Marriott’s Venture into Vacation Rentals: The Story Behind Launching Homes & Villas

Meet Chris Stephenson, Vice President of Global Development at Homes & Villas by Marriott Bonvoy.

Chris has spent his career building new, innovative products and services across travel and hospitality. 

In February of 2019, Chris was a part of the founding team of Homes & Villas and in charge of thinking through how best to bring Marriott’s vacation rental home product to life. 

In this episode, Chris and I discuss:

• What it’s like incubating a new product offering within a legacy business
• Why Homes & Villas has had a different business model from Airbnb since Day 1
• How Homes & Villas has grown from a couple of thousand listings to a couple hundred thousand listings in just the last couple of years
• How Bonvoy, Marriott’s loyalty program, has played a role in accelerating usage of Homes & Villas
• And what the product roadmap for Homes & Villas looks like in 2024 and beyond

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Turno. 

Turno is the smartest way to schedule, pay, and find vacation rental cleaners — think of Turno as an Uber or Task Rabbit for STR hosts. 

Simply create an account, describe your listing’s cleaning needs, and Turno will match you with cleaners near you. 

Turno offers simple, affordable pricing for STR hosts of any size. Single property accounts and Marketplace users get access to all the platform’s tools and features for FREE. And they make working with your existing teams easy too, with plans as low as just $6/month per property.

Learn more and earn a $150 Amazon Gift Card after you complete your first cleaning. 

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About the Show

Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.  

You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com. 

Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.