Thank you for your work. As a provider of about 30 Costa Rica vacation condominium rentals to booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia, I find that booking.com is my favorite provider. It charges a 15% commission, allows me to charge my customers directly so I control my cash flow, and on average provides a "high quality" customer. Airbnb comes in second with roughly a 14% commission, a payment model that pays me during the customer's stay, but with a generally "cheaper" or more cost conscious customer. Expedia comes in a distant third with a 20% commission, a delayed payment model for the most part, and a customer profile similar to booking.com, but with far fewer customers. These comments speak only to the lodging segment of each business, and only in Costa Rica, but lead me to value the lodging segment's revenues more highly for booking.com and Airbnb than for Expedia.
This might be unhelpful, but, it was an observation....In thinking about about holiday travel, i thought, is there a metric of any kind to gauge stress levels in society. I came across the following chart... it's called the OFR Financial Stress Index.. https://www.financialresearch.gov/financial-stress-index/#:~:text=The%20OFR%20Financial%20Stress%20Index,valuation%20measures%2C%20and%20interest%20rates. My sleep deprived eyes are probably getting the better of me, but i swear Expedia and AirBnB, on the 1yr, have a inverse correlation? Separately, I am super excited about AI, but I've been waiting to hear about developments on Machine Learning's progress with regards to mathematical problems in general. My biggest problem with Bard, has been having to recheck the outputs. I don't have the vocabulary as to why, but I think that until maths learning for ML/AI improve, getting to far ahead with the AI narrative might be a recipe for disaster. I'm not a programmer or a mathematician or an analyst, so I could very well be wrong or in doomer mode. But that's my take, if it counts for anything. This was an enjoyable read.
Thank you for your work. As a provider of about 30 Costa Rica vacation condominium rentals to booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia, I find that booking.com is my favorite provider. It charges a 15% commission, allows me to charge my customers directly so I control my cash flow, and on average provides a "high quality" customer. Airbnb comes in second with roughly a 14% commission, a payment model that pays me during the customer's stay, but with a generally "cheaper" or more cost conscious customer. Expedia comes in a distant third with a 20% commission, a delayed payment model for the most part, and a customer profile similar to booking.com, but with far fewer customers. These comments speak only to the lodging segment of each business, and only in Costa Rica, but lead me to value the lodging segment's revenues more highly for booking.com and Airbnb than for Expedia.
This might be unhelpful, but, it was an observation....In thinking about about holiday travel, i thought, is there a metric of any kind to gauge stress levels in society. I came across the following chart... it's called the OFR Financial Stress Index.. https://www.financialresearch.gov/financial-stress-index/#:~:text=The%20OFR%20Financial%20Stress%20Index,valuation%20measures%2C%20and%20interest%20rates. My sleep deprived eyes are probably getting the better of me, but i swear Expedia and AirBnB, on the 1yr, have a inverse correlation? Separately, I am super excited about AI, but I've been waiting to hear about developments on Machine Learning's progress with regards to mathematical problems in general. My biggest problem with Bard, has been having to recheck the outputs. I don't have the vocabulary as to why, but I think that until maths learning for ML/AI improve, getting to far ahead with the AI narrative might be a recipe for disaster. I'm not a programmer or a mathematician or an analyst, so I could very well be wrong or in doomer mode. But that's my take, if it counts for anything. This was an enjoyable read.