Airbnb v Vrbo

[Peter1]

A Host recently published an article in Insider where she made side-by-side comparisons between Airbnb and Vrbo.  Ultimately, she gives her thumbs up to Airbnb.

Do you have any experience using more than one platform? How do they compare?

In your experience, what can Airbnb do better that is done by other platforms?

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-airbnb-better-vrbo-home-renter-2022-8

[Basha0]

After the flawed June rollout and consequential lack of bookings, I added VRBO. I have had zero issues and my calendar filled. I had been with ABB for 7 years without issues but felt that having all my biz with one company may not be the best any longer

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

From my friend's and my experience, Airbnb guests are much much better than those from Booking. com, probably because you can't review and rate your guests there.

I don't like BC platform design and find it user-unfriendly and ugly

They also charge a higher host fee than Airbnb

But.... as @Basha0  mentioned, something went wrong with Airbnb's summer release changes and hosts around the world are complaining about the drop in views and bookings after the last rollout. All my friends hosts say they have almost no bookings from Airbnb and they are fully booked this summer only through Booking .com. I really don't like BC and I am still hesitant to put my listings there but it seems I will have to.

VRBO is not popular in my area and I had just a few VRBO guests. Their platform is simple to use and everything was fine but I don't have enough experience with them to be able to make a comparison with Airbnb

[Ruth413]

@Peter1   I have always used both for the past 4 years.  Both have their pros and cons and when you work out how to use their platforms, both are pretty simple.

The percentage of guests from VRBO started off pretty low.  But now I would say that I get 50% from each and after this summers release, I am getting more bookings from VRBO than Airbnb.   I am still trying to get my head around what has happened with Airbnb as my views and bookings on Airbnb have dropped dramatically.  So I am feeling fortunate that my listings were already in place with reviews.

I did find you got a different kind of guest from both booking platforms,  Airbnb was on the younger side, but again this year I think this has changed and we are seeing it more balanced.

[Sudsrung0]

I think it depends on where you are in the world, for us here in Thailand Airbnb is the number one I did use to use BDC in my other properties, I have now stopped using them their charges are 17.5% and the guest are real Cheap Charlies, 

VRBO, I've had inquiries but never a booking,

Trip Advisor, 1 or 2 bookings per year, I wish we could get business from them they only charge 3% I think their site is pretty easy to use, The one thing I dont like is for International host they will only pay via Paypal they wont do bank transfer. Also Trip advisor list you on 3 other sites.

The rest forget about it,

Only yesterday I was looking through VRBO site and you can make a video which I thought was good idea I might look into that,

[Wendy117]

@Peter1    I have always used both platforms but had instant book on Airbnb and requests only on VRBO.  I manually update the VRBO calendar as I have a complex listing with linked apartments which Airbnb handles beautifully but VRBO does not.  Over the past 5 years I would say 70% bookings Airbnb and 30% VRBO.  VRBO guests plan and book  ahead and are generally better guests.  But just this month it has all changed.  When Airbnb released their last change to charge hosts for cancelled bookings I switched autobook from Airbnb to VRBO - also a reason was the quality of guests from Airbnb have been going downhill fast and they are sooo entitled.  It is much more complicated with bookings on VRBO with linked properties but the result has been amazing - I only have a few gaps left to fill from now until April.  Maybe this is because guests are finally over the Covid scare and those that plan ahead are now comfortable to do so.  I am in Australia.