2025 Vrbo Data and Market Trends | Hostaway LIVE!

2025 Vrbo Data and Market Trends | Hostaway LIVE! 23 dic 2025, 11:27 2025 Vrbo Data and Market Trends | Hostaway LIVE! Without further ado, I'd say let's go ahead and introduce the panelists. First of all, my name's (0:07) Ben. I'm the Content Marketing Manager here at HostAway, tuning in from Vancouver, Canada. (0:12) But I am not the star of the show. Today we have three really special guests. First, we've got (0:19) Josh. Josh is our Chief Customer Success Officer, Chief Customer Officer at HostAway, coming in from (0:25) San Antonio, Texas, home of the Spurs. Welcome, Josh. We also have Jade Zendron. Jade is our (0:31) Technical Product Manager at HostAway, really excited to have the product lens on this. Jade (0:37) is coming to us from Sao Paulo, Brazil. So welcome, Jade. Thanks for joining. And a very special (0:45) guest. It's one of my favorite times of the year when we are able to bring on our awesome partners (0:51) at Vrbo, specifically Sam Asghar. Sam is the Senior Connectivity Account Manager. He'll be walking you (0:58) through the bulk of the presentation. Sam, I said this to you before offline, but we really appreciate (1:03) you taking the time to join us here. And I'm really excited to share the 2025 market data and trends (1:10) that Vrbo is seeing. As you probably know, Vrbo has a lens into some of the most interesting (1:18) trends about travel, about accommodation, about hosting. And these are really the insights that (1:24) you should be leveraging to plan for the rest of this year and then moving into next year. So (1:29) really excited and honored that Sam's here to share those. A bit more about HostAway. So we (1:36) are the leading all-in-one platform for property managers. We're celebrating our 10-year anniversary (1:40) this year. It's crazy to think that in 2015, we were just a little baby. And now here we are with (1:46) the leading all-in-one platform. So really exciting to be here celebrating 10-year anniversary. (1:52) And also just to talk about our bona fides a little bit more. We're a preferred partner in the (1:59) vacation rental industry. We're on our fifth year now of having the triple crown of being an elite (2:03) or premier partner with all of the major OTAs, including one of our favorite or one of our very (2:09) favorites, Vrbo, who's on the call today. And like I mentioned, the triple crown, we're a 2025 Vrbo (2:15) elite partner. And that's not an easy award, an easy honor to get. So I'd love to tap in Josh (2:23) here. And Josh, you can let us know a little bit about what this means and what goes into achieving (2:28) the elite partner status. Yeah, sure. So we are the highest level you can get partnership-wise with (2:34) Vrbo and all of our OTAs, but we're here to talk about Vrbo and some things there. So let me stay (2:40) on topic with that. So what that partnership means is, is that it shows that both HostAway and Vrbo (2:46) are aligned on our customer expectations, right? That's basically what it boils down to. Things like (2:50) the connection status, our response time, new features that Vrbo are wanting to push out, (2:55) quality of everything is just aligned, but both through the product and through just the entire (3:00) customer experience. Obviously you can understand that Vrbo, if we're pushing things to their side, (3:04) they want to make sure that their clients are taken care of. Well, the same thing here at HostAway. (3:08) So all it boils down to is that the partnership, the highest level means that we're both committed (3:14) as a company, and then also Vrbo is committed as a company to make sure that the connection (3:18) between the two deliver a great customer experience. So a lot of our development time (3:23) spent coordinating with Vrbo to ensure that this quality rate goes through or is set the correct (3:29) standards. And I would say that if anything, if you're watching this and you're looking for (3:34) property management software, whatever you do, right? Don't pick a property management software (3:39) that doesn't have the highest level of partnership because all that means is, is they do not have (3:43) that connection with the OTAs. That's going to ensure that you don't have any issues between (3:50) your property management software and the OTA. So it's a lot of work that goes into getting (3:55) this partnership. And it's not just like nice to have, right? It's a lot of work and we dedicate (4:02) a lot of time to make sure that we're delivering a great customer experience. (4:05) Awesome. Thank you, Josh. And so with that all said, I'd love to turn it over to the people (4:11) who have bestowed this honor upon us. I'd like to introduce Sam Asghar, Senior Connectivity Account (4:18) Manager at Vrbo. Sam, it's your show. Awesome. Thanks, Ben. Thank you for the introduction. (4:24) Like you mentioned, my name is Sam. I'm the Senior Connectivity Account Manager here, (4:27) and I specifically work with Host Away. So I'm excited to