VRBO Making a Home on GenAI Chatbots

The 2025 summer travel season was another scorcher for the short-term vacation rental market across digital, and competition among top players remains fierce. Airbnb has long been the frontrunner in the space, but VRBO’s recent momentum reveals how the landscape is shifting.

Sensor Tower data shows that Airbnb and VRBO (owned by Expedia) generated a cumulative 41 million mobile users in the US in July, and over 600 million website visits. While the bulk of both mobile users (70%) and web users (65%) belonged to Airbnb, there is at least one important metric that VRBO is leading in: AI traffic. 

VRBO is closing the gap with its biggest competitor in part through its popularity with GenAI Chatbots (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, etc). Data from Sensor Tower’s Web Insights indicates that VRBO is seeing 100% more web site referrals from chatbots than Airbnb. Furthermore, from October 2024 to October 2025, VRBO’s AI referrals jumped an astounding 2,900%, compared to Airbnb’s 124%.

As AI tools like ChatGPT continue to overtake traditional search engines, referrals from these platforms are becoming increasingly important for brand visibility. Web Insights includes GenAI referrals as a channel source, providing users with actionable and timely insights into which brands are winning on chatbots. Though as of today GenAI direct traffic comprises only ~1% of total web visits, it is steadily gaining share across categories. 

Web Insights gives you granular visibility into the channels driving traffic, the journeys funneling users through your site, and the factors impacting performance across verticals.

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