🔥 The Pricing Squeeze: What Vrbo’s Q2 Earnings Mean for Airbnb Hosts

The Big Picture

Travelers are reshaping how they book — and it showed in Vrbo’s latest quarterly results. Even if you only list on Airbnb, the data matters. Both platforms swim in the same demand pool, and guest behavior shifts across channels.

This quarter confirmed what many hosts are already feeling: flatter rates, shorter stays, and guests shopping harder on total price.

The Vrbo Report Card

• Flat ADR ($209): Guests are paying the same as last year, despite higher inflation.

• More stays, less revenue: Nights booked rose, but gross bookings fell. The culprit? Shorter stays, lower rates, more cancellations.

• Booking windows tightened: Travelers are waiting longer to book.

• Promotions surged: In just weeks, nearly 10% of Vrbo bookings ran through the new discount suite (last-minute, early-bird, mobile-only).

• Last-minute is the new normal: Vrbo is putting marketing dollars into late deals, surfacing them prominently in search.

• All-in pricing is standard: Guests now see the total cost (fees included, taxes at checkout) before they click.

Airbnb: Reading Between the Lines

Vrbo’s numbers aren’t isolated — they reflect marketwide traveler behavior:

• Flat rates, soft occupancy: Airbnb hosts are seeing the same pressure — stagnant ADR and lower RevPAR.

• Shorter stays + higher cancels: Guests everywhere are booking closer in, pulling out more often, and leaning on flexible terms.

• Discount culture: Airbnb already pushes Smart Discounts and Early Bird markdowns. Expect more guests to filter for “deals.”

• All-in pricing: Airbnb rolled this out in 2023. Today’s traveler shops the tile price, not the base rate.

Action Steps for Airbnb Hosts

📌 Play the last-minute game strategically.

• Hold rates until 14–21 days out, then step down in tiers.

• Open calendars for short stays and gap nights.

• Optimize for mobile — most last-minute bookings are made on phones.

📌 Rebuild your fee structure.

• Fold oversized cleaning fees into nightly rates.

• Audit add-ons — if it doesn’t create visible value, remove it.

📌 Flex on length of stay.

• Allow 2–3 night bookings midweek and outside peak.

• Add Thursday or Sunday check-ins to catch long-weekend traffic.

📌 Discount with fences.

• Use Airbnb’s Early Bird, Last-Minute, or Weekly discounts selectively.

• Protect your peak weeks while seeding shoulder season demand.

📌 Differentiate beyond price.

• Highlight kid-friendly, pet-friendly, and accessibility features.

• Refresh your copy with emotional hooks — why this stay matters, not just what it costs.

STR Scout Perspective

Vrbo’s Q2 results underscore the shift every host needs to internalize: pricing power has moved from hosts to guests. Flat ADRs show resistance to higher nightly rates, but nearly one in ten Vrbo bookings are already tied to discounts. Travelers are signaling that they’ll book when the total experience feels right—price, timing, and convenience together.

This is why all-in pricing matters more than base rate. Guests don’t shop your “headline” number; they shop the tile price—the nightly rate plus fees, averaged over their chosen dates. A bloated cleaning fee or inflexible add-on makes you invisible in search, no matter how strong your photos or reviews.

Equally critical is interval pricing. You’re not competing against the entire market—you’re competing against the handful of listings that are actually open and available for the guest’s travel dates. Winning means matching your price strategy to those live competitors, not to an abstract seasonal average.

The pivot is clear: hosts must adopt guest-centric pricing—structuring rates and rules around how travelers really shop and book. That means being flexible with stay length, presenting competitive all-in prices, and discounting only where it nudges real conversion.

At STR Scout, we believe this is the future: pricing based on guest relevancy, not static rates. And soon, our new AI-powered app will do exactly that—analyzing all-in, interval-specific, real-time pricing so you can stay competitive without guesswork. More to come.

Bottom Line

Source: Expedia Group Q2 2025 Earnings Release

Vrbo’s parent company, Expedia Group, reported in Q2 2025 that while booked room nights rose +7% year-over-year, average daily rates flatlined at $209 and gross bookings slipped—a signal that guests are staying fewer nights, canceling more, and resisting higher prices. Nearly 1 in 10 Vrbo bookings already run through new promotional discounts, and the platform is steering traffic toward last-minute deals with all-in pricing transparency (fees included upfront).

For STR investors, this underscores the market’s new reality: guests are more price-sensitive, booking closer in, and comparing the all-in “tile price” across platforms. Operators who adapt with flexible rules, smartly fenced discounts, and competitive fee structures will capture demand as the platforms reset traveler expectations.

📄 Full report: Expedia Group Q2 2025 Earnings Release (PDF)