first talk about the opportunity that (4:32) Vrbo brings to your business. We can move over to the next slide. So with over a billion searches (4:38) per month and 10 million average daily visitors, we offer massive visibility for you and your (4:43) business. So we specialize in whole home vacation rentals, making it a perfect match for property (4:48) managers looking to reach families, large families, groups who are planning meaningful getaways. (4:55) So Vrbo travelers are planners. They book far in advance, on average 89 days out, (5:02) and these are typically larger families and groups who also stay longer. These are intentional (5:08) high-value bookings, and they usually book about 4.2 trips a year on average and spend more per (5:16) stay than the industry norm. And so what that means is when you look at travelers' behavior (5:22) across Vrbo, they spend 58% more overall, 47% more per night than other travel platforms, (5:29) and they usually stay about an average of a full day longer. This means more revenue that you don't (5:36) want to leave on the table. So if you're already listing on our platform, or if you're not, if you (5:45) aren't listing your entire inventory, it's time that you maybe tap into a different audience or (5:50) new audience that may not be on other channels. We make it super easy to integrate with HostAway. (5:56) They do a great job integrating with us. This will help you bring in new incremental guests, (6:01) the high-value travelers. You'll also get support for being an integrated partner. We have a special (6:07) support for our integrated partners, so you'll get more of a one-on-one support experience, (6:12) and you'll have access to an account manager here at Vrbo that is very interested in your (6:19) development and growth. So next, I'm going to go over a little bit of our traveler values. (6:26) These came from an Expedia Group 2025 Traveler Value Index where we did surveys conducted across (6:33) 11 different countries, and these are some of the takeaways. So half of our consumers say that (6:41) travel is more important to them now than it was five years ago. So people are still looking to (6:46) travel. They're not just looking for transactions. They're looking for experiences. So this is great (6:50) for the vacation rental business because this is what we offer, right? These are private, (6:57) spacious homes that have emotional value that kind of tap into the local markets a little bit (7:03) more than hotels do. And when we look at what are some of the leading values when booking, (7:09) when they are deciding to book, the two biggest ones that usually rise to the top are reviews (7:14) and pricing. So let's break that down. So pricing is not just about being the cheapest. It's about (7:21) perceived values. Travelers compare your nightly rates. They're savvy shoppers. They look across (7:27) where the location is, what the amenities are, the reviews, things like that. So your pricing (7:32) strategy should reflect both a competitive position and unique value for your property. (7:38) So make sure that your pricing is consistent and competitive in your market and then across (7:43) multiple channels, make sure that pricing is consistent as well. The second one is reviews. (7:49) This has really become a deal breaker when it comes to traveling. It's just not a reflection (7:54) of the experience, but it directly influences how visible your listing is. So Verbo, we tend to (8:00) sort our listings by how likely we believe it's going to get a booking and reviews is a major (8:06) factor into that. I think it's one of the most important things. I think everyone here has had (8:10) experience before they even shop for anything or buy anything or book a hotel. The first thing they (8:15) do is go look at the reviews or ask friends who have been there. So it's very important to actively (8:21) manage your reviews. One of the things here at Hostaway that we try to focus on, because we know (8:27) this, right? We know that guests are looking at reviews. They want to make sure that where they're (8:31) staying, obviously, I think everybody on this call is not surprised that reviews are a huge driver in (8:36) booking. But we do a lot of things in our platform to help that out. We do reminders. (8:40) There's a certain stat, Sam, I don't know if you have it off the top of your head, but we (8:43) at one point looked to see what the chances of getting a review are when you leave a review (8:49) first to the host or to the guest when they leave. And it's through the roof, right? (8:56) And so you want to make sure you get that review in to your guest before they're (9:02) too long down the road, right? So you can do that. You can set up automations (9:05) inside of Hostaway. We've got some cool AI features that you can start utilizing at Hostaway (9:09) with our reviews as well. So we're very heavily focused on making sure that we're connecting with (9:14) Vrbo and pushing reviews to push you up in the algorithm. (9:21) Yeah, absolutely, Josh. And