Expedia Group Names Vrbo Primary Home-Sharing Brand
May 02 2019 - 8:24PM
Dow Jones News
By Aisha Al-Muslim
Expedia Group Inc. (EXPE) will use its vacation home rental
brand Vrbo as the nameplate for expanding its alternative
accommodations business world-wide, a move that comes as the
company faces increasing competition in the sector.
Expedia changed the name of its global alternative
accommodations division to Vrbo from HomeAway, the online travel
company said Thursday. Through a phased roll-out, the company plans
to expand Vrbo to international markets over the next year or
more.
The HomeAway.com and Abritel.fr websites will continue to
operate under the Vrbo segment. Vrbo now offers over 1.9 million
bookable listings online.
Part of the reason for the change, the Bellevue, Wash.-based
company said, is that Vrbo has outperformed HomeAway in the U.S. as
a search term based on Google Trends data.
"HomeAway has served us well over the years but was originally
chosen for its descriptive nature for what was an emerging part of
travel," John Kim, president of Vrbo, said in a statement. "Now
that booking a home for a trip is mainstream, we need a lifestyle
brand that travelers easily remember and love."
Vrbo was founded in 1995 and acquired by HomeAway in 2006.
Expedia bought HomeAway in December 2015.
In March, Expedia introduced a marketing campaign with a new
logo and pronunciation for Vrbo, an acronym for vacation rental by
owner where each letter is pronounced, to "ver-boh." The company
said its research indicated consumers found the new pronunciation
easier to say and easier to remember than HomeAway.
However, Expedia also said Thursday growth of Vrbo slowed from
the prior year, with gross bookings rising 5% compared with the
fourth quarter's 15%.
Shares in Expedia fell 3.5% in after-market trading as the
company also narrowed its quarterly loss by 25% to $103 million and
revenue rose 4% to $2.61 billion.
Making Vrbo its primary alternative accommodation brand followed
struggles with search engine optimization, company executives told
analysts during an earnings conference call Thursday. The company
expects the slower gross bookings growth trends to persist for now
as it works through its changes, but expects Vrbo's gross bookings
trends to improve later this year, they said.
"Despite this near-term slowdown, consolidating the bulk of our
efforts behind the Vrbo brand globally and operating on a unified
world class e-commerce platform will allow us to maximize our
potential in alternative accommodations in the coming years,"
Expedia Group Chief Executive Mark Okerstrom said on the call.
The company's home-rental businesses competes with Airbnb Inc.
and other home-sharing companies in one of the lodging industry's
hottest segments.
Marriott International Inc. (MAR) said recently it plans to move
deeper into the home-sharing space.
Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (HLT) has said it isn't a
business it is currently pursuing.
Marriott, the world's biggest hotel operator, said it will soon
offer accommodations in about 2,000 high-end homes throughout 100
markets across the U.S., Europe and Latin America.
"I think it's super interesting," Mr. Okerstrom said on the call
about Marriott getting more into home-sharing. "I think it
generally could be a really good thing for the industry to add this
type of professionalization to the space and I think we're very
hopeful that we can help our partners as they develop these new
inventory types, just like we have with all of their other
ones."
Write to Aisha Al-Muslim at aisha.al-muslim@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 02, 2019 20:09 ET (00:09 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HLT.WI)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jun 2024 to Jul 2024
Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HLT.WI)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jul 2023 to Jul 2024