Travel Industry Goes Social

It is not surprising that companies would get around to exploiting the house from facebook. That goes triple for travel-related industries, whose clientele tend to be extremely active on social networks.

Portland-based Second Porch — an online vacation rental site that lists 4000 properties in more than 100 countries — existed wholly as a Facebook app until it launched its own base of operations, secondporch.com, in June. Browse its listings, and you’re able to navigate between Facebook profiles of owners and past renters, or see which properties your current Facebook friends recommend. And likewise, if you make an inquiry, owners are able to sniff around your profile.

"We view transparency as critical to overcoming one of the vacation rental industry’s issues: the fear of renting from an unknown person. So requiring a Facebook account largely overcomes that," said president Brent Hieggelke.