Wyndham Acquires Love Home Swap as Large Hotel Chains Feel Heat from Airbnb and Other Startups

As large hotel chains continue to fend off Airbnb and other startups that aimed at facilitating more places to stay and a wider price range in the hospitality industry, some have begun to make acquisitions designed to help them better adapt to the rapidly changing marketplace.

RCI, which is a division of Wyndham Hotel Group, has now acquired Love Home Swap, a London-based startup that, like Airbnb, allows travelers to book stays in other people's homes, at the same time letting them list their own properties to be booked by others.

Wyndham has not released the exact terms of the deal, but media reports have tagged the acquisition price as somewhere between $44 million and $53 million. A spokesman for RCI has said the exact total will not be disclosed. RCI has a history with Love Swap Exchange, having invested in the company in 2015.

Love Home Swap was first founded in 2011 by Debbie Wosskow, who in the wake of this deal will transition from leading the company into an advisory role for the next six months as her brother Ben Wosskow, a company co-founder and previously the chief commercial officer, will oversee the business's daily operations.

Industry experts see a clear connection between this deal and the rise of companies like Airbnb, which is reportedly heading for an IPO, having raised $1 billion and earned a total valuation of $31 billion. Industry experts say that some traditional hotel operators are concerned that Airbnb is being perceived as unstoppable, making moves into other aspects of the hospitality industry such as flight booking, vacation planning, and many other services adjacent to accommodations, moves that make Airbnb more likely to provide a close travel loop that the company controls. It's worth noting that the rumored sum for the Love Home Swap deal is a great deal lower than Airbnb's current valuation.

This is not the first deal in which a massive global hotel chain has acquired a travel startup that provides better access to the changing marketplace. Last year, Accor Hotels paid $170 million for OneFineStay, an Airbnb-esque outfit that operates exclusively with high-end properties. Meanwhile, Expedia reportedly fell short in efforts to acquire Luxury Retreats, another company that focuses on high-end properties (Luxury Retreats was ultimately acquired by Airbnb). As the market continues to adjust to the permenant prescence of Airbnb, Expedia and Priceline have both bolstered the inventory of vacation rentals available on their sites.

Wyndham Hotel Group's RCI division covers vacation exchange, and it has more than 4,300 affiliated resorts in nearly 110 countries. It has developed the concept for vacation exchange with a global points-based exchange system, racking up more than 3.8 million subscribing members to date as part of the Wyndham Destination Network. Wyndham, for its part, is famous for operating hotel chains such as Travelodge, Ramada, Super 8, and Howard Johnson, along with a good deal of business in self-catered and family accommodations.

Love Home Swap was founded in 2011, with Debbie Wosskow aiming at the time to create a more robust true home exchange model. The company has grown to include a network of more than 100,000 homes throughout 140 countries. Wyndham said that Love Home Swap will continue to run as an autonomous brand with separate marketing from that of RCI.

In a statement, Wosskow said, "I'd like to thank the team and everyone involved in driving Love Home Swap forward. Dedication and hard work has yielded fantastic results in a short space of time and this is a real global success story for the U.K. sharing economy. We're delighted to join the RCI family and are excited to work closely with them to help shape the future of the travel industry together."

Industry experts expect this to be one of a wave of similar deals sparked by the ongoing heat being put on large hotel brands by Airbnb and other startups in the hospitality space.

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Jule Grass
Marketing Manager
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