这篇文章从房东的角度来比较airbnb 和 VRBO，Homeaway

到目前为止，还没有人能够回答我的问题：为什么它们的经济效应差别这么大？
从下文来看，airbnb 以分租为主，顾客和房东年轻人比较多，广告效应极大，软件比较先进。这么说，它是不是一个泡沫？

http://www.quora.com/How-is-Airbnb-different-from-HomeAway-and-VRBO

I list on both sites and while they both do the same thing, there are differences in both the experience and the demographic that each site attracts.

Airbnb is the new exciting kid on the block and is dominating public awareness in a blaze of publicity. This is attracting droves of home owners who can list for free to try out the concept. Its interesting to note that, anecdotally for me at least, almost all of the owners who list on Airbnb do solely on the site. They tend to be younger owners, sub 40 and most of them have never heard of VRBO or Homeaway. They are essentially completely new to short term rental market and finding their way through it. The problem this causes is that most of them have no idea what they are doing and you will see badly written ads, Photos taken with Iphones and pricing that is completely out of Sync with the market throughout the site. Airbnb understand this and offer guides, Free Photography, a pricing recommendation tool and as much aid as they can to help hosts provide a better experience.

The ranking experience on Airbnb is based on the popularity of your listing with a boost being given to new users to generate some early bookings and keep them interested. This results in a rapid flood of bookings early on, which then gradually drop over the months following as your ranking drops back down. People with a complete listing will rise above those with an incomplete one and more inquiries keep you high which should bring the good hosts closer to the top on average.


Homeaway and VRBO are established a lot longer and originally targeted a Vacation rental / holiday home type of listing. They were the dominant player in the market and despite Airbnb's rise, they still are. They have been buying up local vacation rental sites and integrating them into the homeaway network and are growing through expansion. The hosts tend to be professionals who list for a living. There is more crossover now as Airbnb Listings bleed over onto Homeaway and there is a marked rise in City listings, not traditionally "Holiday homes".

They have recently added a free listing option that allows hosts to list and pay 10% of bookings rather than the subscription fee and the number of listings has grown by 20% from 500,000 to over 600,000 in the last 5 months alone.

The site does not have the search functionality, the flash or the features of Airbnb. The app is basic and does not work very well from a hosts point of view and misses much critical functionality.

VRBO and Homeaway however does have a killer combination of significantly less competing hosts and more guests, which delivers bookings in spades.

The demographic of guests on Homeaway is also older, 30's + families or groups of family members travelling together. Typically they are experienced vacation rental travellers, looking for a better standard and are willing & able to pay more than their Airbnb counterparts. They book longer stays, usually months ahead and for me by the time Airbnb guests come looking my places are almost fully booked with Homeaway guests.

As experienced guests I also trust them to look after the rental a bit more, although I say that in consideration of the fact that I have had no issues with any guest on either site.

The bottom line is that the Airbnb site is better, it will probably attract more new customers and you can find some good deals from inexperienced hosts underpricing themselves.

Personally, Homeaway delivers 5x more bookings at a higher rate and is the clear winner, for me and my area at least.