Blog

From Vrbo to Airbnb: New listing, no reviews. How to break the curse of the Cold Start?
You’ve probably experienced this vicious circle: Properties that already have a lot of good reviews rank higher on OTAs (online ...

Instagram Marketing For Your Airbnb & Vacation Rental Business
At the Short Stay Week 2021 vacation rental conference, the Rental Scale-Up team presented how it grows its emailing list ...

Vrbo 2022 strategy: Focus on large families, more listings on Expedia and Hotels.com
Vrbo had a pretty good year in 2021. So, where is the company, part of the Expedia Group, heading to? ...

How to get the highest channel yield for your vacation rentals
Let’s start with getting a little background information on who is Annie Holcombe. A vacation rental insider, Annie had an ...

Airbnb: Best financial results ever. But why are long stays plateauing? How are listing numbers doing?
We'll see whether Airbnb has won its bets, looking at the company's data and statements with a grain of salt. For instance, if long stays have progressed as a share of booked nights, they actually seem to be plateauing to 2020 levels in absolute room night number, according to our calculations).

Scaling your vacation rental business? An outsourced reservation specialist can help.
At Rental Scale-Up, we connect with people from all corners of the vacation rental industry. Some are well-known names hitting ...

Airbnb 2021 Winter Release
On Tuesday, November 9, Brian Chesky revealed the Airbnb 2021 Winter Release. It includes 53 upgrades and innovations that make it easier to host and support the changing needs of guests.

European STR market: September data boosted by cross-border travel and higher ADRs, yet last-minute bookings still the norm in Q4 2021
In this month’s review, AirDNA looks at short-term rental demand (nights stayed) in Europe, which is still working its way back ...

Mid and long-term stay specialist Spotahome: €25m funding, adapting to COVID, expanding to more markets, and what Airbnb & Booking can learn
On Rental Scale-Up, we often talk about the trend of short-term rental companies moving to long stays (e.g. Airbnb monthly ...

Why you need to test your wifi using your Airbnb app before November 4
If you are an Airbnb host, you need to act fast to update the wifi speed displayed in your listing. ...

Does Dynamic Pricing software make you lose control over your business? Beyond answers (Bonus: Why they have a Customer Advisory Board)
Jess Kelso is Director of customer Experience, for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, at Beyond. In the run-up to the ...

Short Stay Week 2021: Alexis Barceló from ABAL Consulting
Alexis Barceló is the CEO of ABAL Consulting, a revenue management expertise specialist. In the run-up to the 2021 edition of ...

VITUR Summit 2021 (Malaga): Beyond and Alfred Smart Systems
The VITUR summit, a major European holiday rental conference, is taking place in Malaga, Spain, from October 28, 2021, to Friday, ...

Investment: Why are scaling property managers and listing sites turning to crowdfunding?
We recently covered crowdfunding campaigns by property management company GuestReady and luxury vacation rental listing site Plum Guide. Crowdfunding is ...

Plum Guide seeks $1.4m from crowdfunding investors, at $146m valuation
Plum Guide (plumguide.com), one of the leading luxury vacation rental distribution channels, has just launched a crowdfunding campaign. The London-based ...

VITUR Summit 2021: Key conference speakers give you a preview
The VITUR summit, a major European holiday rental conference, is taking place in Malaga, Spain, from October 28, 2021, to Friday, Oct 29, 2021. To give you a preview of this crucial in-person conference, we've asked some of its key speakers to hop on a short video call with us.

Short-term rental supply drops by 75% in key cities. Are black sheep gone? Airbnb reacting by working with cities and pushing its non-urban “unique stays“ narrative, despite the meager listing numbers.
COVID-19 run ruined into international and domestic demand, but new regulations have kicked in. For instance, on October 1, 2021, the number of listings in Amsterdam dropped by 78%, after platforms started enforcing mandatory registrations. It was a 13,000 drop in listings for just Airbnb. The story is the same from Prague to Vienna, Barcelona to Budapest.

Study of 127,183 Airbnb guest complaints: What we learned and what we didn’t.
A recent study of 127,183 Airbnb complaints on Twitter has caught the attention of many Airbnb hosts and property managers. While our Rental ...

Short Stay Week 2021: Rented.com’s Andrew McConnell on unlocking underutilized inventory
Andrew McConnell is the CEO of Rented.com. In the run-up to the 2021 edition of the Short Stay Week, he ...

Airbnb vs Vrbo vs Booking: Stealing the best from one another (supply, positioning, pricing)
Airbnb, Booking, and Vrbo are busy finding ways to take the thunder away from each other. Vrbo wants Airbnb’s supply. ...