If you're flying anywhere this holiday season, it's a good bet you'll spend some extra "bonus dwell time" in an airport terminal. Or three.
06.12.2023 - 04:38 / skift.com / Srividya Kalyanaraman
Stat of the Day: Thinking that you, like us, are wondering what’s happening to occupancy levels this summer, we had some numbers crunched for us by data analysis firm Beyond Pricing and this is what it found: U.S. occupancy for July is pacing about 5 percentage points down year-on-year, from 37 percent in 2022 to 32 percent in 2023.
At the moment, 2023 is looking very similar in occupancy to 2019, and just slightly above where 2020 was at this point. This is a big fall from the past two years and it seems to be taking a lot of hosts and property managers by surprise. When we look at the rates they are asking for, for the same time period in the U.S., the ADR is down just 4.8 percent year-on-year, and most of that is due to last minute-discounts, with August down only 1.6 percent.
“We aren’t seeing a sizable shift in guest behavior that is fueling this fall in occupancy, but they just have so many options for their stay, with U.S. STR supply still growing in the double digits,” said Jeffrey Breece, manager of revenue management at Beyond Pricing. “The end effect is that we have 2022 prices at 2019 occupancy, which is bringing the industry down in 2023.”
What kind of guests would hosts make? Consider that thought. Hostshare is (rather, will be) a platform vacation rental hosts can use to trade unbooked nights with other hosts. Simply put, you can play with other short-term rental hosts for an annual fee. It’s a subscription service for last-minute bookings to and for hosts. The cost: $395 per year, the benefit: a maximum of 21 nights of free stay (cleaning fees not included).
The company says the platform will go live as soon as it gathers a critical mass of subscribers. If the idea resonates with hosts, we’ll add. Sean Wilkinson, the founder of the company told Skift, “The idea is for hosts to trade their unbooked last minute properties to other hosts who are responsible and know how to take care of the place.”
Airbnb, together with OpenStreetMap, ran an analysis, and here are some highlights: In 2022, U.S. hosts on Airbnb welcomed more than 44 million guest arrivals to areas where there are no hotels. U.S. hosts generated more than $10.5 billion in earnings. And the following towns had their first-ever Airbnb booking this quarter:
Digital ticketing solutions for tours and attractions are seeing sports events emerge as a winning category for customer engagement as travelers continue to plan around bucket-list events. Football fans visiting Barcelona find attending a local match as much of a bucket list experience as seeing the Spanish city’s historical temple of Sagrada Familia.
Travel Brands Woo Customers with Bucket List Sports Events
The U.S. Travel Association has unveiled its biannual travel
If you're flying anywhere this holiday season, it's a good bet you'll spend some extra "bonus dwell time" in an airport terminal. Or three.
Hawaii Governor Josh Green has asked for 3,000 condos and homes operating as short-term rentals to be converted into long-term housing for those displaced by this summer’s wildfire in Lahaina.
Hawaii Governor Josh Green said he is ready to “drop the hammer” or go “nuclear” on short-term housing rentals on Maui.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour made headlines even before it began — by overwhelming booking platform Ticketmaster and drawing attention even from the U.S. Senate.
Dealmaking has kept short-term rental businesses in Europe busy. The past few months have seen an uptick in activity — be it mergers, or acquisitions or rebrandings.
Booking Holdings Chief Financial Officer David Goulden said this week that the flagship Booking.com brand launched its short-term rental business as a supplement to hotels “15-plus years” ago, which is roughly around the time Airbnb got going in San Francisco.
Fake signs warnings of bedbug infestations are being used to deter tourists in Athens, Greece.
This is not a story of “Airbnbust,” but instead we’re talking about a correction of the “Airbnboom” that has taken place since the highs of the pandemic.
Happy Thanksgiving, folks! I know you’d rather carve a turkey than open your inbox, so we will keep this brief.
You read it here first: We’re halfway into the year, and the short-term rental industry has been buoyed by summer travel picking up, despite prevailing economic uncertainty.
New This Morning: Following extensive discussions within the community spanning almost four years regarding short-term rental homes, the Dallas City Council implemented zoning limitations to prohibit their presence in single-family neighborhoods last week. However, as a middle ground, short-term rentals will still be permitted in commercial areas and multi-family neighborhoods.
If you’ve seen a tweetstorm about the alleged “Airbnb collapse” and are wondering if the data seems too dramatic – you’re not alone, or even wrong.