Happy belated Memorial Day!
We hope the long weekend and short work week have left you feeling refreshed and ready for the month ahead. But first, let’s dive into the latest industry news, including a major update on Hawaii’s proposed vacation rental ban, new legislation taking effect in California, and Airbnb’s Summer Release.
Plus, who doesn’t like a little industry gossip? Keep reading to the end of the post to get the scoop!
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Your monthly rules and regulations roundup
Hawaii cracks down on vacation rentals
Last month, we reported on two new bills being considered that could lead to the restriction or even prohibition of vacation rentals across entire Hawaii counties. Now, we can confirm that one of these bills, Senate Bill (SB) 2919, has been approved.
SB 2919, which Governor Josh Green signed on May 3, will allow individual counties to set their own rules related to vacation rentals. Counties will now have the ability to designate vacation rentals as nonresidential use for zoning purposes as well as tax, regulate, and even ban them altogether.
We’re already seeing the effects of this new bill: Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen has announced plans to phase out vacation rentals operating in the apartment district, including 7,000 units overall and 2,200 in West Maui, specifically.
Unsurprisingly, this plan is receiving considerable backlash, and Mayor Bissen even expects the county to be sued. However, the bill’s proponents are hopeful that it will make a positive difference.
“As we press forward with our ongoing wildfire response and recovery efforts, SB 2919 will be a pivotal tool to address Hawaiʻi’s housing crisis, while ensuring our essential housing programs for Maui recovery remain robust,” Governor Green explained in a statement.
For those who own a vacation rental in Maui, we recommend patience. It’s yet to be seen whether the county council will pass Bissen’s measure. And if it is passed, nothing will change overnight: The identified vacation rentals in West Maui would phase out by July 1, 2025 and rentals in the rest of the county by January 1, 2026.
New legislation heading hosts’ way in California
Meanwhile, California hosts should prepare for three new bills taking effect July 1:
- California Assembly Bill 537 bans advertising, displaying, and offering rates that do not include all fees and charges for vacation rental lodging (except for fees and taxes that are government-imposed).
- California Senate Bill 478 makes it illegal to advertise, display, or offer rates for any good or service that don’t include all mandatory fees (again, except for those that are government-imposed).
- California Senate Bill 644 requires hosting platforms, third-party booking services, and hotels to permit cancellations for at least 24 hours after reservation confirmation with no penalty to the guest.
The gist: Starting July 1, California vacation rental hosts will need to include cleaning and other “junk” fees in advertised rates in an effort to promote fee transparency. You’ll also need to allow free cancellations for 24 hours after reservations are confirmed.
If you own a vacation rental in California and haven’t updated your rate advertising and cancellation policy yet, you’ve got a month to get everything in order!
Airbnb news
In lighter news, May was another eventful month for the industry’s top OTA. Airbnb released its first quarter 2024 financial results, reporting its most profitable Q1 ever, and made several major announcements as well.
The 2024 Summer Release has arrived
The most important news came in the form of Airbnb’s 2024 Summer Release, which the company shared on May 1. The release has several new upgrades for hosts, including:
- Earnings dashboard improvements: The dashboard is now more interactive, breaks down earnings by listing, and offers extra insights such as nights booked, occupancy rates, and average guests and nightly stays.
- Listings tab updates: You can now edit the order of the photos in your Listing tab photo tour to prioritize the best parts of your home.
- Quicker host-guest app transitions: Easily switch between the host and guest sides of the Airbnb app thanks to this new update.
While the release includes some new features for group trips, the biggest update for guests is undoubtedly “Icons,” Airbnb’s new category of extraordinary experiences hosted by the biggest names across music, TV, sports, art, and more.
Airbnb’s goal: to “take you inside worlds that only existed in your imagination—until now.”
Of the 11 Icons that have been released so far, examples include the opportunity to sleep inside a recreation of the iconic floating house in “Up,” Prince’s Purple Rain house, and the Ferrari Museum in Italy.
Icons are featured on Airbnb’s homepage, are mostly free (those that aren’t free cost under $100 USD per guest), and will be added to throughout the year.
Goodbye to experiences
Shortly after unveiling Icons, Airbnb announced that it will be removing about 5,000 Experiences and tours that don’t meet its standards. Airbnb reached out to impacted hosts directly to let them know.
According to a statement sent to PhocusWire, Airbnb “regularly evaluate[s] Experiences based on the host’s expertise, the activity’s uniqueness and local relevance, and guests’ ratings and reviews and remove[s] those that continue to provide low quality experiences.”
