Vacation home platform Homeaway announced several changes in its executive positions along with its first quarter earnings report today.
Total revenue is expected to be in the range of $493 to $500 million, representing year-over-year growth of approximately 10% to 12%
The company says it has 465,000 listings now online bookable, meaning it is making steady progress toward having most of its listing online bookable by the end of 2016. Today it’s at 40% of inventory.
Online travel companies Expedia Inc and Priceline Group have hinted that having instantly bookable inventory is a key sticking point in any possible acquisition of the company.
Select Homeaway listings are set to go live on Expedia's European platform; they're already on Expedia (US).
Homeaway says its pay-per-booking service, in which homeowners only pay for bookings they receive, has been popular, with 362,000 signed up. The alternative is the original model of paying an annual subscription fee, which is still the case with 724,000 users.
About half its total listings are now e-commerce-enabled, and e-commerce enabling is seeing "triple-digit growth."
Total revenue increased 12.6 % to $119 million, compared with the same period a year earlier. About 30% of its revenues are euro-denominated, and the strengthening of the US dollar against the euro has impacted revenue.
For full year 2015, it's forecasting revenue of $493 to $500 million, representing a year-over-year rise of about 10% to 12%. That is a downward revision from its earlier estimate.
Leadership changes
President and chief operating officer Brent Bellm is resigning in June. CEO Brian Sharples will take on the role of president. Chief product officer Tom Hale will step into the role of COO, overseeing all product marketing and customer experience.
The new chief revenue officer is Jon Gray, promoted from senior vice president and originally the the third employee at HomeAway.
Jeff Hurst becomes chief strategy officer from having previously overseen e-commerce. Jeff Mosler is being promoted to chief service officer
Carl Shepherd, co-founder of HomeAway and chief strategy and development officer, will retire in the second half of the year, but will remain on the HomeAway board of directors as a director.
HomeAway’s Atchison said that about 12% of its listings overlap with listings on Airbnb, the peer-to-peer giant.
CEO Brian Sharples answered investor questions on a conference call. He says there's a lot more opportunity to get more aggressive in offering ways to pay for premium listing spots in search.
Sharples said the majority of its business is still subscription. In Europe its take rate is 5 to 7%, and about 4% in the United States.
In comparison, bure-bookings sites tend to have take rates at about 10%.
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