HomeAway Insights

At the HomeAway Summit this past weekend, owners and managers gathered in Scottsdale Arizona to connect, learn, and share with each other and HomeAway employees. We'll be posting the presentations and a wrap up in the coming days.

Brian Sharples held forth on the evolution of the vacation rental industry, and Brent Bellm shared some awesome market research, while HomeAway employees and vacation rental experts shared best practices on topics ranging from social media marketing and online security to new HomeAway products. Everyone made new friends, toasted old ones, networked and kibitzed. There was even an impromptu “ideas” panel pulled together by spirited Summit attendees to generate ideas for enhancements and improvements to HomeAway’s service.

On Saturday, teams of HomeAway engineers and product managers showed off some “fresh from the lab” ideas for products in the Sneaks session. A hybrid of American Idol and a Hackathon, the Sneaks are always a popular session at the summit. The teams pitch their ideas, and the audience votes with their applause to select a winner. Some of these features are live right now so go ahead and give them a spin! (Insider Guides and the iOS Mobile App)

Sneaks are real time market feedback for HomeAway and a chance for owners and managers to influence our roadmap of coming releases.  After each demo, the Applause-o-meter was put up on the screen to measure how the audience felt about each team’s efforts. We pay close attention to which sneaks get the most applause - so the audience yelled, stomped their feet, and jumped up and down for their favorite features.

After the 2012 sneaks, four of nine sneaks were released as products – Automating reservations via online booking, Traveller screening via profiles,  filtering and searching on VRBO, and the mobile owner app have all made their way out to owners and managers.  A fifth sneak, “fighting phishing” is nearing beta, while the others are still over the horizon. 

In 2013, two of the sneaks are available today for you to try out. See below if you want to get an Insider Guide on your listing or get our new iOS mobile app (it works for VRBO, HomeAway, and HomeAway UK) that enables you to manage you calendar, inquiries, reply with quotes, and send payment requests.

Here’s the list of 2013 sneaks and presenters:

• The VRBO team (Melissa, Paul, and Kirk) showed how the VRBO traveler site optimizes the experience across iPads, Iphones, Android Phones, Android Tablets, and devices of every size and shape
• Matt of the HomeAway Traveler team illustrated a way to view the properties that are the most popular with travelers, with HomeAway Leaderboard,
• Kate showed how Panoramic 360 photographs (see an example here) enable owners to really show off their properties
• Dustin, leader of the HomeAway Traveler Team, created an Insider Guide revealing a new way to market your properties and provide your guests with information for their stay (learn how you can add an Insider Guide here)
• Dave from the mobile team showed how owners can manage their inquiries, calendars, and bookings from their iphone. Learn how to get the mobile app here.
• Patrick, Tim, and Michael of the social team showed a way for potential guests to learn if they know anyone who has stayed at or reviewed your property, increasing trust for reviews
• Jason and Patrick of Glad to Have You showed a vision for how mobile apps and home automation from BeHome247 can make for hassle-free stays and save money
• Jacy, product manager for HomeAway owner tools, showed masked email addresses, unlimited templates, and attachments as part of a new Inbox could make your lives easier while helping secure the vacation rental marketplace.

It was too close to call a single winner, so the judges awarded a three-way tie to Panoramas, Home Automation, and the Inbox. It was a great session, and thank you to everyone who participated for all of their hard work, creative ideas, and energetic pitches.

Most of the sneaks were future concepts, fresh from the lab. But two of the products that were sneaks are live today!

If you want to create an Insider Guide like these (standalone guides here: vrbo.com and homeaway.com; and how they appear on listings on vrbo.com and homeaway) simply follow the instructions here for HomeAway owners or these ones for vrbo owners. Or just check out some of the awesome guides below:

Guide to Honokeana Cove in West Maui

Guide to to San Francisco and East Bay

Guide to Ilmington and the surrounding area

Guide to Greater San Diego

And if you want to start managing your VRBO, HomeAway, or HomeAway UK listing from your iPhone, open up itunes, and search on "homeaway vacation rentals" or learn how to get it here. Or if you are reading this on a mobile device, go here.

We hope to see you next year at the summit!

