HomeAway Caribbean

The first half of 2008 found Jamaica’s tourism sector performing near its historical peak, with the island on course for approximately 1.77 million stopover arrivals for the full year. VRBO and HomeAway were the dominant Caribbean vacation rental platforms, operating in a pre-financial-crisis environment that had not yet been disrupted by either the recession that would follow or the sharing-economy platforms that would eventually reshape the accommodation market.

The second half of 2007 saw Jamaica’s tourism sector and the broader Caribbean vacation rental market operating in the final phase of a sustained expansion that had characterised the mid-2000s. VRBO, now part of the HomeAway portfolio following the 2006 acquisition, was the dominant online platform for Caribbean vacation rental listings. The US subprime mortgage market was beginning to show signs of stress, but the leisure travel market had not yet registered the early tremors of what would become a full economic crisis.

The second half of 2005 was dominated, for the Caribbean tourism industry, by one of the most active Atlantic hurricane seasons on record. Hurricane Emily made direct landfall on Jamaica on 11 July 2005, causing significant damage to infrastructure and temporarily disrupting tourism operations. In Austin, Texas, HomeAway Inc. was founded in 2005, assembling the team and capital that would transform the vacation rental platform market within a year through its acquisition of VRBO.