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2024 is here! But, is your revenue management strategy stuck in the past?
As the vacation rental industry transitions back to a more familiar, pre-COVID pattern in 2024, hosts and managers will encounter the typical ebb and flow of seasons and spikes from holidays or events. However, they must recognize that the world has changed, and relying solely on pre-COVID data and trends will set their businesses up for failure. 2024 will bring numerous unpredictable spikes and downturns along with the return to normal seasonality, making it crucial to incorporate new data and strategies.
Adapting to a changed reality means proactive revenue management. To thrive in 2024, it's crucial for you to adapt to market shifts quickly, so a dynamic revenue management strategy that incorporates real-time consumer search data is essential.
Search Data Fends Off Market Volatility
A proactive approach can make all the difference between thriving and struggling in 2024. Adding search data allows you to detect periods of increased and decreased consumer demand before they happen so that you can adjust your strategy to get the maximum bookings and revenue.
Incorporating search data into your toolkit can also significantly enhance how you analyze market trends and their core workings.
For instance, let's take a look at fall occupancy trends for the Saint Simons Island, GA market. Let’s say that you have a rental there, and are looking at how to set up your revenue management strategy for the fall. You know that there is a clear rise in occupancy for Veterans Day, and a big jump for the Georgia vs. Florida football game, which always leads to higher demand.
But what does that mean for your pricing and booking strategy? If you look at year-over-year occupancy rates and data from the year before, you can make an educated guess about demand patterns for this year. This is a great starting point, but this leaves out what is actually happening in the present, meaning that you’ll need to take a few bad bookings and adjust your strategy from there.
Instead of relying on assumptions, old data, and a reactive approach, let’s turn to search data to get a clear view of what is happening.
Without Search Data, You Can’t See the Full Picture
With search data insights, you can see true demand data that lets you know when guests are looking to book:
- First, Veteran’s Day demand has a huge week-over-week increase, jumping 227% from the week before! This is clearly the time that potential guests are looking to book.
- Even more notable is the Georgia vs. Florida football game, which hadn’t seen much search demand at first, but started exploding in mid-September.
As you can see, adding the lens of search data can really show you a different side of a specific vacation rental market. It can give you inside information about when and how to price your property for maximum bookings. Beyond customers utilizing search data have seen incredible results:
"In 2023, our business went through tremendous growth, so incorporating search data from Beyond was a no-brainer. We've been able to take our strategy from reactive to proactive, which is leading to better results for us and our owners. It's been a game-changer to have visibility into what consumers are searching for online and to know that Beyond is automatically adjusting pricing based on consumer searches – rather than having to wait to see trends based on previous bookings. Using these new features from Beyond has been big for luring in new owners and retaining our current ones since we are offering updated tech all the time to them."
Nicole Bleidistel Gross, Novation Realty
Plus, adding this data source is proven to make your vacation rental business more successful: Property managers and hosts utilizing search data at Beyond see a 2% increase in revenue per available night (RevPAN).
Ready to get started with a proactive approach? Let’s chat!
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