As you probably know, HomeAway’s mission has always been to make finding and booking a vacation rental as easy as booking a hotel. With our latest product release, I believe we’ve made great strides towards achieving that goal and am pleased to announce the introduction of online booking on HomeAway.com and VRBO.com.

With online booking, travelers have the convenience of paying securely online, and the booking process is more streamlined for both you and your guests. While we are aware that this particular release isn’t a “win” in the innovation category, it is a relatively new offering in the vacation rental industry and will indeed be a game changer for some guests.  

As we’ve posted in the past, the Internet has fundamentally changed the way we do business. We demand speed and convenience, and the ability to pay online by credit card makes booking a vacation quicker and easier. Plus, it enables travelers to finance vacations, accrue credit card reward points and feel confident in their purchase. Online booking delivers this to the vacation rental category.

Because we know conversations between owners and travelers are so important to the reservation process (in fact, 70% of travelers said it was the best part), we made sure to include a review period so there’s time to answer any questions they have about the property or questions you have of them. 

The product is an extension of ReservationManager™, which enables you to accept credit card payments and eChecks through our secure interface. Online booking is a free service, but because we understand you demand choices in terms of how you want to manage your rental business, it is not automatically added to your listing. However, you can easily sign up through the owner dashboard. 

The Nuts and Bolts of How it Works

With online booking, prospective renters click the “Book It” button on a listing, which instantly generates a detailed quote and enables travelers to agree to your rental contract (which you store ahead of time).  Travelers then submit their payment information directly from your listing and you are notified about the request. You have up to 24 hours to accept or decline it.

When you accept a reservation, the payment is processed immediately and your availability calendar is updated accordingly. Any additional payments are automatically scheduled and invoiced, reducing the manual work involved with confirming a guest.

If you aren’t able to confirm a booking within the 24-hour period, ReservationManager will automatically decline the reservation request and the traveler will not be charged.

To learn more, check out the video below:

Again, while it’s not a required service, I highly encourage you to take a look at the product and see if it’s for you.  We know travelers want a simpler, easier way to book a vacation home and online booking solves that problem. Ultimately, we believe it is the right choice to delight travelers, simplify the booking process for you, and make the entire vacation rental category more efficient and competitive.  As always, we welcome your feedback.

The phishing storm is brewing

The vacation rental industry gathered in Austin, Texas last weekend for the HomeAway Summit. Owners, Property Managers, HomeAway staff, and HomeAway partners discussed the state of the vacation rental industry, saw old friends and made new ones, and compared notes.

But this year, a new word entered the conversations in the halls, over drinks, and in the content of the Summit: phishing.  Phishing, loosely defined, is the attempt by criminals to steal your online identity, most frequently via accessing your email account. While our industry continues to thrive, the threat of hackers gaining access to owners’ or property managers’ email accounts continues. If we do not pull together to fight this threat, it will affect the way travelers feel about the vacation rental industry, and ultimately, about booking your property. A storm is brewing.

For some, the storm has already come – just ask anyone who has had their email password phished. Scammers have intercepted inquiries, and ruined vacations by stealing money from trusting vacation rental travelers.  Owners and property managers have had to scramble to re-secure their email accounts and protect their reputations. And the reputation of the vacation rental industry is in question.

For most, the HomeAway Summit marked the first time that they ever heard of phishing, but they understood how both owners and travelers are at risk because of our industry’s reliance on trusted communications via email. (If you are not familiar with phishing, click here for an overview of how it happens, or read Carl Shepherd’s post on phishing.

Today, losses due to phishing are small: in Q1 2012, phishing scams affected less than 0.1% of travelers who found a vacation rental via a HomeAway website. 

But even one ruined vacation or theft of an owner or property manager’s identity is totally unacceptable. Everyone in the vacation rental industry – from owners to property managers to HomeAway – has a role to play in stopping phishing scams.  While phishing may be a relatively small problem in absolute numbers, recent activity tells us that the phishers are getting smarter and more travelers, owners, and managers are being affected.  It is clear that scammers and criminals have figured out that the vacation rental industry is a great target.

Why? Because:

• the standard practice in the vacation rental industry is for travelers to pay large amounts of money for vacation rentals, long before the stay and sight unseen;
• not everyone understands or uses safe and secure payment methods;
• many people conduct their business in email accounts from email providers that have been repeatedly compromised; and
• cybercriminals are good at exploiting communities that rely on trust and a personal connection.

