HomeAway and Wyndham are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the Vacation Rental Managers Association's proposed distribution switch for professionally managed properties.
Alexis de Belloy, HomeAway's managing director, North America, said the company is unfamiliar with all the terms involved with the switch, adding it's "too early to say whether this deal is the solution for our industry."
de Belloy was discussing the switch during today's PhoCusWright webinar, "The Vacation Rental Revolution."
And, he was expanding on comments that Carl Shepherd, HomeAway's co-founder and chief strategy and development officer, made at the VRMA conference in Texas earlier this week.
de Belloy said a switch, in theory, would be a "fantastic way" to organize vacation rental distribution and the company is interested in anything that makes distribution easier. And, that's understandable, since de Belloy said HomeAway adds about 15,000 properties per month globally.
Jessica Kornacki, vice president of sales and marketing for Endless Vacation Rentals by Wyndham, and Christine Petersen, president of TripAdvisor for Business, also spoke during the webinar.
Kornacki said Endless Vacation Rentals is glad to see technological innovation, as is under discussion with the VRMA-Pegasus Solutions switch, and is taking a "wait and see" stance about its development.
And, Petersen, without commenting directly about the switch, said TripAdvisor, too, supports improvements to vacation rental distribution, as well as to inventory management for vacation rental owners.
Petersen said online booking and payment systems would solve many problems for consumers by adding another degree of trust, but could be disruptive to the way owners manage their properties.
Asked by webinar moderator Douglas Quinby, senior director of research at PhoCusWright, whether lines were blurring between the professionally managed and vacation rental by owner sides of the industry, the three panelists agreed that is the case.
Quinby noted that FlipKey, of which TripAdvisor holds a majority stake, initially focused on professionally managed properties but now plays both sides of the market.
Petersen pointed out that TripAdvisor acquired rental-by-owner oriented Holiday Lettings in the U.K. and sees opportunities for TripAdvisor in both spectrums of the market. TripAdvisor is looking "at both as potential wins," she said.
de Belloy of HomeAway, which offers inventory predominantly from individual owners but has been adding professionally managed vacation rentals and technology to facilitate it, said HomeAway has never made a distinction between the two vacation rental types and has found in surveys that 50% of travelers don't care about the difference.
HomeAway has recently acquired Instant Software and Escapia to assist in the online booking of managed properties, and de Belloy says HomeAway wants to make it easier for such properties to get distributed through its sites.
HomeAway's overriding goal, he adds, is to convince consumers to book vacation rentals instead of hotels.
Kornacki said from the vantage of Endless Vacation Rentals, which deals with professionally managed properties, some aspects of the two types of property ownership are melding, but contended that those offered by vacation rental management companies are "the way to go" because of numerous features, including loyalty programs and best rate guarantees.
The industry needs to educate consumers about the differences, Kornacki said.
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Disclaimer: The writer does some work with PhoCusWright as a research analyst.