Alternative Vacation Rental Booking Sites for Hosts

A good marketing strategy is key to making short-term vacation rentals a profitable investment. As part of this strategy, your property should be listed on websites that specialize in vacation rentals, ensuring rapid business growth.

Offering your property on alternative booking sites can help you reach a larger audience of potential renters. In turn, it will result in an increase in your occupancy rate and profits. Differentiating your listings also keeps you from relying too much on just one single platform. Plus, your property will be popularized among the rental marketplace as a result of all the reviews you gain from your varied guest portfolio!

The following overview looks at the key benefits of several of the top websites within the short-term rental industry

1. VRBO (an acronym of Vacation Rentals by Owner)

Established in 1995, they've been in the vacation rental business for over 25 years. In fact, VRBO is known to be an industry pioneer. They provide an online space for homeowners to advertise their vacation properties and make it easy for travelers to search 140,000+ rentals in over 100 countries globally. What's more, they have a grand audience of travelers who can be your potential guests too!

Key Features :

• Listing is free
• Only entire properties are allowed to be featured on its website
• You can customize your listing to fit the way you rent your space - Your Rules, Your Pricing, and rent out at your own discretion!
• Fraud protection technology ensures your personal information is always safe!
• $1M Liability Insurance in coverage per property, per year — at no additional cost to you.
• Extra Protection on reservations - Whenever you receive a booking, seek out the "Verified Traveler" badge so that you are sure you have reservations from verified travelers
• Extremely property manager-focused, providing 24/7 online support to property owners around the globe!
• VRBO has also rolled out new features like virtual tours and virtual assistants to make listing and managing your vacation home easier.

Fees:

A Two-way choice

1. You can pay an annual fee per property of $499
2. You can list for free and pay a fee per booking 5% per booking + 3% credit card processing fee.

Website: www.vrbo.com Related articles: How to List on VRBO VRBO | 7 Trends to Drive Better Bookings

2. Booking.com

One of the most popular choices among inquiring travelers. Travelers from around the world frequent it most extensively and is more often than not their “go-to” website for globe-trotting. Booking.com's listing database has over 26 million listings, covering more than 130,000 destinations in 226 countries. An excellent sales channel to expand both market reach and increased bookings.

Key Features :

• List any type of property - Apartments to villas and everything in between can be listed for free.
• Offers an easy-to-use interface and an instant booking feature that sets it ahead of the game.
• Offers Step-by-step guidance - how the platform works, best practices, and things to watch out for!
• Easily import details - To save you time, many of the details from your existing listings can be imported at the point of listing
• System for advanced search and filtering. Based on what the guest is searching for, it displays results tailored to their specifications. Hosts that are interested in reaching specific audiences can take advantage of this feature.
• The marketing system is top-notch, which means your property gets in front of as many interested and qualified travelers as possible.
• Booking.com will not take any commissions if the guest does not show up. You can charge them the full amount for no-shows!

Fees:

A fixed host fee of 15% on completed bookings, upon guest check-in. ** If a guest cancels a booking, no fee is charged.

Website www.booking.com Related articles: How to List on Booking.com | Step-by-Step Guide The Complete Beginners Guide to Booking.com

3. Expedia

Taking advantage of this dynamic platform is a must for every property manager! Expedia boasts over 2.9 million hotels, vacation rentals, and more than 500 airlines, making it an emerging key marketplace for vacation rental bookings. When you list a property on Expedia, your listing will also appear on other leading online travel sites like Hotels.com, Travelocity, Orbitz, Wotif, etc

Key Features:

• Listing is free
• Over 200 booking sites worldwide, attracting travelers from all over the world, whether they are long-range planners or last- minute bookers.
• Offers a customer loyalty program - encouraging repeat guests over time
• Access to real-time data to become more competitive, more visible, and increase bookings
• Rent your property your way. Set pricing, availability, rules, policies and more to fit your needs
• Renowned for cost-effective holiday packages where guests can book and combine their complete itinerary, including air tickets, car rentals, accommodations etc.