we'll touch a little bit more on reviews in future slides coming up. (9:27) But yeah, thank you for that. This is looking at the most wanted features (9:30) from the travelers that we surveyed. So this is what travelers are filtering for and what (9:36) they're expecting when they search. These really aren't any sort of luxury perks anymore. These are (9:41) kind of the baselines other than a few things in here, such as like maybe view if the place (9:45) doesn't have a view, but everything else really is kind of the baseline. Air conditioning if it's (9:50) in a warm area, heat if it's in a cold area. Not only having these things, but how is a traveler (9:56) to know if you have these things if you don't have them set up within your amenities? I know if (10:01) I'm taking a trip down to the Texas coast, just to be safe, I'll probably filter for air conditioning (10:07) in my search. And if you don't have your listing set up accurately with these things, you're not (10:12) going to show up in searches. So you're not even giving yourself a chance to get a booking. (10:16) Same with I have young kids. If I want to make sure I have a TV with streaming options maybe (10:22) to keep them busy, I'm going to filter for these kind of things. And washer and dryer as well. If (10:27) it's a long trip, we know Vrbo travelers stay longer. And if I'm at the beach, I want to be (10:31) able to maybe wash our towels every couple days or every day. So making sure that you have updated (10:38) your listing. I know this is something you probably set it when you first go live and (10:42) amenities isn't something that you are changing such as pricing every day. So I would say it's (10:47) probably best practice to maybe every three months set a calendar reminder to go audit your (10:52) amenities. Make sure everything that you have is listed in there because you never know if someone's (10:57) going to be a decision maker, a deal breaker or a filter for them. Yeah, I would say this is the (11:03) most common thing that we find whenever we're going in and doing audits on accounts. We work (11:08) with Vrbo quite often to send messages and alerts to our users that say you could be getting more (11:14) money on Vrbo. And we find things like they don't have Wi-Fi selected, but they have internet (11:19) selected. So they have internet or like some sort of wireless internet, but they don't have the (11:23) correct one set on Vrbo. AC and heat's a big one as well. Obviously, some people don't have AC in (11:29) their house. But these are things you should be checking quite often. And one of the things that (11:33) we do here, just not as a meaning to be like forgetful, but like we try to we usually set it (11:43) and forget it. And we don't go back and we make sure that these channels that you're set up on, (11:48) they're your marketplace. They're there to review everything that you have and send you business. (11:54) And so it's very important that you stay on top of the amenities you have. And it's not a kind of (11:58) a set it and forget it. And even if you set these a long time ago and you don't remember what you (12:02) have, go in and look at them. Because that Wi-Fi, the internet, making sure you have all these (12:07) amenities checked, you'd be surprised what people are searching for. And a lot of people don't come (12:11) up because they don't know that these amenities aren't checked. And they might have it on one (12:16) channel as something, and they have it completely different on another channel, or they don't have (12:20) it on one channel and they have it on another. And we try to do our best to kind of find those and (12:24) alert people to do that. But going back and doing it out of an alert, it doesn't really yield much (12:29) success. So I think that the suggestion of going back after a little while and checking, setting (12:34) them under calendar is a really good one because it's the number one driver of getting more business. (12:40) Yeah. And one of the interesting ones that has kind of risen over the years, the parking (12:45) included. And I think this may have to do with the rise of like shorter trips throughout the (12:51) year, right? Instead of doing one or two larger couple week trips, one week trips, I think (12:56) with less remote work and things like that, people are definitely doing more weekend drive trips and (13:02) they want to make sure that they have parking included. So that might not be one that you think (13:06) is important because you think, oh, it's a no brainer that there's parking, but it definitely (13:10) adds value and probably things, obviously things people are filtering for, for their weekend trip (13:15) up to Gatlinburg or something, or Destin. So making sure they can drive the cars, park, not (13:21) have to pay or not have to worry about that. So just little things here, EV chargers, another one (13:26) that's kind of new, but as electric cars are increasing, you want to make sure that if you've (13:31) invested