Home swapping platforms see an opportunity to cash in on the fast-growing flexible work trend and and the appetite for more “authentic” experiences.

And the fact they offer free, or at least more affordable, stays during a post-pandemic travel boom that’s seeing flights, hotels and vacation rental costs soar is another favorable condition. But the challenge for the house exchange sector, once associated with classified ads and listings websites, will be to win guests’ trust.

A handful of well-known investors see the potential in one new network, with venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz leading a $7.75 million funding round for a platform called Kindred in April this year.

Co-founders Justine Palefsky and Tasneem Amin previously worked at property technology company Opendoor, and in the round tapped former colleagues, Eric Wu, co-founder and CEO, and Rohan Seth — who co-founded audio platform ClubHouse. Elad Gill, who previously invested in Airbnb, also took part.

The concept with these platforms is you pay an annual subscription, and need to have an approved home yourself. You agree to swap with another home, and any cleaning fees. Kindred, for example, charges $300 a year, and a service fee can be around $30 per night service. However some platforms, such as Intervac, accept homes that are also rented out.

Palefsky believes the bigger vacation rental companies have become “over-commercialized” today.

“Airbnb and VRBO have increasingly professionalized their supply. By and large, their inventory is coming from full-time investment homes,” she said. “People aren’t comfortable joining Airbnb or a similar company with their primary residence as it’s become more professionalized. That’s where it started, but (now) it’s not where the host lives day-to-day.”

She added that her financial backers’ interest was piqued because, according to her research, there are about 800,000 Airbnbs in the U.S., but 150 million primary residences. “It’s a really, really big market,” Palefsky said. “People spend a lot on travel. But what appealed to Andreesen is seeing how many primary residences there are in the world that aren’t on any vacation rental platform.”

Nomadic Lifestyles

Palefsky launched the company in April last year after struggling to find properties to work from remotely herself.

“Vacation rentals are not cheap, especially if it’s longer than just a few nights,” she said. “I explored becoming a full-time digital nomad to avoid paying double rent, but it wasn’t a convenient long-term option.”

Kindred aims to differentiate itself from the crowd, which also includes Homelink, by honing in on themes (similar to Airbnb’s latest redesign.) Rather than searching by dates, Kindred has taken the curated route.

“Instead of sending 60 emails to different homes, you only contact the right home that fits the date and style you’re looking for,” Palefsky said.”We’re taking it from listings to managed marketplace.”

One established player, HomeExchange, launched a similar feature called Collection earlier this month. After a soft launch in late 2021, a new collection features 300 homes (out of its 450,000 total) that are certified based on aspects including technology available, wellness or family-friendly features, and even notable artworks.

HomeExchange, which charges $1,000 on an annual subscription, also now lets members lend their homes without reciprocity, as guests can offer GuestPoints to be used at a later date.

There’s certainly innovation in the market, but Kindred now needs to scale up. It currently has 500 homes, but a waiting list of 6,000 applications. “We’re growing, but trying to do so in a thoughtful way,” Palefsk said.

Sidenotes

Every well moderated webinar or online conference leaves a little time for a Q&A session, but speakers found themselves caught out during a recent event that aimed to tackle the complexities of digital nomad visas.

The usual questions were fielded during the Let’s Talk Visas — The Modern Way of Nomadic Freedom webinar, hosted by Boundless Life and Relocate.

Lawyers and accountants from Greece, Italy and Portugal shared the ins and outs of dealing with application processes to help remote workers seamlessly transform into digital nomads. They discussed golden visas, entrepreneur applications, short and long-term residency permits,  family reunification, blue cards and citizenship processes.

But one audience member threw this curveball: can a child be born a digital nomad to digital nomad parents? First up, Italian chartered accountant Nicolo Bolla: “Whenever’s a baby born, we have a big discussion about new soil. If a baby’s born in Italy, they’re not a citizen.”

Greece’s Eleftheria Charalambous said parents can apply for a visa for them, while in Portugal, if the parents have been legal residents for more than a year, they can automatically request Portuguese citizienship for the child, or file for a family residency card, according to Sara Sousa Rebolo.

