Room Rentals on Travelocity, Expedia, etc

[Suzanne302]

So, I'm starting to see homeshare room rentals on sites like Travelocity.

As a matter of fact, when you sign up, it says you are automatically listed on all partner sites including Expedia, Hotels.com, and Trivago.

Has anyone looked into this further? I'm just wondering what the experience was like...

[Kelly149]

@Suzanne302 I've had a "room" listing on VRBO for awhile. 

No traffic, I think VRBO guests tend to be looking for whole house

[Paul154]

@Suzanne302  It is exciting to have  competition from other sites. However, The devil is in the details and execution...

About 4 years ago, I was so excited to advertise my rental on Zillow ( I think). This company shared my listing, or the information was  copied by other rental sites. Unfortunately, none of these sites became the "Go To" site for renters. Unfortunately, Craigslist still reigns 😞

Worse than that I could not control the misinformation and imperfect copying of my details.  I got enquiries months later, with no knowledge from where the interest was coming from. 

I hope Airbnb gets good competition, it will help everyone.

[Ben551]

This thread reminds me to share a security tip...

I have a Google alert setup for my address and listing (one each), for security purposes... it is quite interesting seeing results pop up now and then. That’s how I learned my place had been listed on AlltheRooms (well not listed, but crawled and shared?)... it’s a good idea to set this up to get ahead of any pop up copies. It is also one of the ways people “catch” those illegal Airbnb party organisers in Chicago.

[Beth80]

Since you mentioned Alltheroom I decided to look in our area. Yep, there are my rooms. But it takes you directly to abnb. So no worries. Interesting to see what else was listed though. Thanks for the tips!

[Jody79]

@Ben551 Hi Ben, how do you set up a google alert? I think we’d be interested in that.

[Ben551]

Oh heya @Jody79 no prob, I’ll post a link to the official instructions

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/4815696?hl=en

[Jody79]

Thank you @Ben551!

[Adrienne107 · Accepted solution]

Yep. The vacation-rental / homeshare market is a hot space now, and everybody wants a piece of the action. Google jumped in as of five days ago as well. I think it's only a matter of time until vacation rentals are treated as micro-hotels rather than peoples' homes. My husband and I are currently working on creating a community site that is dedicated to helping hosts and guests get to know each other as humans, not commodities, and share their experiences so to help improve the experience of "localiting." Localiting = choosing to stay in individually owned homes while traveling and to host strangers in one's home.  Please ping me if you're interested--we are heading into beta testing shortly and could use some engaged and enthusiastic community members to offer feedback. 🙂

[Kimberly54]

@Adrienne107, I am interested!

Best,

[Kimberly54]

@Adrienne107, this is going to be tricky... I can't seem to message you privately, and with a topic like this you're likely to come under a little scrutiny.  My contact info, and you'll need to space this together, is knox "at" ucsd "dot" edu.  Give this a try.  

I'm so totally in this for the cultural experience (quite literally, I grew up either hosting or being hosted)!  I'm overpriced to keep out the lower end of humanity, and I also hire out the heavy-lifting-type cleaning.  A little folding money is cool, but not my motivator.  Love meeting new people and as a bit of an introvert... This way is a lot of fun.

Best,

[Jody79]

@Adrienne107 I’m interested!