in that, you're set up in the filter. So you're getting those travelers that you intended (13:36) to. And to chime in here as well, I think we cannot stress enough how important the amenities (13:42) are for the searches. And also when guests are reviewing the properties, this is super important. (13:48) For example, we see a lot of properties at Hostoway and other places that do not leave (13:55) the type of location where the listing is located. So if you have a beach view, if you have, (14:00) if you are located in the downtown, this is super important. Guests are really keen to filter (14:07) for the type of location that they will be staying at. So at Hostoway, you can, (14:12) on your listing settings, go through all the amenities. We will tell you which ones will be (14:17) synced with variables. So make sure that everything is aligned in there. (14:22) Perfect. Thank you. So the next one is trust. Trust is currency in this industry. 75% of travelers (14:31) say they'd pay more for a rental if they have better reviews. And 24% more percent would say (14:37) they'd pay a lot more. So reviews do more than signal quality. They influence visibility in our (14:42) search and they improve the guest confidence in the booking. So like Josh mentioned earlier, (14:49) this is kind of what we believe is the best review strategy. Obviously, first and foremost, (14:54) you want to deliver a five-star experience and actively communicate promptly with your guests, (15:00) fast responses, making sure that they have instructions they have set up perfectly where (15:06) they're not having to call you or reach out via email because they can't get in the house. (15:11) So communication is key. Leveraging Hostoway, they have a review integration with Verbo, (15:17) which is great. And they're able to manage these reviews, respond to reviews (15:22) within Hostoway and not having to come into Verbo to do that. Encourage reviews by, (15:29) I've seen when I've stayed at Verbo's, I've seen there's cards around the house that say like, (15:34) don't forget to leave us a five-star. And really, when they deliver that experience, (15:39) then they remind me on my way out. I'm usually doing it on the way to the airport or in my car. (15:43) So just little reminders. And then lastly, Josh mentioned earlier, review the traveler. (15:50) This will, so just a quick overview of our process. We send a couple emails for the first (15:56) two weeks, reminding them automatically when they check out, don't forget to leave a review. (16:00) After two weeks, if they haven't done anything, we drop off communication. We don't want to be (16:05) spamming them forever about the review. But if you review the traveler, let's say after those two (16:10) weeks, now that sparks another two weeks of automated emails that say you've been reviewed. (16:16) If you want to receive this review, you have to review the host. So this encourages them again (16:22) with emails and also incentivizes them by saying, if you want the review that you received, (16:27) review them back. So I would say always review the traveler, maybe two to three weeks after (16:32) checkout. Oh, and just real quickly, 20% increase was the number, Josh. When you review the traveler, (16:40) we see a 20% increase in reviews. Yeah. I mean, it makes it simple, (16:45) right? Whenever I get a notification from Verbo about checking out and that somebody's let me (16:49) review as a guest, the first thing I do is, number one, I feel bad if I haven't let them (16:53) review yet. So I'm just quickly like in my email, I'll click that link, leave them a quick review, (16:57) and it just makes it a lot easier. Instead of getting reviews, emails from someone else, (17:02) it's like, hey, this person took the time out to do this for you. Can you do this for them? It (17:06) just makes it way easier. Yeah. And at Hosoi, we provide you all the tools that you need to (17:12) automate this process as well. So we have the automated messages that you can use to nudge (17:16) your guests, and also you can set up your auto-reviews. So you'll never miss a guest (17:22) review and this additional nudge to encourage them to review their stuff. (17:28) And then back to trust, Premier Host is probably the ultimate way of kind of gaining that badge of (17:33) trust. This will get you more visibility, get you badging, and also will get you most likely put on (17:41) Expedia distribution. So if someone's searching on Expedia and there's no hotels in the area, (17:45) we push listings that have Instambook and Premier Host as well as options within Expedia as well. (17:52) So we are talking about travel budgets. Travelers are, they're watching their money, (17:58) but they still have budgeted amounts, right? With the uncertainty in the economy always, (18:04) but half of travelers are saying they have, they're increasing their travel budget, (18:10) but then also 58% are anticipating being more price conscious. So this kind of goes back to (18:14) what we're talking