Airbnb And Stable Coins: Insights For 2025 Vacation Rentals

By Yes Consulting
/ 24 January 2026
/ Airbnb, Corporate, Luxury, M&A, Newsletters, Revenue Management, STR Technology
/ #cryptocurrency, #newsletter, #vacation rentals, Airbnb, Revenue Management, Stable Coins, Technology

February Newsletter Content:

Airbnb Recap
“Go Big or Go Home”
Luxury: The Hunted Segment
Automation hits Hospitality M&A
Stable Coins May Finally Fix Travel Payments
Revenue Management – The best tools & people
Product of the year 2025
GEO, vs SEO, Search is changing
No more Websites? Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP

1. Airbnb Recap – You’ve Lost that lovin’ feelin’?

They have been quiet recently. After the avalanche of changes and policies in 2025, they are lying low. Airbnb in summer 2025 highlighted lower-than-expected growth and margin pressure due to a major investment in “Experiences” and an app redesign. An AirDNA industry survey for summer 2025 found that while some hosts thrived, many struggled.

Oversupply and maturing markets are catching up with demand. On the regulatory front, caps and tighter restrictions continue to bite. Lisbon showed some more forward thinking in early January 2026, as the restrictions have not improved housing supply it will have damaged the city’s income.

Differentiation by quality, service, location, and guest experience is becoming increasingly important. This isn’t a collapse of the STR market; it’s the start of a transition. The days of explosive year-on-year growth are fading; what follows is optimisation, calibration and risk-management. Margin focus and for Airbnb, trying to meet higher booking values and better accommodation, evidenced by a recent French report:

“The Airbnb Ogre’ (4/6). In some mountain villages, the arrival of online platforms has made it much easier for private homeowners to rent to vacationers, directly impacting real estate prices. This recent article reveals that in French ski resort regions (such as Savoie and Haute-Savoie), there is a marked increase in whole-home short-term rentals used primarily as second homes for tourists/investors rather than as local residences.

Despite decent earnings, Airbnb has not seen shareholder love, and this is the challenge. Meanwhile, Booking Holdings has more than doubled its share price in the same period.

Airbnb has followed traditional rules of scale growth, which end in a supply chain squeeze. We can expect more, no doubt, plus a hotel marketing focus and hard push on quality, which affects volume. Hotels could be the “Sword of Damocles” to supply, who may well take final umbrage, serving a sector that has pushed hard for legislation against STRs. Also expect new policy changes and an ever-increasing control on guest management. Would Brian Chesky have offered a blow up matress if he owned a hotel?

Skift Report

This is an excellent article on Skift and highlights the weight of challenges, stagnation and lack of innovation. The article suggests that the initial magic, novelty, and sense of discovery that defined Airbnb’s early years have disappeared (so true). What was once a movement about “living like a local” and human connections has become a standardised, transactional commodity. Its getting indistinguishable from booking a hotel and a lot more hassle at the sharp end.

“Now it’s gone, gone, gone, whoa-oh-oh-oh”

2. Go Big or Go Home

We picked this up from Conrad O’Connell’s LinkedIn post and supports what we are seeing across various management companies. It begs the question, however, that managers who adopt tools, who focus, and are aware of OTA risks put more effort in, and we would expect to see better results. Countering this, going big also comes with many problems, including occupancy and levelling demand across a broader spectrum of inventory.

Note the jump in direct bookings for the median vacation rental manager in the 100-199 bucket -> 200-499 bucket. From 22% to 41% in 2025. Note the red box, too. If you’re a smaller manager and getting more than 12% direct, you’re probably doing a LOT better than most, especially in urban areas.

M&A and Big!

At Yes Consulting™, we see many M&A deals and are involved in a few each year. Going big in this context also makes sense. But make sure growth is under control and all the finaces, SOP’s and staff governance are in place!

Sign up to our M&A Playbook Here.

3. Hunted Segment – Luxury

There seems to be an endless stream of companies eager to become quality/”luxury” accommodation providers, ideally offering villas or chalets with pools, exceptional views, and great amenities. Sub-super luxury, but better than those on the edge of acceptable. This is the accommodation that fits the budgets of upper-middle-class business execs and baby boomers, with families.

For example: Exclusive Investments recently entered into an agreement to acquire and take Inspirato Incorporated, a Denver-based luxury travel subscription company, private. Inspirato will join Exclusive Resorts and onefinestay, the luxury villa rental and home-management brand, within The Collective. This forms one of the most expansive private networks in luxury hospitality.

Will it succeed? Probably, but the kicker is that they seldom control the calendar and assets; it’s a contract-light business, and they are seldom good at the rock face but great at this demographic of guest acquisition. Another channel, no doubt looking even more predatory, as there are more out there to acquire! Just saying.

4. ForeNom – Automation hits Hospitality

This is an unusual one!

Bravedo, an organisation with more than 30 technology and service companies in its portfolio, acquired shares in Forenom from CapMan and Finnish Industry Investment.

Forenom

Forenom is a provider of serviced apartments in the Nordic region, with a strong focus on business customers. The company operates an aparthotel chain in the Nordics and provides a comprehensive selection of serviced apartments across the region. The portfolio comprises over 9,000 serviced apartments, aparthotels and hostel rooms across all major Nordic cities and Germany, generating more than 2.3 million overnight stays annually.

