Worldwide: Inspired by Spotify’s Wrapped series, we revisit the ten stories in 2024 that defined a year for short-term rentals, as well as our favourite video, podcast and webinar from the last 12 months.
- Frontdesk lays off staff and collapses – January
In January, Milwaukee-based short-term rental property management startup Frontdesk laid off all of its staff, making around 200 employees redundant, and shuttered its business.
The news came just seven months after Frontdesk acquired Chicago-based short-term rental operator Zencity, while the brand had also previously taken over the management of units left vacant by defunct operators WanderJaunt and Stay Alfred. Founded in 2017, the company had raised around $26 million in funding in total [including a $13 million Series B round in September 2022] but efforts to raise more capital through a bridge round ultimately failed to materialise.
Property management software platform Guesty raised $130 million in a Series F funding round in April, in preparation for a potential initial public offering [IPO] in the not too distant future. The round was led by global investment firm KKR, with participation from Apax, BDT & MSD Partners, Sixth Street and Inovia Capital, taking Guesty’s total funding to date to $410 million since its establishment in 2013.
Shortly after announcing the funding, Guesty made its fifth acquisition in the last two years by buying vacation rental channel management distribution platform Rentals United. The Tel Aviv-based firm previously acquired a number of businesses and competitors, including localised solutions technology provider StaySense, hotel-focused revenue and channel manager, YieldPlanet; hotel-focused, Queensland-based HiRUM; and property management software companies Kigo, MyVR and Your Porter.
When asked about Guesty’s prospects for an IPO in April, Soto confirmed that Guesty was setting a target for an IPO and it would “progress when the market conditions are right”.
- Miles departs as VRMA CEO – April
Kimberly Miles, the president and CEO of the Vacation Rental Management Association [VRMA] – the largest vacation rental association in the United States – departed her role in April after reportedly being offered the opportunity to resign from her position. It came after an episode of the StraightFireVR podcast alleged that she had been “fired” due to “poor attendance at the New Orleans VRMA Spring, VRMA Houston and VRMA Europe events” and that some vendors were considering boycotts of future VRMA events.
Founded in 1985, the VRMA has built up a reputation as an international, professional trade association for the short-term and vacation rental industries. The association’s membership includes more than 1,200 short-term rental property management companies, individual property managers and hosts, industry suppliers and other allied organisations such as destination marketing organisations [DMOs] and convention and visitor bureaus.
In June, Barcelona socialist mayor Jaume Collboni announced that the city would introduce a ban on all short-term rentals for tourists in the city by late 2028. From November 2028, Barcelona will no longer give new licences and revoke existing ones that allow apartment owners to rent out their accommodation to tourists.
Collboni said that the measure would mark a “turning point” for Barcelona as the city government seeks to increase housing supply and address the shortage in affordable housing for citizens, as well as “skyrocketing rental prices that are becoming more expensive every day”.
Since then, short-term rental groups and booking platforms across Europe have urged the city of Barcelona to reconsider its crackdown on the sector’s activities, with the European Holiday Home Association [EHHA] issuing an official complaint to the European Commission.
The new UK Labour Government will abolish the furnished holiday lettings [FHL] tax regime from April next year, removing the tax advantages that landlords who offer short-term holiday lets have over those who provide standard residential properties.
Previous Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced in March that the former Conservative government would scrap tax relief for holiday lets as part of his Spring Budget 2024, in a bid to improve the availability of long-term rentals. In a speech, Hunt said that he had been “concerned” that the FHL tax regime had been creating a “distortion”, meaning that there are not enough properties for long-term rental by local people in their communities.
In addition, the Treasury and Office for Budget Responsibility [OBR] agreed on a reduction of the higher rate of property capital gains tax for residential properties from 28 per cent to 24 per cent to increase revenues and accelerate transactions in the UK.