Fees:

A commission of 15% of the total amount per booking Website: www.expedia.com Related articles : How to List on Expedia | Step-by-Step Guide

4. HouseStay

This is the ideal platform to list high-quality short-term rentals! Established in 2017, the HouseStay Platform comprises a curated selection of fully furnished turnkey apartments and homes. They cater mainly to business travelers and cooperations, looking for long-term furnished accommodations with high standards. Housestay requires a minimum duration of 30 days (+) and is very suitable for property managers who are interested in this business model.

Key Features:

• Listing is free
• All listings on the platform should be fully furnished entire accommodations
• All amenities and utility bills are to be included in the monthly rent
• The 100% fully automated booking process, along with custom dashboards and workflows, makes it easy for tenants at the point of booking
• Tenants can search for properties, send messages and booking requests, complete background checks, sign leases, and make rent payments all through the HouseStay system.
• Your property needs to Pass HouseStay Home Inspection (this is scheduled by HouseStay)
• Perfect to promote temporary accommodations, month-to-month housing, corporate housing, etc.

Fees :

A Flat 5% commission is charged on the total rental fee (per booking)

Website: https://www.housestay.com

5. Tripadvisor

Tripadvisor Rentals is a popular web-based rental listing service where thousands of vacation rental managers and owners list their property listings, from private rooms to luxurious villas. Travelers around the world can access Tripadvisor Rentals through its family of international brands-FlipKey, Holiday Lettings, Niumba, Vacation Home Rentals, and HouseTrip. TripAdvisor is the world's largest travel site and has over 500 million reviews and over 390 million monthly users, so it has the ability to gain trust from travelers, helping owners get bookings for their rentals, consistently.

Key Features:

• Listing is free
• TripAdvisor will automatically translate your property listing into 26 languages and display it on 26 TripAdvisor websites.
• Tripadvisor Instant Book feature provides travelers the experience they want while helping improve your acceptance rate and appear higher in search results.
• Listing Strength from Tripadvisor Rentals is a tool designed to ensure your listing is in top shape to attract bookings
• Tripadvisor’s Certificate of Excellence accolade has been the mark of quality in the travel industry. Receiving the Certificate of Excellence is a simple yet effective way to prove to travelers that your vacation rental listings are outstanding.

Fees :

A 3% host fee is charged per booking. This commission is based on the host’s total rent, including any required and optional fees specified for the property. Website: www.tripadvisor.com

6. Agoda.com

Agoda.com is one of the fastest-growing online accommodation platforms worldwide listing over 925,000 properties providing services in 38 different languages. Agoda reaches 2.3 million travelers in 65 countries. A part of Booking Holdings Inc., the world leader in online travel & related services.

Key Benefits:

• Sign up & listing is free!
• All the tools to help you manage your property are free!
• Simply list your property, set the nightly price you want to earn, then sit back, relax and watch the bookings flow in!
• communicate with guests, manage bookings from your mobile device, and sync calendars across platforms.
• 24/7 multilingual customer service & support around the world
• Seamless connectivity with over 150 supported connectivity partners globally
• Incremental bookings by tapping into the fast-growing Asian markets

Website: www.agoda.com

7. HomeStay

Homestay focuses exclusively on hosted housing where the host is always present. Homestay focuses on cultural exchange between a local host and a visiting international guest. A homestay allows guests the opportunity to stay in a warm, welcoming household. Currently, they cover over 33,000 homestays in 176 countries.

Key Features :

• Short- and long-term stay options are available
• You control and set your own prices. (Remember long-term guests will look for a competitive monthly rate.)
• Deposit Payment Option - avail up to 25% upfront two days prior to guest arrival
• “Monday to Friday” only option if you like to keep weekends to yourself
• You can advertise your room to holiday-goers, international students/interns and professionals.
• Guests book homestays for nightly, weekly or monthly stays. Set your preferred length of stay to ensure you receive the most suitable guests.

