When travelers go online in search of vacation rental information, a search engine is often their go-to source. Search engines and portals generated over 50% of referrals to the vacation rental category from May 2009 – April 2010, with Google and Yahoo! together contributing four in 10 visitors.

Yet the top 500 keywords generating search traffic to the vacation rental category represented less than one in four search referrals, indicating the tremendous number of search terms generating vacation rental category traffic.

The fragmented vacation rental segment has emerged as a highly concentrated online market, with a small number of sites attracting a significant share of traffic. However, the plethora of keywords driving search showcases the category’s Long Tail and the market’s hyper-local nature, revealing a significant opportunity for targeted, destination-driven search marketing.

PhoCusWright partnered with Compete to assess the size of the online vacation rental market and identify key trends in online vacation rental shopping. PhoCusWright’s U.S. Online Vacation Rental Market Analysis: 2008-2010 provides a fresh analysis of the online vacation rental market and updates select metrics from PhoCusWright’s Vacation Rental Marketplace: Poised for Change.

Key Topics

Key online behavioral trends – including air and hotel cross-category shopping, the impact of social networks, referral traffic analysis and more The vacation rental guest Market size and structure – including RBO vs. VRMC and major online vacation rental players PhoCusWright’s U.S. Online Vacation Rental Market Analysis: 2008-2010 is available for US$695