Vacation Rentals

European Union lay outs data-sharing plan to boost transparency of p2p rentals • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 7, 2022Posted in eu short term rental initiative, Government & Policy, transparency, Vacation RentalsNo Comments

The European Commission has put forward proposed rules for short term rental platforms focused on boosting transparency and mandatory data-sharing — in what looks like a ‘softly does it’ approach to addressing concerns attached to the rise of vacation rentals on platforms like Airbnb. While p2p vacation rental platforms remain popular options for European citizens taking city breaks, they also continue to face opposition from residents of heavily touristed cities for driving up housing costs. The EU’s executive has been considering how to tackle this popular yet often controversy sector for some time — opening a consultation last fall for a short-term rental (STR) initiative that it said it wanted to develop “responsible, fair and trusted growth in short-term rentals, as part of a well-balanced tourist ecosystem”. The upshot is a proposal today centered on regulating data-sharing by short term rental platforms — an area it has previously focused on, securing an agreement with a number of major platforms (Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor) back in March 2020 to share some data so the bloc’s statistical office could publish reports. Today it said the new proposal aims to enhance transparency of the p2p rentals sector with the same goal of helping public authorities “ensure their balanced development as part of a sustainable tourism sector”. “The new rules will improve the collection and sharing of data from hosts and online platforms. This will, in turn, inform effective and proportionate local policies to address the challenges and opportunities related to the short-term rental sector,” the Commission suggested in a press release. According to an official Q&A on the proposal, the package aims to harmonize the registration process for hosts and properties in order to generate a common set of data to support public authorities as they set policies for short term lets and make decisions about provisioning services. The data that p2p rental platforms will be required to share under the proposal includes: Data on the number of stays and guests; The registration number; and The web address (URL) of the listings for short-term rentals located in the territory of the requesting public authority. “This information would allow the identification of non-registered listings and help to enforce the registration obligation, further increasing transparency,” the Commission said. The proposal will not affect the ability of public authorities to set their own local rules for short-term accommodation rentals, per the Commission, which suggests public authorities will “just need to adapt their registration system”. (Or set one up if they do not currently operate one.) Registration systems will also have to be fully online and “user friendly”, as well as requiring a similar set of relevant info on hosts and their properties. Once completed, a host would receive a unique registration number. “The proposal fully respects the principle of subsidiarity and the competences of public authorities,” it added, emphasizing that national and local authorities “retain the power to design rules and policies on short-term rentals, to deal, for instance, with health and safety issues, urban planning, security and taxation issues” — so long as any rules they set respect the principles of justification and proportionality enshrined in the EU Services Directive. It also notes that other rules — such as the incoming Digital Services Act — may still apply to p2p rentals platforms. “The data collected on the basis of this proposal should allow public authorities to better assess the situation on the ground and make more targeted and proportionate rules,” it added. The Commission said other components of the framework will aim to: • Clarify rules to ensure registration numbers are displayed and checked: with online platforms being required to facilitate hosts to display registration numbers on their platforms and conduct random checks on whether hosts register and display the correct numbers, while public authorities will be able to suspend registration numbers and ask platforms to delist non-compliant hosts • Streamline data sharing between online platforms and public authorities: online platforms will be required to share data about the number of rented nights and of guests with public authorities, once a month, “in an automated way” — with lighter reporting “possibilities” foreseen for small and micro platforms (the Commission is suggesting those that do not hit a monthly average of 2,500 hosts might only need to share data quarterly, without a requirement to automate the reporting) — and public authorities able to receive this data through national “single digital entry points” • Allow the reuse of data, in aggregate form: the data generated under the proposal will, “in aggregate form”, feed tourism statistics produced by Eurostat and feed into the upcoming European data space for tourism. “This information will support the development of innovative, tourism-related services,” the Commission suggests • Establish an effective framework of implementation: Member States will be required to monitor the implementation of the transparency framework and put in place “relevant penalties” for non-compliance with the obligations Commenting in a statement, Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager, added: “The short-term accommodation rental sector has been boosted by the platform economy but has not developed with sufficient transparency. With this proposal, we are making it easier for hosts and platforms, big or small, to contribute to greater transparency in the sector. These sector-specific rules will complement the general rules of the Digital Services Act, which establish a set of obligations and accountability requirements for platforms operating in the EU.” The European Parliament and Council will need to weigh in on the proposal before it’s adopted — but the Commission has envisaged a two year implementation period after adoption and entry into force for platforms to adapt their systems for the necessary data sharing. So the earliest it could be up and running is, most likely, 2026.