about earlier around making sure you're competitive in your rates towards (18:18) the value that you're providing. And then one major friction point for guests is fees. So half (18:23) of travelers say they won't book if the fees exceed 15% of the total. Two thirds say more than (18:29) two fees is a deal breaker. So we recommend consolidating these fees where possible, (18:33) rolling it into your prices, and trying to stay away from things like admin fees, service fees, (18:39) that guests really don't know what the value of that fee is. Deals. This is, you know, what we've (18:46) seen in that traveler value index is 40% of Vrbo guests are interested in long-term stay discounts. (18:51) So as I mentioned earlier, Vrbo guests tend to stay longer. And so they're always looking for, (18:57) if they're staying for a week, they are looking for getting some value out of that. And then, (19:03) like I mentioned earlier, or I haven't mentioned yet, but we do have other discounts that are (19:08) coming to Vrbo later this year, such as like early bird discount, mobile booking discount, (19:12) things like that. So, yeah, just deals and discounts are really big right now, as we saw (19:18) 58% of travelers are more price conscious. And then, like I just mentioned the previous slide, (19:23) these are some of the options that are coming to Vrbo. You may have already seen them for our (19:29) platform users go live for the early bird and last minute. But this is coming for our integrated (19:34) partners as we speak and should be generally available to our software partners in October. (19:40) And then once they are able to build that out as well. So we'll have early bird, early booking, (19:45) last minute first, and then later we'll have the member only and mobile promotions in the (19:50) near future. So let's talk about policies real quick and embracing flexibility. And we can just (19:56) jump to the next slide for time purposes. So cancellation policy is a big one. And when we're (20:01) looking at conversion rate in North America for year to date, you can easily see the relaxed (20:05) policy is nearly 0.75. When you look on the other side of no refund and strict, we're closer to 0.4. (20:13) So it's almost double the likelihood that if a traveler comes to a relaxed or moderate listing, (20:18) they're more likely to check out. And that's pretty much as simple as that. (20:23) Yeah, this is another huge one, right? The cancellation policy. That's actually the first (20:26) thing we noticed working with Vrbo that made the largest amount of difference. We were able to go (20:32) in and talk with a good amount of our clients that had very strict or firm cancellation. I think (20:39) these were strict, actually very strict. Sam, you remember that project? They restrict current (20:44) cancellation policies. We were able to go in and educate them on like, hey, maybe we want to ease (20:49) this up a little bit. And here's actually what that means. And we were able to generate over (20:55) $2 million in bookings in just a couple of months by changing that, right? So make sure you're (21:00) checking these cancellation policies and that you understand what they are, right? A lot of people (21:04) think that strict's the best because, hey, I've got a very strict property here. I need to make (21:08) sure that everything's taken care of. Go in and make sure that you understand what those look (21:12) like. And there's other options to making sure that you have the right people come stay at your (21:16) property. There's guest verification. There's different ways you can set up ways to just be (21:20) secure rather than add in a strict policy. Because what happens is that people are searching for (21:26) your property. And if you're set on strict, it might not necessarily show up, right? And so (21:32) if you're concerned about the people that are staying there and certain things that might happen, (21:37) don't do the cancellation policy. There's other ways to do that, right? So just educate yourself (21:41) on that. And we're happy to help you at Hurstway if you want to dive into that. And the next slide (21:45) will show that I know a lot of people say like, well, it's risky for my business to change my (21:51) policy and be less restrictive. I would counter and say it's more risky to be on a stricter policy. (21:58) As you can see here, the yellow, the green is showing the percentage inventory in North America (22:02) on the relaxed policy, moderate, or any policy. Blue is percentage of bookings. And then yellow (22:07) is traveler cancellation rate. And as you can see pretty much across the board from relaxed, (22:11) moderate, firm, and strict, the cancellation rate doesn't change too much. A little bit lower on the (22:15) refund, but the smallest amount of bookings too. And you can see moderate, the percentage of (22:20) bookings to the listings definitely outperforms without really giving anything up in traveler (22:24) cancellation rate. So really people are looking