AUSTIN, Texas, Dec. 11, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via PRWEB - HomeAway, Inc. (NASDAQ: AWAY), the world's leading online marketplace for vacation rentals with more than one million listings, today announced an initiative to enable online booking for HomeAway property listings over the next 24 months. Once these changes are adopted, listings on HomeAway's sites will reflect accurate calendars and rates, the ability to submit a reservation request with one click, and the ability for owners and property managers to accept or reject a reservation within 24 hours.
Online booking supplements inquiries as a way for families and groups to expedite reservation requests. HomeAway will also continue to offer the flexibility of both subscription and commission models to its customers, and maintain no booking fees for travelers.
Owners accepting credit cards is not a requirement for online booking. Instead, by mid-2015 online booking will also work with payments that occur outside of HomeAway's websites. That means owners and property managers can confirm a booking request online and accept payment offline or use another website, e.g., by check, bank transfer, or another payment processor. HomeAway will continue to encourage and reward credit card acceptance as the fastest and most secure payment method.
"Vacation rental travelers are evolving and starting to expect better access to calendar and pricing information, along with quick response times to booking requests," says Brian Sharples, HomeAway CEO. "That is why we're committed to product and policy changes over the next couple of years to assure that our owners and property managers are well positioned for success on our global platform."
HomeAway chose to emphasize online booking in an effort to meet traveler expectations for convenience and speed of communication. HomeAway research shows that listings without the online booking option often result in travelers experiencing frustration, leading travelers to abandon rentals altogether. As the category leader in vacation rentals, HomeAway anticipates increased adoption of booking properties online will help solve these issues for the industry.
For more information, please visit HomeAway's website.
About HomeAway
HomeAway, Inc. based in Austin, Texas, is the world's leading online marketplace for the vacation rental industry, with sites representing over one million paid listings of vacation rental homes in 190 countries. Through HomeAway, owners and property managers offer an extensive selection of vacation homes that provide travelers with memorable experiences and benefits, including more room to relax and added privacy, for less than the cost of traditional hotel accommodations. The company also makes it easy for vacation rental owners and property managers to advertise their properties and manage bookings online. The HomeAway portfolio includes the leading vacation rental websites HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com in the United States; HomeAway.co.uk and OwnersDirect.co.uk in the United Kingdom; HomeAway.de in Germany; Abritel.fr and Homelidays.com in France; HomeAway.es and Toprural.es in Spain; AlugueTemporada.com.br in Brazil; HomeAway.com.au and Stayz.com.au in Australia; and Bookabach.co.nz in New Zealand. The Asia Pacific short-term rental site, travelmob.com, is also majority owned by HomeAway.
HomeAway also operates BedandBreakfast.com, the most comprehensive global site for finding bed-and-breakfast properties, providing travelers with another source for unique lodging alternatives to chain hotels. For more information about HomeAway, please visit http://www.HomeAway.com.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking" statements, subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are based on HomeAway management's beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to management. Forward-looking statements include information concerning HomeAway's expected, possible or assumed future results of operations, growth and business outlook; and the anticipated adoption of online booking across all of our listings. Forward-looking statements include all statements that are not historical facts and may be identified by terms such as "continues," "plans," "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "could," "look forward to," or similar expressions and the negatives of those terms. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause HomeAway's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to the following: (a) HomeAway's inability to continue to attract and maintain a critical mass of property listings and travelers, (b) HomeAway's inability to effectively roll out its initiative to enable online booking across its listings and (c) such other risks and uncertainties described more fully in documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). All information provided in this press release is as of the date hereof and, except as required by law, HomeAway assumes no obligation to update this information, even if new information becomes available in the future.
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