Where to list your vacation rental property online

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You’ve furnished your vacation home. Stocked it with all the guest necessities. And now you’re ready to open the doors to your first guests. But where do you find those guests? Or, rather, where will they find you? Travelers today have more places to browse vacation rentals than ever before. The key to your success is to diversify, instead of simply listing on one site. The equation is simple: More websites your home is listed on = More exposure + more earnings.

Here, we’ll sum up some of the biggest booking sites where individual homeowners can list their properties. Focus your efforts here first. Then, you can explore more niche sites to fill in the gaps.


The largest vacation rental listing sites

Airbnb

Who hasn’t heard of Airbnb by now? Since its founding in 2008, Airbnb first revolutionized the industry by allowing hosts to rent out even individual bedrooms in their own homes (merging the sharing economy with short-term rentals) and alternative accommodations like glamping sites, boats, and treehouses. Today, they are a household name around the world. While most vacation rental sites focus mainly on larger homes in traditional vacation destinations, Airbnb also offers many studios and urban lofts that attract solo travelers and couples.

Reasons to list your vacation rental on Airbnb:

  • Brand recognition. The term “Airbnb” has now become synonymous with vacation rentals.
  • They attract some of the biggest numbers of travelers seeking vacation rentals worldwide. Since their inception, they've hosted more than 800 million visitors.1
  • They are big with millennial travelers. In 2018, 58% of their hosts and guests were millennials.2
  • It’s free to list your property, but you pay a fee per booking.

Vrbo

Owned by the Expedia Group, Vrbo merged with its sister vacation rental site HomeAway in 2019. Vrbo was one of the first vacation rental sites that developed a prominent, loyal following in the U.S., mostly made up of families looking for vacation homes with multiple bedrooms. In fact, 70% percent of Vrbo properties are big enough to include two or more bedrooms and can sleep up to six guests.3 Today, Vrbo garners 15.9 million unique worldwide visitors each month.4

Reasons to list your vacation rental on Vrbo:

  • As part of the Expedia Group, Vrbo offers the possibility for your home to be distributed on the group’s other sites, such as Expedia or Travelocity, multiplying your exposure across the web.
  • They’re popular with families. According to a recent Vrbo survey, 87% of their guests travel with a family member.5
  • You can choose from two payment models: a fee per booking, or an annual subscription fee for unlimited bookings.
  • If you consistently go the extra mile for guests and have exemplary reviews, Vrbo may ask you to join their free Premier Host program, which gives you a boost in the search results and a trusted badge to put on your listing.
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Booking.com

A travel industry veteran, Booking.com is one of the oldest online travel agencies (OTAs) and one of the largest. It was founded in 1996 and now lists more than 28 million accommodations, including vacation homes, hotels, luxury resorts, and B&Bs.

Reasons to list your vacation rental on Booking.com:

  • Its sheer audience size and name recognition. More than 1.5 million room nights are booked on their platform every day.6
  • Because your property will show up in search results alongside hotels in your area, you can effectively compete with nearby hotels for bookings. About 42% of nights booked on Booking.com are for vacation properties other than a hotel.7
  • It's free to list. However, Booking.com charges a commission for each booking.
  • The platform is available in 43 languages, making it easier for international guests to book.
  • Bookings are instantly confirmed, meaning no back and forth communication with potential guests.

Tripadvisor & FlipKey

Although best known for its unfiltered hotel reviews, Tripadvisor has joined the ranks of online travel agencies by allowing travelers to book accommodations directly from their website. It boasts 463 million monthly users worldwide,8 one of the largest audiences of any travel site.

Reasons to list your vacation rental on Tripadvisor:

  • The platform shares its inventory with its vacation rental site, FlipKey. So, you pay for one platform and are featured on both.
  • It’s a trusted platform, known for its unbiased, honest traveler reviews.
  • Potential guests can communicate with you directly through the Tripadvisor platform.
  • It is free to list, although you pay a commission for every booking made on the site.

Other vacation rental listing sites

With the popularity of vacation rental sites like Vrbo and Airbnb, many other sites have popped up that market to niche travelers. Other sites to look into include:


The right partner can simplify it all

The more places you can showcase your vacation rental online, the more exposure you get to travelers looking for a home just like yours. That's why many owners choose to list their vacation homes on multiple sites—even though staying on top of all those listings can consume a lot of time and energy.

