From the Beyond Pricing team to yours, we wish you a joyous, peaceful holiday season!
When we founded Beyond Pricing seven years ago, there was no data-driven approach to pricing vacation rentals or software to assist with decision making that had been the norm in hotels and airlines for a decade. Since then, we have defined the category, taken the lead in the market, and now support over 330,000 listings in more than 7,000 cities worldwide.When the calendar turned to 2020, we were focusing on growth and expanding to help as many customers as possible. Then COVID-19 came. While the pandemic changed so much of our lives, it didn’t change the core values of our company, two of which are “We Care” and “We Are on the Same Team.” At Beyond Pricing, we care deeply about your success. And we’re on the same team. When you grow, we grow; and when you hurt, we hurt too.
In 2020, while we certainly shared a lot of pain, we here at Beyond also saw an opportunity to focus on initiatives we knew would not only help our customers weather the storm, but also put you in a position to capture the rebound:
- We launched Insights to provide market information that could help you understand your overall performance. This tool has the ability to drill down to the listing level, providing unprecedented insight into your portfolio and helping make effective pricing decisions, with just a few clicks.
- In Pricing, the Market-Based Health Score can show up to a three-month forecast on how closely a listing is pacing relative to the market. We added another year of data to the market data and stats tabs so you can compare pre and post COVID. We built Bulk Actions, a tool that allows you to update all pricing settings and customizations for all of your listings at once, right on the dashboard. We expanded the Booking Review process to allow you to review pricing suggestions and respond to comments from the Beyond Pricing team.
- We launched Signal, our website and direct booking engine, and Relay, a better way to automate OTA distribution. These tools ensure you are getting as many eyeballs as possible on your properties in the most cost-effective way.
Fortunately for us all, the pandemic didn't squash the human desire to travel. Drive-to vacation rentals were one of the few bright spots in the travel industry in 2020. We also saw a 20 percent increase in short-term rental bookings year over year. With travelers reluctant to get on planes or gather in crowded resorts, short-term rentals have now become normalized for guests who traditionally wouldn’t have considered it as an option.
The guest market for short-term rentals has fundamentally and permanently expanded. This trend had already started to gain steam prior to 2020, and the pandemic has only accelerated it. As we approach 2021, we are confident that our industry will thrive in the recovery, and we expect to see demand for short-term rentals reach new heights.
When the eventual (and sustained) rebound comes, we know the short-term rental space will look strikingly different than it did a year ago. With our fingers on the pulse across the globe, you can count on us to continue to build tools and provide you with the resources that will help your business thrive in the new world.
Because we care. Because we’re on the same team. ❤️