000 in the past year was eligible, the company's release said. Superhost was Airbnb's label for experienced hosts on its site, as PhocusWire noted in a report dated 1 April 2021. Vrbo's release used the word without naming Airbnb.

Vrbo said it had piloted the program with 1,600 U.S. hosts who had come over from other sites, and it gave three results for each property: a 25% increase in bookings, a 50% increase in booked nights and a 140% increase in gross booking value. The figures were the company's own.

What Fast Start offered

The release, datelined Austin, Texas, said the badge and the imported score were for new properties across all vacation rental segments and brands, from individual owners to multi-property accounts.

The program began, the release said, with a virtual kick-off call from a Vrbo expert. A property did not have to be exclusive to Vrbo. Fast Start opened in the United States on the day of the announcement, and Vrbo said it would roll out globally in the coming months.

Cyril Ranque, president of the Travel Partners Group at Expedia Group, made the pitch in the release: “With Fast Start, new hosts join a trusted global vacation rental brand whilst keeping their hard-earned review score, and receive increased visibility, to set them up for early success on our platform.”

PhocusWire's report added two details about the imported score. Individual reviews were not shown, and the scores were provided by the hosts themselves or came from data scraped by Vrbo. Ranque told PhocusWire that once the program ended, hosts who had performed well over the 90 days took their natural position in the sort order.

The figures Vrbo gave

Vrbo's pilot results and its earnings claim each came with a footnote. On the pilot, the footnote said it ran during the pandemic, covered U.S. properties only, and compared eligible properties using Fast Start with eligible properties not using it. The release did not say how long the pilot ran or how the two groups were chosen.

The release also made a claim about earnings. Individual property owners who joined Vrbo in 2020, it said, made an average of almost US$6,000 per property, or 50 percent more than other travel sites. The footnote gave the basis only as public information seen by 20 March 2021.

Expedia Group's annual report for 2020, signed on 11 February 2021, said its lodging marketplace had over 2 million online bookable alternative accommodations listings as of 31 December 2020. A spokeswoman quoted by Skift said Vrbo had more than two million whole home listings at the end of 2020.

A pitch read as aimed at Airbnb's hosts

The trade press named Airbnb where the release had not. Skift reported on the day of the launch that Vrbo had acknowledged opening a dedicated phone line for what it called an influx of Airbnb hosts. The spokeswoman declined to say how many Airbnb hosts Vrbo had signed, Skift reported, but said: “We did open a dedicated phone line for Airbnb hosts to join Vrbo because of this influx.”

ShortTermRentalz, reporting on 31 March 2021, called Fast Start a host recruitment program and read the word Superhost as a sign of a more aggressive strategy to win new hosts. It recalled that Expedia Group's chief executive, Peter Kern, had denied in May 2020 that Vrbo was trying to drive a wedge between itself and Airbnb over hosts unhappy with Airbnb's refund policies.

“It is intentional,” Ranque told PhocusWire of the word. He said Expedia Group and Vrbo had positioned themselves as balanced between the traveler's interest and the host's interest, and he described Fast Start as an answer to what he called the cold-start problem for hosts new to the site.

What Airbnb and the trade said

Both companies pointed to how they had handled cancellations in 2020. Vrbo's release recalled that in March 2020 it had encouraged hosts to give travelers credits to redeem later, and said almost 95% of Vrbo hosts had opted in. Airbnb's spokesperson told PhocusWire that the company's first priority had been the safety of its community, that it knew the full refunds it offered guests had been very difficult for its hosts, and that it had created a $250 million fund to pay part of hosts' cancellation costs and a $17 million Superhost Fund. Asked about Vrbo's use of the word Superhost, the spokesperson spoke of the strength of the Airbnb name and said the company had over four million hosts as of 30 September 2020.

Richard Vaughton, founder and director of Rentivo and founder of Yes Consulting, told PhocusWire that nearly everyone, Vrbo included, had handled refunds better than Airbnb, and that hosts needed to avoid listing on one site only. Alex Aydin, founder and chief executive of BookingPal, said he did not believe the majority of Superhosts would leave Airbnb for Vrbo. They would add it, he said, as part of a multi-channel strategy. Aydin added that Vrbo was not the merchant of record for a lot of its properties, while Airbnb was, so Vrbo had to ask hosts whether they were willing to issue refunds.

Ranque told PhocusWire the intention was not to make hosts exclusive to Vrbo, and that he did not want to corner people into choosing one platform over another. He added that a property would outperform on Vrbo if the host gave it more of the calendar.

What it meant for hosts

A host weighing Fast Start in the last days of March 2021 had a short list to check, all of it from Vrbo's release. The property had to be new to Vrbo. The host had to meet the eligibility test, and the release's one sentence on it did not spell out whether the US$3,000 earnings test also applied to a Superhost. The program had opened in the United States only, and the property did not have to leave any other site.

The decision that mattered was the calendar. Ranque told PhocusWire it was not a simple case of a boost for being exclusive, and also that a property did better on Vrbo the more of its calendar Vrbo could sell. Fast Start put a clock on that choice: the higher placement lasted 90 days, and after it, by Ranque's account, a host who had performed well took a natural position in the sort order.

Two facts from outside the release belonged in the sum. Expedia Group's annual report said Vrbo offered hosts subscription-based listing or pay-per-booking service models. And by Aydin's account, Vrbo was not the merchant of record for a lot of its properties, so a host coming from Airbnb was adding a site that handled the money differently.

Sources

1. Vrbo and Expedia Group (press release, Expedia Newsroom), Vrbo Launches Fast Start Program to Fuel Early Success of New Hosts (29 March 2021).
2. Skift, Expedia’s Vrbo Looks to Poach Discouraged Airbnb Hosts With New Incentives (29 March 2021).
3. ShortTermRentalz, Vrbo launches Fast Start program for new hosts (31 March 2021).
4. PhocusWire, Vrbo targets Airbnb “Superhosts” as rental competition heats up (1 April 2021).
5. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (Expedia Group, Inc. Form 10-K), Form 10-K, Annual Report for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020 (11 February 2021).