Ms. Leena Rao has a great article about an up and newcomer to the vacation rental industry… AirBedandBreakfast.com, who recently rebranded as airbnb.com. Part of what makes the article great is that she mentions Free-Rentals.com as one of the main established competitors.
 
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/04/y-combinators-airbed-and-breakfast-casts-a-wider-net-for-housing-rentals-as-airbnb/
 
Air Bed and Breakfast has a great website, slick interface and originally started out as the name suggestions, with people offering to blow up an (air mattress in the livingroom perhaps) for an extra guest to stay for a few nights.
 
The guest benefits by getting accommodations far cheaper than a hotel and by getting to stay with locals and live more of the local lifestyle while on vacation. The host of the airbed gets a bit of extra cash for hosting the guest, not to mention, his or her companionship for a few days.
 
It’s a great idea, and couchsurfing, one of the more established players in this market is doing something similar.

By re-branding, Airbnb is now expanding out to include the vacation rental market. We feel they will have a hard time captivating the vacation rental market for the sole reason that they charge a hefty 7% commission on each booking.

The problem is not so much about the commission as it is the logistics come with becoming the broker between the rental seeker and the vacation rental home owner, and dealing with cancellations, discrepencies between the features and amenities listed and what is actually present in the rental, etc..
 
We wish them luck, and welcome them to the VR industry.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 10:46 amand is filed under Vacation Rental Industry, Vacation Rental Websites. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.