Holidu pockets $102M to keep growing its vacation rentals business in Europe • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 19, 2022Posted in 83North, Bookiply, holidu, Startups, Vacation RentalsNo Comments

Munich-based software and services vacation rental startup, Holidu, has topped up its coffers with an oversubscribed €104 million (~$102M) Series E funding round of equity and debt, led by existing investor 83North, after seeing its year-over-year revenue grew 100% in 2021. The round saw a mix of other existing and new investors chipping in, including in the latter camp Northzone, HV Capital, Vintage Investment Partners and Commonfund Capital, and with (in the former) Prime Ventures, EQT Ventures, coparion, Senovo, Lios Ventures and Possible Ventures. The €100M raise also includes a chunk of venture debt — €25M — that’s been put up by Claret Capital and Silicon Valley Bank. So the equity component of the Series E comprises €75M. While travel startups were hit hard by coronavirus lockdowns in the early wave of the pandemic, vacation rentals picked up fairly quickly as lockdowns eased later on in 2020 and 2021, and as platforms retooled to cater to reconfigured demand from travellers opting for more domestic breaks over going further afield, for example. Holiday homes were also better positioned than other travel options like hotels (or, er, cruise ships) to offer attractive private spaces where people could feel safer about taking a break even as vaccine rollouts were still ramping up. And Holidu and its investors are banking on that increased demand sticking around. The German startup tells ZebethMedia travel and booking patterns have now largely returned to resembling the pre-pandemic picture, from 2019, with a rise in international (vs domestic) travel bookings. It also says holidaymakers are feeling more comfortable about planning ahead again and back to booking around a month in advance vs the shorter timeframes people switched to during the height of COVID-19 uncertainty. Post-pandemic (or, well, post-the-peak-of-the-crisis), demand for travel has rebounded fiercely as plenty of people hankered to finally get away again — which is reflected in the larger growth Holidu booked in 2021 (100%) vs 2020 (when it was up around 50% y-o-y). It says its vacation rentals metasearch engine, which compares listings across over 1,500 websites, reached more than 110 million visitors in the last 12 months. And — with fresh funding in its back pocket — Holidu is gearing up to further press on the growth gas by expanding its rollout of local office locations to support its market outreach efforts. A second strand of its business is aimed at increasing supply via a software and services play, called Bookiply, targeting vacation rental hosts — helping them get their properties online by streamlining administration and supporting them to grow bookings. The startup says the unit grew 13x between 2019 and 2022. In 2021 specifically, Bookiply’s revenue growth was 4.4x — and in the first nine months of 2022 its revenues have grown 3.3x. While the number of managed Bookiply homes has stacked up from 5,000 three years ago to nearly 20,000 now — but it sees plenty of room to keep building that out. “As a group we are growing at a high double digit rate,” CEO and co-founder, Johannes Siebers, told ZebethMedia. “We see that our company delivers true value to hosts and guests, which is reflected in our very strong host retention and guest satisfaction. We will now scale our region-by-region approach into Europe’s large and attractive hosting market. This financing round is a great vote of confidence in the current environment. We are on the path to build a big company,” he added in a statement. Holidu’s growth has been fuelled by a number of acquisitions in key markets — with Holidu buying a veteran holiday home portal Spain-Holiday.com last year; and picking up a couple of vacation rental services firms focused on German speaking markets (Lohospo and my.IRS) earlier this year to boost its services offering in the DACH markets (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). “With the Series E raise, we are open to further acquisitions on the supply side,” Siebers also told us. While the startup reported reaching profitability with its search business back in 2020 he says it remains focused on scaling — saying its too early to consider an IPO at this stage (NB: Holidu was founded back in 2014). “With close to 20,000 Bookiply properties we consider it still ‘early days’ for us,” he said. “The global market is very large and we are fully focused on expanding our property base in new and existing areas and on working on our products for hosts and guests.” Discussing trends it’s seen accelerating over the last three years, he flags the adoption of vacation rentals as a big one — pointing to a McKinsey study that found that 43% of travellers during 2021 booked a vacation rental for the first time, and reported that three-quarters of respondents planned to continue to stay in vacation rentals for at least half their trips in the future. Flexible work patterns established as a result of the pandemic are also resulting in travel seasons broadening, per Siebers, who says they’ve seen stronger booking demand for “shoulder seasons” outside of core school holidays. And a final (contradictory) trend he flags is demand for “sustainable” vacation rental homes, with accommodations that are marked by Holidu with an “Eco” label achieving a 12% higher click through rate and a 29% higher conversion rate than properties which do not possess such a label — suggesting travellers are looking for ways to offset any environmental guilt they may feel about jetting off by taking steps to reduce the overall emissions load of their holiday. One growth trend Siebers does not mention is rising rents for long term tenants looking for accommodation they can actually live in. Housing costs are being exacerbated by the cost of living crisis that’s driving inflation and interest rates, atop a long term undersupply of affordable housing stock across many regions, but vacation rentals complicate the picture by further reducing accommodation units available for long term tenants to rent. This trend is fuelling a fresh wave of calls for regulators to clamp down on