HomeAway primarily acts as a vacation-renting listing service, but it just brought in a PayPal executive as chief operating officer and continues to explore payment and booking initiatives.
"We do believe there is a significant opportunity to improve the simplicity and safety of financial transactions in the vacation rental industry," says HomeAway CEO Brian Sharples, responding to questions about the appointment. "As such we continue to work on a number of initiatives that hopefully will benefit both suppliers and travelers from a payment and booking perspective."
"Brent's experience in global payment solutions will greatly enhance these efforts," Sharples says.
Brent Bellm is the new COO, replacing Andrew Harris, who passed away last month.
Bellm spent the last nine years at PayPal, where he most previously was vice president of global product and experience. He also served four years as CEO of PayPal Europe, and at eBay in 2001 he was an active participant in eBay acquisition of PayPal.
HomeAway also announced the hiring of Tom Hale as chief product officer, a new position.
Hale most recently was chief product officer at Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, and from 1995 to 2007 served in leadership roles at Macromedia and Adobe Systems. At Adobe, Hale directed the redesign of the Acrobat user experience, and at Macromedia he played a key role in the evolution of Flash Player, HomeAway says.
HomeAway says Bellm's appointment bolsters the company's "knowledge about international operations, Internet marketplace strategy and global payment solutions."
Consumers seeking to book a HomeAway vacation rental today make payments -- in a variety of forms -- directly with property owners or property managers.
As HomeAway expands internationally, global payment solutions, such as PayPal, may come more into play.
HomeAway currently advises renters if they book a vacation rental property internationally, then the property owner or manager may request a bank to wire-transfer the funds.
"Our mission," Sharples says, "is to make finding and booking a vacation rental or B&B as easy as a hotel, and we still have significant work ahead to fully achieve that goal."