Phishing is not new; vacation rentals are not the first industry to be targeted by cybercriminals. Phishers have attacked many online industries ranging from online auctions, banking, social media, travel, e-commerce, even medical and government institutions, impacting major brands like eBay, PayPal, Barclays, Wells Fargo, Chase, and Bank of America.

Everyone of us in the vacation rental industry has a lot at stake, and we will all need to work together to stop phishers.  You can do your part by guarding your email password with the same care as you protect your social security number, your bank account, and your most valuable possessions.

Our vision on how to fight phishing

So what can HomeAway do to fight phishing?  To be clear, we’ve been fighting scammers ever since HomeAway was founded.  But as we look ahead, we have come to the conclusion that HomeAway needs to take a strong stance against phishing.

We believe that we can fight phishing by:

• safeguarding the traveler’s money by providing safe payment methods protected by strong security, such as ReservationManager™;
• protecting owner and traveler email addresses so that phishers cannot readily target those accounts;
• continuing to provide secure authentication so that HomeAway can ensure that only legitimate owners, travelers, and managers can access information; and most critically
• moving interactions between owners or managers and travelers into a secure environment where everyone can be confident they are talking to each other, not a crook.

Our vision is that we can create an environment where we can protect owners, property managers and travelers with something we are calling “HomeAway Secure Communication.”  This would be a new system, envisioned only in the last few months, and which is now in development. We plan to make it available starting in the second half of this year.

This proposed system is similar to sites you may use, like Facebook, LinkedIn and others, where authentication is required by both parties before they can connect. On these sites, once two parties have decided to “trust” each other, they can converse via email. But until trust is established, they CAN still communicate keeping key elements of their identity protected.

In our vision, owners and travelers would still receive notifications and messages from each other via email and text message, but they need to reply via a secure system that does not disclose their email address.  This way, HomeAway would be able to ensure the legitimacy of the owner or property manager and the traveler.

We’ve already started: we showed one early prototype of HomeAway Secure Communication at the Summit during the HomeAway Sneak Peeks session. We demonstrated how the system will enable owners and property managers to:

• communicate safely with travelers and only reveal their email address when they choose to;
• have a persistent record of the conversation, payments and other events that have occurred;
• manage their conversations, bookings and payments via mobile app; and
• reduce manual and repetitive work for responding to inquiries, sending information about properties and managing bookings and payment.

We recognize that many of our customers rely heavily on email to manage their interactions with travelers. We also know that a system like this will represent a significant change for many owners and managers.

But it is precisely because your email account is so critical to your business that it must be protected.

We are highly sensitive to the needs of our customers and are aware of the scope of change that this solution represents. We are also laser-focused on making this solution as convenient and beneficial as possible; but we are counting on you, our customers – property managers and owners – to help us design and implement a solution that improves the efficiency and effectiveness of responding to inquiries and managing communications with your customers – the travelers.

We’re doing something different than what we normally do. We are announcing our intentions and inviting our community and customers to participate in the process of creating a solution because we believe it is critical to your future success as an owner or property manager: if travelers don’t trust, they will not rent. 

And if you have ideas, you can give us your feedback directly by emailing us at secure-feedback@homeaway.com or via the feedback links on all of our sites. While we don’t respond to every email we get, we do READ every one. 

If you want to learn more about our vision for HomeAway Secure Communication, check our FAQ here.

And please sign up for the Secure Communication group on Community from HomeAway  to join the discussion – we’ll post updates there as we go forward.

What can I do now to fight phishing?

We all have to pull together to fight phishing. HomeAway has worked hard to educate the industry via emails, messages on our website, and via the Security Center. We continuously invest in technology to actively monitor fraud, to surface suspicious activity, and to harden our systems and protect our customers. More recently, we have introduced new products, such as ReservationManager and Traveler Profiles, and processes such as Phone Verification to support safety.

