I need help in understanding this answer from VRBO.COM...
 

Okay... I have a listing on VRBO.COM for our house in San Miguel Mexico. The listing is up for renewal in a few days and I am hesitating on another year with them due to some "rumors" I heard last year about them discriminating against gays. What I heard was that they refused to print "gay-friendly' in one of their listings.... to be honest...I don't quite get it why a rental house listing needs to say "gay-friendly"...but anyway I wrote VRBO.COM asking them out-right if they are anti-gay. Their response is below....

what do you think?

VRBO.com has never and will never discriminate against anyone based on race, religion, gender, or sexual preferences. We do not actually know any of this information about any of our members unless for some reason they have disclosed it to us. In the unlikely event they have, we have done nothing about it. We collect no demographic information about anyone other than their mailing address and phone numbers so we have no way of discriminating against them.

However, we do have standards for what we will allow on our site. We maintain a total ban on any sexual references which includes nude beaches, alternative lifestyles, or strip bars. We are as one member referred to as 'generic'. While some sites choose to allow anything to be posted, we choose to remain generic so anyone can visit our site and feel comfortable in what they might see. This has been our policy from the beginning and it's worked for virtually all of our members so there are no plans to change it.

What we do offer is to bring over 3 million visitors to the site each month, many of them interested in your property. We do not care what their race, religion, gender, or sexual preferences are either and members can determine that information themselves, if they care.

Sounds fine to me. It's just a service.

Interesting...I'd want to know if one of their places was next to a nude beach so I could go rent something else.

Going back to your point, I think they're just making a point of showing the property, though I would think it is relevant what type of community and local activities are there.

One has to decide what's more important. Getting renters, thereby making a profit (assuming this company provides a good service). Or, perhaps, if only out of principle, using another company, which is not as "generic" and will not shy away from the word "gay" in its ads.

Personally I would find descriptors such as "gay-friendly" or "close to the nude beach" very helpful. I believe there are some things that are illegal to have in such ads such as "no minorities". But that has to do with law and is a different issue.

I had read something about VRBO's discrimination but then again there are two sides to every story and their response seems adequate to me. I admit to looking for "gay-friendly" or "gay owned/managed" when researching accommodations but their claim to "remain generic so anyone can visit our site and feel comfortable" is very reasonable. I'm sure there are many owners who couldn't care less who slept in the beds as long as their guests respected the property during their stay in them.

I thought the response was very good. They do one thing and they stick to it AND they don't discriminate. As for descriptors such as near nude beach or near gayborhood, I tend to discount anything a property says in that regard and usually try to independently verify a location as their idea of near and mine might differ significantly.

In my travel experience the property descriptor "gay friendly" varies so widely that it's often unreliable as well.

This is the issue with VRBO...
 

I believe this is the article that started the controversy. For my money, I won't use VRBO any more. It's incredibly hypocritical to be taking "gay" dollars and then protest when you don't like how your advertisers market themselves. And to be honest, I would have been OK with them wanting to "remain generic so anyone can visit our site and feel comfortable." But they'd have been better off not revealing that it's based on a religious reason, as if somehow their morality is better than mine. What's next? Is Mr. Clouse (below) going to make sure that only married couples are allowed to stay in places that are advertised? It's just one more religious bigot that I don't feel I should have to support.


SOME SITES ZOOM IN ON THE LUCRATIVE GAY TOURISM MARKET
LA Times, August 21, 2005

GAY and lesbian Americans are a traveling bunch, piquing the interest of some websites that view them as a lucrative niche market.

Nearly 90% of gays and lesbians said they had traveled in the U.S. in the last 12 months, according to a survey conducted between October and March. The survey by Harris Interactive, a Rochester, N.Y.-based research company, was done for the National Gay Newspaper Guild. Gays and lesbians were twice as likely as non-gays to have traveled outside the U.S. within the last three years.

Of Expedia, Orbitz and Travelocity, the big three online agencies, Travelocity and Orbitz have been most visible in courting this market.

"We're really just getting started making our presence louder and prouder," said Bryan Saltzburg, Travelocity vice president of packaging, cruise and travel extras.

Travelocity, which has ramped up its presence in the last year, is an official sponsor of gay pride festivals, advertises on PlanetOut.com's gay and lesbian travel guide pages and has a customer support phone line staffed by representatives specially trained to handle the needs and concerns of gay and lesbian travelers.

Travelocity and Orbitz have "Gay and Lesbian Travel" sections on their websites with links to popular destinations, upcoming gay and lesbian events around the world and gay-friendly hotels.

Not all online travel companies embrace gay and lesbian travelers.

Craig Trentecosta, who owns the St. Philip Apartments in the French Quarter of New Orleans, started advertising online about two years with VRBO.com, a vacation home rental website. He included the wording "gay/lesbian family friendly" in his ad for more than a year, he said.

In November, he said, he received an e-mail from VRBO saying that the phrase "gay/lesbian family friendly environment" would be removed.

Trentecosta tried such wording as "alternative lifestyle friendly" or "we fly the rainbow flag" and "regardless of sexual orientation," all of which were deleted from his listing, he said.

In April, Trentecosta's listing was deleted entirely from the site.

Though he lists his property with Purple Roofs (www.purpleroofs.com, a website that features gay-owned or gay-friendly vacation home rentals, and other sites, "the biggest response we got was from VRBO, which tells me there are an awful lot of gays and lesbians shopping on VRBO," Trentecosta said.

David Clouse, president of VRBO, declined to respond to questions about the site's acceptable-content policy.

Trentecosta said he received an e-mail from Clouse that said, "This is not a business issue…. This is a religious issue. I believe that it is wrong to be forced to promote an activity which is totally outside my belief system."

When asked by The Times, Clouse would not confirm that the e-mail was from him.

But Clouse said in an e-mail to The Times that "VRBO.com has many gay and lesbian advertisers and has never removed any listing due to the sexual orientation of the advertiser."

That is not satisfactory to some.

"Gay and lesbian travelers need to seek out the websites … that are looking for our business and put the collective financial strength of our community not just where it's welcomed but to where it's encouraged to visit," said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

Contact James Gilden at http://www.theinternettraveler.com.

[QUOTE=ted_traveler]Trentecosta said he received an e-mail from Clouse that said, "This is not a business issue…. This is a religious issue. I believe that it is wrong to be forced to promote an activity which is totally outside my belief system."

QUOTE]


That makes sense they want our money but can't be seen to endorse our lifestyle.

I belive it is wrong to promote activities that discrinmate against minorities, so "do unto others" and stop funding the swollen coffers of the religious right.

The e-mail in the original post using the term "alternative lifestyles" struck me as odd. Who uses that term anymore. And saying that "alternative lifestyles" "are not up to our standards" seems to me to just be a way of expressing disapproval of gays.

VRBO
 

I realize this conversation is very old but my husband and I have been trying to get our rental property listed on VRBO for over a week now. They keep asking for more documentation. My husband owns our rental house. I intend to be the property manager. They keep asking for various forms of proof that he owns the house and I am allowed to manage it.
The latest request is for a copy of our marriage certificate. It occurred to me that many of our heterosexual friends who are married and list rentals on VRBO have never been asked to provide proof they were married. I provided the proof and then was told that our listing is still pending approval.
We listed the same property on Airbnb a week ago and have made $1000 already. VRBO doesn't want our gay money? I think not.

More info needed........
 

More info needed........
 

It would help to know what you exactly asked in order to compare the answer to, otherwise just another way rumors are spread.

Unfortunately, as this would be common sense before opining, common sense is severely lacking among so many so their misinformed opines are useless but spread like wildfire.