Vacation Rental Scale-Up

Vrbo's newest ads, Magician and No Chef, are the ones getting all the buzz right now. Big spend, big view counts, the full spotlight moment. 🎬So why bring up a much quieter content campaign running in the background at the same time? Because with major booking platforms, it's rarely the loudest release that teaches you the most. This time, the real playbook is buried in a low-key campaign...

Airbnb just promised Wall Street it would extract more money from every single booking this year. Yet, your platform fees aren’t going up, and your payouts remain untouched. So, where is that massive revenue growth coming from? 🛑💳 While operators have been pressured to simplify pricing and fold cleaning fees into their nightly rates to show guests "one honest number," Airbnb has quietl...

Should you build your own custom AI workflows, or wait for your software vendors to roll out their updates? In this episode, Thibault Masson sits down with Mark Simpson to break down exactly how independent operators can leverage artificial intelligence to automate their operations and scale revenue. In this episode, we cover: Level 1 (The Foundations): How to use Custom Instructions and Custom GP...

The rules of organic search visibility are undergoing a major shift. For years, professional operators have structured their businesses around strict performance metrics to secure Vrbo’s Premier Host badge and its promised visibility boost. 🛑📉 But what happens when platforms introduce paid shortcuts? In this episode, we break down Expedia Group's new sponsored listings feature on Vrbo, shift...

Airbnb’s new "risk-free" cancellation policy might guarantee your payout, but it could be silently draining your operational budget. 🛑💸 In this episode of the RSU Podcast, Thibault Masson (Founder of RSU by PriceLabs) breaks down Airbnb's newly rolled out "Extended Cancellation Option"—a feature that allows guests to cancel up to 24 hours before check-in. While Airbnb abs...

Airbnb just made two major corporate moves that signal an aggressive expansion beyond traditional short-term rentals: they poached Booking.com’s top hotel executive and invested $58 million to build a real-life social network. 🛑📉 In this episode of the RSU Podcast, Uvika Wahi (Short-Term Rental Industry Analyst and Editor at RSU by PriceLabs) unpacks these parallel strategies and what they mean...

Your dynamic pricing strategy might be flawless—but bad listing photos, inflexible cleaning fees, and over-promised owner estimates are silently destroying your short-term rental revenue. 🛑💸 In this episode of RSU by PriceLabs, Thibault Masson sits down with Bryant Loy (Director of Revenue Management at Brett/Robinson) and Becca Madigan (Manager of U.S. Solutions at PriceLabs) to uncover the hid...

Airbnb's 2026 Summer Release just rewrote the rules of how guests discover, evaluate, and book your property. 🛑📉With this update, Airbnb hasn't just rolled out new features—the platform has fundamentally inserted an AI layer into every single monetizable decision point of the guest journey. From discovery to booking, AI is now sitting between your property and your prospective guest. In...

If Airbnb guarantees the lowest price on hotels, how will your short-term rentals compete? 🛑📉 On May 20th, Brian Chesky is dropping the Summer 2026 Release, and the platform's priorities are shifting. To hedge against strict city regulations, Airbnb is aggressively pushing boutique hotel supply—and they might back it up with a low-price guarantee that puts standard STR listings at a massive...

✈️ Jet Fuel Crisis, 20,000 Cancelled Flights, and a Domestic Travel Boom — Which Side of the Line Is Your Portfolio On? Jet fuel prices have doubled and airlines are cutting 20,000 summer flights. ⛽📉 Guests still want to travel — they're just driving instead. But this isn't a COVID staycation repeat, and the windfall isn't guaranteed for everyone. 🚗 In this episode, we break down:...

Airbnb’s Summer Release 2026 is almost here. What could Airbnb announce — and what should hosts and property managers be watching? In this episode, Thibault Masson , industry analyst, founder of RSU by PriceLabs, and Head of Product Marketing at PriceLabs, shares 7 predictions for Airbnb’s upcoming release. From AI-powered search and host listing tools to guest services, marketplace integrations,...

In February 2026, Airbnb quietly updated its privacy policy. On April 20th, every host and guest will be asked to accept it — or lose access to the platform. In this episode, RSU Editor Uvika Wahi breaks down what actually changed, what it signals about Airbnb's AI ambitions ahead of its Summer 2026 product release , and what it means for professional short-term rental managers whose data sits...

