A few days ago we wrote here that Airbnb, in the small print of its April Terms, had hinted it might start charging hosts to promote their listings in search "through the payment of an additional fee". We covered it in the post about launching a new listing for what it was: a warning, not a launch.
What we didn't know then is that Vrbo (Expedia) was already doing it.
True, Vrbo is marginal in some markets like Spain, but in others that matter a great deal, like the US, it leads. And we all know that almost everything that happens there ends up spreading to the rest of the world.
And at Expedia they say it without any euphemism. Their vacation rental lead summed it up to a trade publication in a few words: "pay for play for visibility". Pay to be visible. Pay to come up first.
Translated into search results: the top spots stop belonging only to whoever performs best. In time, they will mostly belong to whoever pays most.
What Vrbo is building
Two things:
- A sponsored listings pilot already running, with the official launch planned for this year: hosts and managers will pay to appear in featured positions in search.
- Pay per click. You pay for every click your sponsored listing gets, whether or not it ends in a booking.
That is the news. But there is one figure that really matters, and it was dropped in passing:
A third of bookings already came with paid promotion
Vrbo's promotions package (those discounts the host funds in exchange for a better position in results and a highlighted badge) generated a third of Vrbo's bookings in the first quarter.
A third.
So paying for visibility isn't Vrbo's future: it's its present. Sponsored listings are the next step on a staircase people are already climbing, and Expedia openly calls it another "massive unlock", another huge revenue lever.
Why so cheerful about it? Because for the platform it's new money with almost nothing to build: on top of the usual commission comes whatever you now pay to stand out. And they charge for the click whether a booking happens or not: for the first time they earn without anyone booking anything.
This time Airbnb is the one following
By the time Airbnb had merely put it in writing in its Terms, Vrbo had already been testing it for weeks in the real world. For once, Airbnb isn't the one setting the pace.
And Booking has been charging for its own version for years: the Preferred programme, an extra 3% commission in exchange for more visibility, as we saw when comparing commissions.
The reference model is Amazon: a search engine where the top positions are for sale and the organic results always start further down. It's now clear that vacation rental portals are all heading there, each at its own pace.
Who does this benefit?
Our usual question.
As always, the platform, the channel, obviously. And the host? Well, it depends which one:
- The large operator with a marketing budget gets a lever it didn't have before: buying the spot that doing things well doesn't win it.
- The one who built visibility on reviews and good operations sees that work devalued.
And that's the perverse part of the whole thing. Vrbo has not only just tightened the requirements of its Premier Host programme (0% cancellations, 99% acceptance, a minimum 4.6 rating), it is at the same time preparing a system where a worse-performing listing, worse for the guest, can get ahead of yours by paying.
Operational excellence stops guaranteeing the shop window. The shop window goes to whoever pays most.
What we need to do
1. Organic still matters most. Position will be buyable; conversion won't. A competitive total price, reviews, fast responses and a listing that converts still decide your visibility today. And tomorrow they will decide something else: whether the click you pay for ends in a booking. Paying to promote a property that converts badly is paying for more people to reject it.
2. If you start using sponsored listings, measure cost per booking, never per click. And measure it by property and by season. Paying to stand out on dates that fill themselves is giving away margin; paying to fill a low-season gap can make complete sense. It's the same logic we apply to OTA promotions: off by default, on when they buy something you genuinely need.
3. Don't expose yourself on a single platform. The more channels you have (Airbnb, Booking.com and the rest, plus more direct booking), the less it hurts you when one of those shop windows starts being run as an auction.
The future
The question is no longer whether Airbnb will copy the model, since it already put it in writing. It's when.
I'll bet you lunch that before the end of 2027 you'll see sponsored listings inside Airbnb's search.
Watching where each listing shows up, and deciding what gets paid for and what doesn't, is part of what we do every day at ListingOK. But even if you handle it yourself, consider this fair warning: your properties' exposure is going up for sale. Everything a little more uphill.
Sources
Miguel
Miguel Roig Gimbernat is Partner at ListingOK, specializing in Revenue Management for vacation rentals and short-term rentals. With over 15 years of experience in technology, pricing, and revenue management, he helps property managers and hosts maximize their profitability on Airbnb and Booking.com through real market data and expert supervision. He combines expertise in data, platforms and technology with marketing to transform market intelligence into revenue decisions that boost profitability.