for flexibility. They're not looking to cancel. (22:28) And then lastly, instant book. This is pretty much the standard, the norm right now. I think most (22:34) people want to be able to go on and find the right, the perfect home and book it right then and there. (22:40) You know, imagine if you had to go to Amazon and request to buy something and wait 24 hours (22:46) people find that home, they fall in love, and they want to be able to book it right then and there. (22:50) That's great. Awesome. Thank you, Sam. And now I'm bringing in our closing pitcher here, Jade. (22:56) Jade is from the product team, and she's going to take us through, give us a look at the host (23:00) quality dashboard, which is very exciting. Go ahead, Jade. Very quickly, guys. At Hustleway, (23:04) we provide you the tools to manage the quality of your listings and ensuring that travelers have a (23:09) great experience. So we recently introduced the host equality dashboard. In this dashboard, (23:14) it is only visible for admin and account owners. So you don't need to worry about people who (23:20) shouldn't have access to this data to see it. But we are making it very easy to understand (23:24) what is the status of your listing, the review score. If you go to the next slide, (23:30) you will see that we have filtering capabilities as well. So if you want to see what is your average (23:37) review score only for verbal, you can filter that out. You can order your listings by the (23:43) average review score. And very exciting, on the next slide, I'm bringing you guys the (23:50) review dashboard. So we talked a lot about what guests expect and what you can do to increase the (23:57) visibility of your listings on verbal. And definitely having great reviews is the best (24:03) way to achieve that. Everything we talked about here, what we want in the end is that the guests (24:09) have a great experience and they leave you an amazing five-star reviews. So in this dashboard, (24:15) we are bringing the detailed reviews that the guests are leaving to your property. So you can (24:22) see here the individual categories that guests are rating when they make a review on verbal. (24:29) And we are showing the average score based on the filterings that you add. So for example, (24:33) you can see the, I don't know, how is the communication. For example, in this screenshot, (24:39) we see that communication score is very low. So if you filter your listings, you can find (24:46) opportunities to improve this category. So in this case, for example, we can see that in the (24:53) city of Kenmore, the communication is doing very well. So you have an opportunity here of (24:58) working with your staff and finding the opportunities that you need. For example, (25:03) sending automated messages to make sure that when the guests stay at their property, they have a good (25:09) experience when communicating to you. And we are bringing you the most mentioned category. So we (25:14) are bringing you the data that the guests are mentioning on the reviews. So we want to make (25:19) this very actionable for you. And even more exciting, if we go to the next slide, we have here (25:27) recently rolling out the host AI insights, which will read your reviews and do an analysis based (25:35) on what the guests are saying about your listing to tell you very explicitly what you can do to (25:41) improve those reviews. So besides just looking at the scores, we are also telling you what are (25:48) the points that you can work on that will make the most impact or what is the change that you (25:53) can make now to your listing description that will have will set the right expectations to (25:59) guests. So in the end, they have a very good experience. So I really hope you guys leverage (26:05) this feature and boost your five-star reviews and boost your visibility on on Vrbo. If you're on the (26:11) call or if you're watching this and you want to get optimized for Vrbo, you're not getting bookings (26:16) from Vrbo or you want to learn more about Vrbo, you have a dedicated customer success manager here (26:21) at HostAway. We're happy to walk you through that. It's part of our job is to make sure you're getting (26:24) value out of HostAway. We're not here to sell you anything. We're not here to upsell you anything (26:28) or anything like that. We're here to help you get bookings. So email customer success at (26:32) hostaway.com. It'll get directly to your customer success manager. And we'll walk through these (26:36) things with you. No problem. Thanks, guys. Recording will be up by the end of the day. (26:40) So have a look there and we'll see you again next month. Let me know. My email is ben.ronald (26:46) at hostaway.com. I would love to hear your feedback on these webinars, what you're liking, (26:50) what you're not liking, what you'd like to see more of. Let me know. I'd be happy to incorporate (26:55) that. So Jade, Sam, Josh, thanks again and thanks everyone for tuning in and we'll see you next month.