Here are a few steps you can take now to join in the fight:

1. Educate yourself – visit our Security Center to learn about phishing
2. Read our FAQ to learn how to spot fraudulent inquiries
3. When you receive a suspicious inquiry or email, please let us know
4. Accept safe payment methods like those offered through ReservationManager
5. Include an up-to-date phone number on your listing. We recommend that travelers call the telephone number published on your property listing page to confirm their reservation and payment details
6. Use two-factor authentication on your email accounts. See this article on how. http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/04/make-your-email-hacker-proof.html
7. If you list on vrbo.com or homeaway.com - log into your dashboard to check your inquiries to make sure you (and not a phisher) are receiving your inquiries.
   Never enter your email password on any webpage via a link sent to you by email, or even if a login page that looks like your email provider’s website pops up unexpectedly.  Always go to the email provider’s website to log in
8. And don’t ignore warning signs or red flags - if you have a bad feeling, it never hurts to double check

Together we can fight this threat to the vacation rental industry, and we’re counting on you, just like you count on us.

Sincerely,

Tom Hale

Chief Product Officer

When HomeAway Software for Professionals™ was born in late 2010, we decided to continue the Instant Software® tradition to hold RezFest® as the premier software user conference in the industry.  In doing so, we had a simple goal in mind: to make RezFest 2011 bigger, better, more fun and more professional than ever!  Thanks to all of you showed up in Vegas for RezFest 2011, we surpassed expectations on all fronts! 

Now that we have rested for a couple of weeks, gathered our thoughts and received survey feedback, I can share why RezFest 2011 was so successful.  On a year-on-year analysis, conference attendance increased by 60%, with 80% more individual companies and 78% more sponsors attending than last year - thank you!  We also provided more networking opportunities.  Check out some of the fun photos from the opening night reception featuring the Blues Brothers impersonators to hitting the lanes on bowling night.  Was that fun or what? Many clients thought RezFest was the best industry event they have attended and several of them were hugging us by the end of the conference!  Here are a couple quotes from actual attendees that capture the moment:

“This was our first time at RezFest and we are now making sure that event is in our budget from now on.  Worth every penny spent.”

“If you only attend one convention next year, it should be RezFest.  It is the premier event for the vacation rental manager.  You will meet wonderful people and learn so much.  At RezFest you work hard, and play just as hard.  Don't miss it!”

With 76 track combinations, we tried to offer a diverse and interesting agenda. Presenters did an amazing job and your appreciation was reflected in your survey responses.  The large computer lab manned by the customer support team was also a tremendous success, giving clients the opportunity to be trained and/or ask questions about your particular software.  Again, based on your feedback, the software lab was regarded as a valuable addition because it provides staff members from all levels of your organization a chance to work hands on with our team of experts. The agenda was so packed with engaging material that some of you asked that we make the show a day longer next year!  Wow, that is a first where attendees ask for more time at a trade event!

During HomeAway CEO, Brian Sharples’ keynote, he explained why HomeAway acquired Escapia® and Instant Software and addressed industry fears to demonstrate how committed HomeAway is to the PM segment.  By the end of his presentation, everyone seemed to have understood HomeAway’s strategy and felt much more comfortable with HomeAway’s acquisitions from about a year ago.  Throughout the show, clients were able to mingle and with HomeAway’s executive team. I think customers were surprised by how accessible and down-to-earth Brian Sharples, COO Brent Bellm and the other executives were in person. 

Peter Greenberg, the other RezFest speaker, was an energetic and informative speaker as he emphasized that the “personal contact” property managers provide to their guests 24/7 is key.  He also focused on “selling value to the right demographics,” particularly to Boomers.  Greenberg’s bullish perspective on the travel industry in the coming years was encouraging and the 2011 performance of many PMs in the room this year prove that he may be on track with his predictions.

I hope HomeAway demonstrated our commitment to your success and have your interests at heart.  We will continue to operate in a professional and straightforward manner, with the 120 employees in HomeAway Software for Professionals dedicated to building the best possible software solutions and keeping dialog going with you and the Support and Relationship Manager staff.  To use a construction analogy, we feel 2011 has been focused on building the foundation of a great house of the future.  Next year will be a year of INNOVATION that will add marble counter tops, state of the art light fixtures and simple details to save you time and money.  Our goal is to take your software solution to extraordinary levels of efficiencies using a modular approach that builds on top of your existing platform.  It is not an easy and it takes time but like we said in late 2010, “judge us by our actions.” 

Thank you for attending RezFest!  For those of you who could not attend this year, please join us next year.  You will not regret it!