Vrbo Keeps Taking Jabs at Airbnb With New Ad Campaign to Recruit Hosts

Skift Take

While Vrbo’s new ad campaign to attract hosts doesn’t mention its competitor Airbnb by name, Expedia’s smaller short-term rental platform keeps poking at what makes it different from the industry juggernaut.

James Farrell

Expedia’s short-term rental platform Vrbo is trying to attract hosts with a new line of ads that offer the same promise it advertises to renters: a stress-free alternative to competitors like Airbnb.

The short-term rental platform has expanded its “Relax, you booked a Vrbo” branding campaign into a new line of ads appealing to hosts, centered around the slogan: “Relax, you host on Vrbo.”

And while none of the new spots explicitly mention industry titan Airbnb, Vrbo continues to take veiled shots at its biggest competitor, poking at key differences between the two platforms – like Vrbo’s stated tendency to attract longer-term guests and its fledgling OneKey rewards program.

One ad features a man and a boy relaxing in a fishing boat on a lake and invites hosts to “sit back and attract repeat guests” at their properties, thanks to Vrbo’s rewards program for travelers, OneKey, “a rewards program you won’t find on any other platform.”

The program allows users to collect OneKey cash by booking through Expedia and its subsidiaries Hotels.com and Vrbo. That cash can be used to pay for future bookings across all three platforms.

Indeed, Expedia sees its OneKey program as a potential boon to Vrbo’s growth. In an earnings call earlier this month, Expedia CEO Ariane Gorin said Vrbo had seen improvements in growth in the second quarter, and cited OneKey as part of the reason why. She noted that 30% of Expedia or Hotels.com travelers who earned OneKey cash went on to try Vrbo for the first time.

Expedia didn’t respond to emailed questions from Skift on whether OneKey has been shown to bring in more repeat guests, as the new ad claims.

Meanwhile, Airbnb has long been considered an outlier in the hospitality industry for its lack of a loyalty program, but the company has shown little urgency in launching one. CEO Brian Chesky told Skift earlier this year the company could “probably” start up some sort of rewards program in the future, but he ruled out using a traditional points- or subsidy-based system. Chesky has said that building a more personalized platform is more effective at building loyalty than a rewards program.

Another new ad builds on Vrbo’s attempts to define itself as a platform for longer-term stays – appealing to hosts searching for steadier, lower-maintenance guests.

The ad script notes how “other vacation platforms offer a flurry of guests coming and going,” as the camera pans over spilled popcorn and orange peels scattered in the grass. But the narrator promises Vrbo guests stay at properties “significantly longer,” so hosts “can take your mind off it and relax.”

The camera zooms out to reveal the litter isn’t surrounding a trashed and busy vacation rental property, but is scattered around a picnic blanket, where a lounging woman gets a message from a guest thanking her for a two-week stay at her Vrbo property.

Vrbo’s focus on whole-home listings with higher-end amenities has helped it carve out a niche as a vacation rental platform that emphasizes the “vacation” aspect, attractive to families and larger groups looking to hunker down. The company has reported longer stays in recent years, and here tries to differentiate itself from platforms like Airbnb, whose wider range of listings could attract a broader range of guests – including more transient travelers looking for quick, budget-friendly lodgings.

For Vrbo, owning that niche might be key to building a brand that can compete with Airbnb – still the Goliath in this David and Goliath story. A May report from AirDNA found Airbnb had roughly 1.4 million listings in 2024 compared to Vrbo’s 630,000, thanks to Airbnb’s brand recognition and global reach. Vrbo operates mostly in the U.S.

Vrbo has sought to expand its advertising to target Airbnb in recent years. Former Expedia CEO Peter Kern praised recent ad work “designed to punch our main competitor squarely in the nose” at a conference earlier this year. These ads are no exception.

In two other new ads appealing to guests, Vrbo doubles down on prior shots against Airbnb by again highlighting its commitment to host-free stays, which are not always guaranteed on Airbnb.

One of those ads, for instance, leans into the “Relax, you booked a Vrbo” theme, with two side-by-side videos: one half of the screen shows a man timidly walking around a vacation rental with a host lingering on site, and the other features a man dancing in his underwear around a host-free rental.

Airbnb didn’t respond to Skift’s emailed request for comment.