Revenue management isn't broken — the model around it is. For years, dynamic pricing was the answer. But when your owner relations team is stuck in email, your BD team is pitching with outdated numbers, and your finance team finds out about a shortfall too late — pricing alone was never going to be enough. In this episode of the Vacation Rental Scale-Up Podcast, industry analysy Thibault Masso...

Airbnb made two announcements this week that didn't make many headlines — but together, they reveal exactly how the platform's lifestyle ambitions are materializing in practice. In this episode, Uvika Wahi from RSU by PriceLabs breaks down both moves: The Welcome Pickups partnership , which brings private airport transfers into the Airbnb app across 125+ cities in Europe, Asia, and Latin A...

May 20, 2026, is circled on every European property manager's calendar. It's the official deadline for EU Regulation 2024/1028—the law that forces booking platforms to verify registration numbers and share monthly activity data with local governments. But will Airbnb and Booking.com actually delete your listings overnight? In this episode, Thibault Masson breaks down the "Honest Map&q...

Are Airbnb and Vrbo becoming the exact same platform? If you look deeper than the recent launches, the answer is a resounding no. While Airbnb is prioritizing pure booking volume by removing checkout friction, Vrbo is building a financial fortress centered around one core concept: Reliability. In this episode, Uvika Wahi from RSU by PriceLabs breaks down Vrbo's impressive Q4 2025 financial per...

AI is becoming the new front door to travel discovery. In this episode, Thibault Masson (Founder of Rental Scale-Up / RSU by PriceLabs) is joined by David Ciccarelli (Co-Founder & CEO of Lake.com) and Uvika Wahi (RSU by PriceLabs) to explore how AI-powered search is changing the way guests find, compare, and book vacation rentals. We break down what’s actually happening across: – Google AI Mod...

Is Airbnb quietly testing its own loyalty program? Some hosts are now seeing an offer: Provide a 20% discount, and Airbnb will boost your visibility and promote your listing to “top rated guests.” But here’s what makes this different. “Top rated guests” aren’t defined by how much they spend — they’re defined by behavior. Guests with 4.8+ ratings and multiple completed stays. In this episode, we un...

In this episode, we break down the 10 biggest takeaways from Airbnb's Q4 2025 earnings call and what they really mean for professional short-term rental managers. From the likely end of the 3% split fee model… to rising cancellation rates under “Book Now, Pay Later”…to 500,000+ low-quality listings being removed…to Guest Favorites now driving nearly half of all bookings… Airbnb is clearly opti...

Many property managers don’t fail — they stall. And for a lot of STR operators, that stall happens around 100–200 units . In this episode, we go inside GuestReady’s latest acquisition in Spain , its 12th to date, to unpack why that bottleneck exists — and how M&A is increasingly being used as a growth engine , not an exit. 🎙️ Lorenzo Ritella , Country Manager for Spain at GuestReady, joins RSU...

In this episode, we break down how Airbnb actually rewards quality listings — and why many professional operators lose bookings even in strong markets. Thibault Masson dives into PriceLabs’ new Listing Optimizer , explaining how data + AI can uncover hidden issues in titles, photos, amenities, descriptions, and review sentiment — the stuff Airbnb’s algorithm really cares about. If you manage multi...

Register for fee workshop: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/1317691874899/WN_T9XsB0s0TUSk2tQA4c50ww If your Airbnb bookings are slowing down, your first instinct is probably to drop prices. But what if pricing isn’t the real problem at all? 👀 Airbnb has been clear: listing quality now directly impacts visibility, trust, and conversion. Yet most teams still treat pricing and listing qualit...

Is the "click-through" era of travel over? For twenty years, platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com have been the indispensable gatekeepers of the industry. But with the launch of the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), Google is attempting to collapse the entire booking journey into the AI layer. What You’ll Learn In this episode, Uvika Wahi breaks down why the traditional "search an...

Vacation Rental Trends 2026 didn’t start in 2026.In this episode, Uvika Wahi of RSU by PriceLabs breaks down the most important vacation rental and trends shaping 2026, using guidance from what happened in 2025. In this episode, we cover: Why luxury positioning is accelerating, and why more brands are chasing it How Asia’s growing travel demand is reshaping global travel flows Why sports and live...

Across articles, podcasts, webinars, and industry conversations throughout the year, the same topics kept resurfacing . And when that happens, it usually means something structural is changing. In this episode, we step back to connect the dots and break down the big themes that repeated all year — and why they matter as we head into 2026. We cover: • How regulation is structurally reshaping supply...