Hotels could benefit from studying booking trends related to short-term rentals, new research shows.
OTA Insight has delved into its data to find that hotel revenue managers can pick up early demand signals by looking at what’s happening in the rentals market.
The company, which launched its Rate Insight+ solution combining hotel and short-term rental data last month, reveals that although rental properties pick up in terms of demand earlier than hotels in most destinations, demand soon rises for hotels.
OTA Insight’s data team uncovered the trend after looking at the hotel pick-up lag, a term it uses to describe the later booking trend for hotels, versus short-term rental bookings in 29 destinations.
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The report concludes that in most destinations studied, the final occupancies of the two sectors correlated.
“We looked at multiple destinations and could see the strong correlation and the lag holds across many different destinations," said Corrie Bartelheimer, senior data scientist for OTA Insight. "It’s not a universal thing, but it holds across so many destinations that we are very certain that it’s not just a fluke.”
The study does not go into the influence of consumer behavior on booking rentals versus hotels, saying the data is more about early signals for hotels.
“Revenue managers are always looking for early signs of demand," said Niki Van den Broek, product manager at OTA Insight. "If you have an early indicator of demand, you can pick your pricing to optimize your revenue in the end.”
She added that the information has been averaged out over different times of the year to ensure it is accurate outside of typical busy periods.
OTA Insight acquired rental intelligence specialist Transparent a year ago as part of a strategy to broaden its offering.
The company announced Series B funding of $80 million in late 2021.