If an Experience you host is being removed, you should have already been alerted by email. Listings will be removed on June 20, and reservations after that date will be canceled and refunded.
Hello to EV charging
In other news, Airbnb has partnered with ChargePoint, a leading provider of networked charging solutions for electric vehicles (EVs), to meet guests’ growing demand for EV charging.
Thanks to this partnership, ChargePoint will now offer Airbnb hosts in the U.S. an exclusive package that will make it easier to purchase and install EV charging at their rentals. Guests can then use the ChargePoint app to charge their vehicles at Airbnbs with ChargePoint chargers as well as any of the 900+ thousand charging stations in their network.
Considering that listings offering an EV charger see more bookings and average income than those that don’t, this could be a great opportunity to add EV charging to your amenity list.
Lodgify’s latest report reveals top summer lodging destinations
On our end, we recently analyzed over 57,700 U.S. bookings in Lodgify’s internal data to identify the summer’s most popular cities for lodging and the biggest travel trends.
Curious? We’ll give you a sneak peek here. The most-booked lodging destinations of the summer are…
- Ocean City, Maryland
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Village of Four Seasons, Missouri
Check out the report for the full list of the top 15 cities as well as the biggest trends to be aware of. If you haven’t already, now’s the time to be putting these findings to work to ramp up for summer bookings!
AI assistants: the future of trip planning?
It’s looking more and more like AI assistants may be the future of trip planning, with two new updates being released in May alone.
At Google’s annual developer conference, the company revealed an updated version of its AI chatbot service Gemini Advanced, which will roll out this summer. With the new update, Gemini Advanced can now use spatial data and reasoning to make decisions and prioritize when planning trip itineraries.
The same day, Expedia Group unveiled Romie, its new AI-powered trip planning tool.
Unlike tools whose work is done after trip planning, Romie is designed to “roam” with travelers. It helps with researching, planning, booking, providing recommendations and personal advice, and shopping throughout your entire trip. And it’s not limited to the Expedia app, but can work within WhatsApp and text conversations to facilitate a seamless experience.
While these innovations may impact guests more than hosts, it’s important to know how guests will be finding you moving forward—and that may be increasingly through AI assistants like Gemini and Romie.
Want to try out an AI-powered messaging tool? All Lodgify customers have access to our cutting-edge AI Assistant, which offers intuitive responses to guest inquiries and requests to streamline your interactions.
Representing Lodgify at the 2024 Scale Show
We were thrilled to be able to attend (and sponsor!) the Scale Show in Barcelona in mid May!
We represented Lodgify with an impressive booth stocked with candy, swag, and a digital photobooth. Members of our Sales Team offered product demos to anyone interested in learning more about Lodgify, and our SEO & Content Manager Alberto Fernández also gave free SEO consulting sessions to anyone curious about how to optimize their website.
Two of our team members even got the chance to share their expertise at the event. Alberto gave a Ted Talk on the “quiet website syndrome,” addressing common reasons why vacation rental websites don’t get enough traffic. And Carla Chicharro, our Head of Marketing, gave a presentation on actionable SEO to transform your rental into an online booking magnet.
Congratulations to everyone who made the Scale Show such a success!
The industry gossip is…
…all about the VRMA.
You’ve likely heard about the VRMA’s president and CEO, Kimberly Miles, stepping down at the end of April. While this is newsworthy on its own, given that the VRMA is the largest vacation rental association in the U.S., it’s even more so when you hear the rumors: According to Steve Milo’s podcast StraightFireVR, Miles was actually fired due to poor attendance at VRMA events in Paris, New Orleans, and Houston.
Apparently, numbers were so low that some vendors were considering boycotting future events.
Then, less than a month later, the VRMA’s board chair Dru Brown stepped down as well. Why? According to an open letter to the VRMA community from VRMA Vice Chair Michelle Williams, they’re simply “embracing this change as an important opportunity for us to chart a new path for VRMA.”
Williams has been serving as acting chair during the interim, and the board was supposed to have elected a new chair at the May 29 association board meeting. However, there’s been no news on that front yet.
Meanwhile, the search for a new CEO continues as well, and interviews are currently underway.
So, what’s next for the VRMA? We can only hope a return to normalcy, as the VRMA International Conference in Phoenix is less than five months away.
See you next time!
Summer—and the start of peak season for many hosts—is less than a month away! Time to ramp up for busy booking calendars, higher temperatures and, of course, all of the updates above.
Best of luck in the weeks ahead, and we’ll be back soon with more industry news!