Then followed quetions about child care and nannies. Italy offers a dedicated au pair visa. Sousa Rebolo said she wished Portugal offered the same.

A more serious question surrounded what happens if a digital nomad overstays their welcome. Just don’t, seems to be the answer.

10-Second Corporate Travel Catch-Up

Who and what Skift has covered over the past week: Air France, American Airlines, Capital A, Choice Hotels, CWT, multilingual meetings, NH Hotel Group, Saudi Arabia, Sonder.

In Brief

SAP Concur Adds New Another Cabon Counting App

Travel and expense tool SAP Concur has added the Choose Climate carbon emissions management platform to its app center. It helps organizations measure, reduce, and manage their travel emissions. The app center offers 270 partner applications, but SAP Concur said this was one of the first extensions to be built on the SAP Business Technology Platform. The addition follows its Thrust Carbon partnership, to enable travel managers to offer live emissions reporting, which went live in March.

United Airlines Strikes 20-Year Aviation Fuel Deal

United Airlines and United Airlines Ventures are buying at least 300 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel from utilization company Dimensional Energy. United aims to be a “100 percent green net zero” by 2050, without the use of traditional carbon offsets. Dimensional Energy removes the need for fossil fuels, converting carbon dioxide and water into usable ingredients.

Skift Take

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, June 17, at airport gates along the U.S. east coast (where Skift editors’ flights are delayed). Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Rashaad Jorden

Today’s edition of Skift’s daily podcast looks at tourism recovery rates in major markets, the implications of American Airlines’ regional pilot pay increase, and home swapping for business travelers.

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Episode Notes

The travel industry is continuing to inch closer to a full rebound. Skift Research’s newly released Skift Travel Health Index for May 2022 reveals that half of the world’s 22 largest tourism economies have either made a complete recovery or are close to doing so, reports Senior Research Analyst Wouter Geerts.

Seven countries — including Mexico, Italy, France and Brazil — are part of the 100 Club, meaning their travel performances last month surpassed those of May 2019. Four other countries, including the U.S., recorded travel performances that were less than 5 percentage points off their May 2019 levels. The index also revealed that the travel industry hit 81 percent of pre-Covid metrics, marking the first time the global index score surpassed the 80 percent mark since the start of the pandemic.

Next up, two American Airlines regional affiliates have given pilots big pay raises, a move intended to fix the pilot shortage hammering regional carriers. But Airlines Reporter Edward Russell writes the decision could have significant implications for the larger aviation industry.

New agreements between American subsidiaries Envoy and Piedmont Airlines and pilots union, the Air Line Pilots Association, will see entry-level co-pilots earn $90 an hour. Envoy or Piedmont pilots would start at the same rate if they moved up to a job at American, which would be substantially greater than that at discount carriers Frontier Airlines or Spirit Airlines.

While Piedmont expressed optimism the pay package would help attract and retain pilots, Russell writes the higher pay could have unintended consequences. One of them being airlines phasing out smaller regional jets in favor of larger models to generate revenue for increased pilot pay, which Russell writes would hurt small cities lacking the travel demand needed to support larger aircraft.

Finally, home swapping platforms see a lucrative opportunity to take advantage of the boom in remote work. But Corporate Travel Editor Matthew Parsons reports in this week’s Future of Work Briefing that those companies face the challenge of having to earn the trust of users.

Kindred, which received more than $7 million worth of financial backing earlier this year, is one company that sees an enormous market for house exchanges. Co-founder Justine Palefsky cited figures detailing the large numbers of houses in the U.S. not appearing on any vacation rental platform, which she believes was appealing to Kindred’s financial backers. Members of home exchange platforms pay for an annual subscription and agree to swap a platform-approved house as well as take care of any cleaning fees.

As for how to find an appropriate house on Kindred, Palefsy said that its members would only contact a property that fits the style and date they’re looking for — instead of sending dozens of emails to different homes.