Holiday Preview

Across the United States, vacation rental supply is increasing dramatically year-over-year. In many months, the change in supply outweighed the change in demand, leading to declining occupancy rates.

In November 2022, our scraped data indicated that active nights (supply) increased by 9% compared to 2021, while demand fell by 2%. This led to a decrease of 10% in occupancy overall.

Our direct data set reveals similar trends; for the weeks of Christmas and the New Year holiday, supply is still increasing over 2021 but demand is decreasing. This is causing a decrease in calendar occupancy from last year for both weeks; Christmas is pacing 8% behind last year and New Year’s is pacing 2% behind. It is important to note that owner and hold occupancy has barely deviated from levels seen in 2021 and 2019.?

ADR is also pacing behind last year for the week of Christmas (-$2), but $158 ahead of 2019. For New Year’s, rates are pacing $75 ahead of 2021, and $39 ahead of 2019. Shortly before Thanksgiving, nightly rates for Christmas were pacing $4 ahead of 2021 and $173 ahead of 2019. That the year-over-year difference is now lower implies that hosts and managers are dropping rates to encourage pick-up. Three weeks prior, rates for New Year's were pacing $80 ahead of 2021 and $20 ahead of 2019.?

Of reservations made in the last seven days (December 7-13), 51% have check-ins within the next 30 days. 16% will check in the week of Christmas, and 11% will check in the week of New Year. The average booking window for Christmas is five days shorter than last year, and six days shorter for New Year’s.