Online travel agency Tripadvisor made a “strategic” decision to transition its vacation rental strategy to a new business model that leverages third-party providers, in line with its existing hotels model, although it denied that it was shutting down its rental offering altogether. The travel website, widely known for its reviews, travel guides and price comparisons, had emailed tenants, owners and hosts earlier in the day to say that it would no longer honour reservations after 1 November.
Since 2008, Tripadvisor had embarked on a spree of holiday rental booking website acquisitions, including Flipkey [2008], Holiday Lettings [2010], Niumba [2013], VacationHomeRentals [2014] and Housetrip [2016], to take on established rivals such as Airbnb.
The Network was one of more than 50 upgrades revealed by the home-sharing platform this week, all designed to make Airbnb a “more personalised” app, including recommended destinations, suggested search filters, and personalised listing highlights, all based on past trips and search history.
Spain’s central government issued a royal decree that will establish a single national register for short-term rental properties. The law, which is due to come into effect on 2 January 2025, will make it obligatory for short-term rental properties to register with one central digital service and obtain a code for them to list on any platform.
The decree was also signed by President Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party [PSOE] and the Council of Ministers, as the government seeks to confront illegal renting and the ‘over-tourism’ phenomenon which has sparked widespread protests from citizens across the country who are concerned about available housing supply and the cost of living crisis.
Landlords will be obliged to obtain their registration number [to be renewed on an annual basis], submit the required information and provide online booking platforms with their code in order to list on them successfully. The platforms themselves must ensure that the landlords identify their properties with their own unique code and display them visibly on any listing.
Also in October, the Portuguese Government introduced a decree-law that revoked some of the short-term rental restrictions brought in by the previous Socialist government’s ‘Mais Habitação’ [More Housing] programme. The decree-law will restore power to municipal councils to make decisions on licences and registrations and undo the automatic expiry of inactive licences and the planned re-evaluation of existing licences in 2030, while condominiums will no longer have the “absolute power” to approve, cancel or deny licences without justification.
However, in Lisbon, a proposed local referendum has been approved in the city’s municipal assembly, which paves the way for a potential ban on short-term rentals for tourists in residential buildings in the Portuguese capital.
Lighthouse, a commercial intelligence platform for the travel and hospitality industry, closed a $370 million growth investment [Series C funding] round in November, building on an $80 million Series B raise three years earlier. The funding propelled Lighthouse to unicorn status with a valuation north of €1 billion, and was reported to be the largest capital round ever for a Belgian company.
The fresh funding will accelerate Lighthouse’s mission to reimagine commercial strategy for the $15 billion travel & hospitality technology market. Proceeds from the investment will be used to drive continued product innovation across the company’s platform, strategic acquisitions [having bought channel manager Stardekk in February], and global expansion efforts.
- Our favourite webinar of 2024: The Future of Stays: Must-Watch Travel Trends for 2024 and Beyond [in partnership with Beyond] [August]
Julie Brinkman and Caitlin Cassady [Beyond], Jeremy Clayton [Padre Escapes] and Ryan Clark [Holiday at Home Ltd] discussed Beyond’s Stays Industry is Here to Stay consumer survey, how hospitality companies are using AI in their systems to make more money, how early adopters in hospitality are positioned to win, how consumer booking patterns are shifting e.g. by price and experience, why booking lead times are shrinking, and what strategies operators can use to maximise bookings during key periods.
- Our favourite video interview of 2024: Sean Breuner, AvantStay, and Colin Carvey, Revedy [July]
Speaking at the IMN Short Term Rental Summer Forum 2024 in Austin, IHM CEO Piers Brown, Revedy CEO Colin Carvey and AvantStay CEO Sean Breuner discussed their optimism for the future of the short-term rental segment, investment and consolidation prospects, and the loyalty conundrum for STR brands.
- Our favourite podcast of 2024: Siddhi Mittal, yhangry [October]
For Episode 55 of the STRz podcast, we were joined by Siddhi Mittal, co-founder and co-CEO of chef marketplace yhangry, to discuss her startup’s move into the short-term rental segment and her own personal motivation, the current trends that she is observing, and the curation of guest searches for more bespoke experiences.