Bravedo

Bravedo is a provider of B2B and public sector services in Finland, delivering integrated solutions that combine human expertise with technology. The group supports organisations in redesigning, optimising, and automating their operations and services to improve efficiency and enable scalable operations. Bravedo operates in 11 countries across Europe and brings together expertise from the group’s nearly 40 specialised companies to serve a wide range of private- and public-sector clients.

Bravedo quote: Efficiency is key in Bravedo’s ecosystem. We combine the scale of large consultancies with the agility of smaller players, offering unified teams and a single point of contact. Our synergistic companies focus on generating value for you, ensuring a cohesive approach to service delivery. Managing multiple vendors can be frustrating and time-consuming, but with Bravedo, you get the services you need all in one place. It’s not one-size-fits-all; it’s a selection of offerings from 40 specialised companies, all under one roof.

Will this be a match made in heaven? If so, expect more deals to cross industry borders. Certainly, tech, consultancy, administration, and people-driven solutions may be the answer to large SA/MTS and STR hospitality businesses.

5. Stable Coins May Finally Fix Travel Payments

This is not a currency found in barns, but a solid opportunity emerging from the Cryptocurrency world. For years, stablecoins were a “solution in search of a problem.” But after a massive shift in 2024–2025—including Stripe’s $1.1B acquisition of Bridge and new global regulations like the US GENIUS Act—the infrastructure is finally ready for prime time.

For the travel industry, the advantages are purely economic:

Instant Settlement: Replace the 3–5 day waiting period with settlement in minutes, 24/7/365.
Slash Costs: Traditional cross-border fees of 3–5% drop to 0.5–1%.
Optimise Capital: For a company moving $50M annually, this is $1M+ in direct savings, plus the ability to earn 4%+ yield on treasury balances.

The Bottom Line: Travel is uniquely positioned to benefit because our payment flows are international and multi-party. While giants like Emirates are already moving, there is a 12–24 month window for early adopters to gain a structural cost advantage before this becomes the industry standard.

Want to know more? Then this is the place to go, and it’s fascinating, and being expounded by one of the industry’s foremost STR experienced Crypto and Blockchain experts.

SEE MORE

6. Revenue Management – The best tools & people

2025 was the year everyone started talking about Revenue Management. A dark art or a scientific assembly of data and analysis. Probably a combination of the two, with data leading the way. What surprised us was how well hidden the experts really are. It’s as though they don’t want to be found, and this may show what their characters are really like: intense, in darkened rooms, multiple screens, data flowing continuously, and a few Tarot cards!

RevenueManagers.co is a free site we have created to source great tools and revenue management experts. Very recently launched, we are building a single source for these to shortcut the questions we get and offer a marketing outlet to those who want more exposure.

Visit Revenue Managers (its free)

7. Product of the year 2025 – Data Use in Booking Performance

We are not including any of our clients here who deserve a mention but have relied on interviews and referrals from our network to businesses with founders who have industry experience, technical intelligence, and business acumen.

This company stood out and is making a big impact: “My Data Value”, founded by Miro Gospodinov (LinkedIn)

Ideally, you should visit the website to get a full description of how this product, named “Sisi”, works. If you are using Booking.com, it is an invaluable tool and service, with a raft of companies seeing incredible double-digit results quickly. If you would like an in-depth explanation of the OTA problem for companies, check out this blog from MDV.

The business also offers:

Free Real Time Search
Booking Optimisation Calendar
OTA Chrome Extension

As one of our clients says:

Incredible, in our very tough market, it has made such a huge difference to volume bookings and margins and in such a short time!

Checkout The Best Tool of 2025

8. GEO vs SEO, LLM’S, GOOGLE……

Be prepared for the future of Search.

Without giving our own take on this, we have linked an excellent article which starts with some incredible stats.

At the time of writing this report, 44% of people are choosing AI based search over Google (source: McKinsey). For context, this is well over one billion consumers worldwide, and I expect this number to vastly rise over the next three years.

Why read this report? There is wealth of experience here and Search is in a moment of inflexion. What once worked, needs a serious rethink.

The Author

Originally a copywriter, Neely Khan went on to acquire a Midlands-based creative agency after eight years working closely with short-term rental and hospitality brands on brand positioning, content strategy, and storytelling.

Her agency has partnered with brands including Smiling House Luxury, Abode Luxury Rentals, and Cheval Residences, helping drive brand loyalty, increased spend, and long-term guest trust through story-led communication.

Her agency has now founded “Kahani”, a one-of-a-kind framework designed to help hospitality brands get found by AI and chosen by humans, blending high-impact storytelling with Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO).

Download The GEO Report

9. No more Websites? Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)

This article from Scale’s “The Wire” is a great summary of Google’s “UCP” Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP). A new open standard that allows AI assistants not just to recommend products, but to complete purchases end-to-end inside a single conversation.

UCP is developed by Google in collaboration with industry leaders including Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target, and Walmart endorsed by over 20 global partners across the ecosystem like Adyen, American Express, Best Buy, Flipkart, Macy’s Inc, Mastercard, Stripe, The Home Depot, Visa, Zalando and many more.

No websites (we don’t belive this), no checkout pages and no booking forms needed. You tell an AI what you want, it checks availability and prices in real time and books it for you. It’s the start of a completely new booking behaviour. Coming to hotels and products fast, and STRs no doubt. Is it a product play or a payment play?