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Tools to help professional vacation rental managers save time and control who can book their properties are part of a new suite of products launched this week by Booking.com. Booking.com vice president Olivier Grémillon, who leads the brand’s home division, says the company developed the tools based on input from professionals that manage some of the 5.7 million listings of homes, apartments and other private accommodations available on the site. Looking ahead, Grémillon says Booking.com is focusing its expansion efforts for the home division on the United States, “because we have some catch-up to do there,” he says. Asia, primarily China, is another region in his sights. Along with growing the rental property inventory, Grémillon says it will continue to develop connections between Booking Holdings’ tours and activities business – boosted by its acquisition of Fareharbor in April – and its accommodations brands. “Right now if you book an accommodation in Booking in some selected markets we actually propose you some of these activities – it doesn’t matter whether you book a hotel or a home or an apartment,” he says. “The thing we are actually doing as well for some of our accommodation partners is if they actually provide experiences themselves, they can list that on our platform not only to their guests but to additional guests.” And while, in the past, Booking Holdings has acquired businesses to provide software and tools to its hotel partners, Grémillon says that is not the current plan for alternative accommodations. “I would never say never, but I would say our strategy is to partner with tools that exist that our property owners are using because the market is very fragmented,” he says. “We are more in the strategy of partnering with a lot of them and having deep discussions on how to make the technology better for the partners, for the hosts and elevating the technology by providing them better connectivity and by also telling them what we need from their side.”
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