Fees :

15% commission per booking

Website: www.homestay.com

8. Plum Guide

Plum Guide is not just a booking platform. It's a benchmark for exceptional destination homes. Plum Guide is a relatively new vacation rental website that offers a curated selection of vacation homes and apartments that can be booked online. The company launched in 2016 and is based in London. Plum Guide currently lists over 5,000,000+ vacation homes online. The choice is overwhelming, with properties located in a number of popular destinations worldwide.

Key Features :

Signing up to list with Plum Guide is completely free. Mandatory The Plum Test - In order to qualify your listing, Plum Guide's home critics have a rigorous vetting process. In the event your property qualifies for listing, the plum guide team will build/create the listing for you with all the necessary information When you choose to enable instant book for your listing, you can require ID verification via Onfido Preferred Guests - Plum Guide uses a Matchmaking service which accounts for 75% of the bookings, which means someone from the Plum Guide team has already interacted with the guest prior. On this platform, you will find that guests generally stay longer thus increasing your occupancy rate and fewer changeovers!

Fees :

A service fee of 3% for any reservations you receive, plus any applicable local and sales taxes. This fee is a special rate for individual homeowners. Also, a fee of £300 from your first booking is charged to cover the cost of curation and a visit from one of our Home Critics.

Website: www.plumguide.com

9.Holidu

Holidu is an established vacation rental platform based in Munich, they are a metasearch engine specialized in short-term rentals. It aggregates listings from hundreds of vacation rental websites so travelers can compare over 15 million listings. Every month, their site receives more than 30 million web visitors and over 100,000 bookings. Reach millions of travelers and enjoy individual support for your vacation rental business either as an individual property owner or an agency.

Key Features :

• List your property for free
• A wide variety of properties can be listed, including vacation homes, houseboats, lofts, farms, cottages, private apartments, villas, and mansions.
• Synchronized booking calendar
• Free customer service for you and your guests
• Free professional photos and description texts
• A Convenient app to manage your properties and bookings on the go

Fees:

15% commission on base price per booking.

Website: www.holidu.com

10. Glamping Hub

Glamping Hub was launched in 2013 as a booking platform for unique accommodations and as a resource for sustainable tourism. Known as one of the world's leading luxury camping websites, the site, which started accepting reservations in 2014, has seen an explosion of interest and today, has an average of 10,000 booking requests a month and access to over 35,000 properties worldwide, each featuring a rare or novel setting while providing easy access to nature.

Key Features:

• List your vacation rental with no contract and no fees to join!
• Dedicated marketing professionals create a curated listing to advertise your rental property and highlight all its special features.
• Check if your accommodation is glamping before listing it here
• Gain access to a global community exposure with 125k+ followers on social media platforms and a specialized PR team!

Fees:

4% commission on confirmed bookings.

Website: www.glamphub.com
If you would like to learn more about glamping read our comprehensive article on What is Glamping? Plus Tips to Get Started!

Last But Not Least,

As a property manager, think about your goals and your target audience before picking a listing platform. You can use this information to tailor your offer and choose the best location to advertise your rental on top vacation rental sites in order to maximize your earnings. The more channels you have the greater the possibility for you to keep your reservations schedule filled, even in the off-peak season. It can be time-consuming to manage multiple listings on various vacation rental sites regardless of the platform you choose. Keep up with all your vacation listing sites with vacation rental software so you are always prepared and ahead of the game.

At Hostaway, we provide vacation rental software and offer deeper channel integrations than anyone else. Hostaway provides property managers with the flexibility of the most advanced, most comprehensive, and easy-to-use property management system for vacation rentals, with award-winning support. Manage inquiries, recurring guests, distribution channels, owners, and staff in one place. Contact us for more information.