Feeling overwhelmed with juggling too many listings and calendars? We’re here to help. Vacasa is a property manager and partner who can make channel marketing simple as ever. That’s because we’ll handle everything for you—managing, syncing, responding to guest inquiries, and marketing your listings across Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and more. (It's all automatically included in our management fee, so you get maximum rewards with minimal effort.)

Even better? Access to prestigious vacation rental listing sites beyond what we’ve mentioned here so far. For one, Vacasa.com is a powerful e-commerce platform and the source of about a third of our overall bookings—in other words, a major source of revenue, exclusively for our homeowners. Your home could even potentially appear on highly curated sites like Homes & Villas by Marriott International, which only partner with select professional management companies like Vacasa.

And those are just a couple of the perks of working with the pros.
See what it’s like to have it all >

Vacation rental listing sites FAQ

Yes, listing your home on both Airbnb and Vrbo—two of the most popular vacation rental sites on the market today—will multiply your chances of capturing attention and reservations. While the platforms’ main audiences differ (Airbnb is popular with millennial travelers, while Vrbo is a favorite of families), both of their audiences are so vast in size that you’ll get in front of many other types of travelers (Baby Boomers, couples, and solo travelers, for instance) by listing your home in both places.

There are seemingly endless ways to market your vacation home and get it in front of a wide audience. At Vacasa, we like to think creatively, while also leveraging tried and tested marketing strategies. Some tips for DIY vacation home owners:

  • Narrow in on the audience who would most likely be drawn to your home.
  • List your property on several vacation rental and travel sites, instead of relying on just one platform.
  • Use social media to promote your home and your destination.
  • Hire a professional photographer to build a portfolio of eye-catching photos that you can spread out online on your website, listing profiles, social media, etc.
  • Write listing descriptions and blog posts with keywords in mind to improve rankings on Google’s search engine results page (SERP).

Explore more vacation rental marketing tips >

A channel partner is an industry term that refers to a vacation home listing site, such as Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com. It’s generally best to cast a wide net and list your home on several channels. This means your property will have maximum exposure online. At Vacasa, we partner directly with the world’s top vacation home booking channels in addition to listing on our own website.

Want even more help marketing your vacation home? Let’s chat about all the ways to get more visibility.

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California DRE #01523013

Vacasa offers property management and other real estate services directly through Vacasa LLC and through Vacasa LLC's licensed subsidiaries. Click here for more information about Vacasa's licensed real estate brokerage/property manager in your state. Vacasa’s licensed real estate brokerages/property managers include: Vacasa Alabama LLC; Vacasa Arizona LLC; Vacasa of Arkansas LLC; Vacasa Colorado LLC (Micah Victory); Vacasa Delaware LLC, 302-541-8999; Vacasa Florida LLC; Vacasa Illinois LLC 481.014072, Micah Victory Managing Broker Lic# 471.021837; Vacasa Louisiana LLC, Dana MacCord, Principal Broker, ph 504.252.0155 (Licensed in LA); Vacasa Michigan LLC, 602-330-9934; Vacasa Missouri LLC, Vicki Lyn Brown, Designated Broker; Vacasa Nevada LLC; Vacasa New Hampshire LLC,45 NH-25, Meredith, NH 03253, Susan Scanlon, Broker of Record; Vacasa Minnesota, Broker: Micah Victory, license #40877637; Vacasa New Mexico LLC, 503-345-9399; Vacasa New York LLC, 888-433-0068, Susan Scanlon, Real Estate Broker; Vacasa North Carolina LLC; Vacasa Oregon LLC; Vacasa Pennsylvania LLC; Vacation Palm Springs Real Estate, Inc., California DRE #01523013, Mark Graham, California DRE #00700720; Vacasa Real Estate LLC (licensed in Texas, Debra Brock, Designated Broker); Vacasa Real Estate LLC (licensed in Washington, Robert Brush, Designated Broker); Vacasa Seasonals Inc., California DRE #02160171, Lisa Renee Stevens, California DRE #01485234; Vacasa South Carolina LLC; Vacasa South Dakota LLC; Vacasa Tennessee LLC; Vacasa Vacation Rentals of Hawaii LLC, 69-201 Waikoloa Beach Dr. Ste. #2F17, Waikoloa, HI 96738; Vacasa Vacation Rentals of Montana LLC, Terah M. Young, Licensed Property Manager; Vacasa Virginia LLC; Vacasa Wisconsin LLC; Vacasa Wyoming LLC. In Canada, this advertisement is provided by Vacasa Canada ULC, CPBC lic. number 75826, 172 Asher Rd. V1X 3H6 Kelowna, BC.