This Fastest-Growing Trip Length Category Can Increase Your Occupancy
“Longer stays are on the rise. In fact, bookings that meet or exceed 28 days is actually the fastest-growing trip length category today. In Q2 2022, more than 22% of nights booked in suburban areas were for 28 days or more compared to 18%.” – AirDNA, June 2022
We are all aware that occupancy is down this year compared to 2020 and 2021. Let’s take a trip down memory lane—times were good. Despite the haunting shroud of COVID-19, global wealth hit a record high of $530 trillion in 2021. In the face of adversity, the vacation rental world was at the top of the mountain, enjoying a beautiful, and profitable, view.
And of course, we want to continue looking at that view, but 2022 has exposed some tough challenges.
According to AirDNA, despite inflation and rising gas prices, demand for travel has grown substantially over the last two years. In May and June 2022, occupancy fell by 8.6% and 9.9% year-over-year, respectively, as demand failed to keep up with surging supply. We all know that 2021 was an anomaly for the short-term rental industry, with demand hitting record highs.
Identifying the Challenges
According to the Washington Post, “recession risks are high—uncomfortably high—and rising.” Although major swaths of the economy, including the job market and consumer spending, remain robust, there are mounting worries that rising borrowing costs for consumers and businesses after years of near-zero interest rates, could cause a sudden retrenchment. In this year, occupancy reports, stretching from the southwest to the northeast, reflect this decline.
The Importance of Monthly Rentals
Stays that meet or exceed 28 days is the fastest-growing trip length category, according to a new study. Monthly renters can make you money, and that makes them incredibly valuable to you as a property manager.
According to AirDNA in 2021, demand for 28+ nights stays grew by more than 22.4% compared to 2020. Demand is expected to grow another 14.1% in 2022 over 2021. Monthly rentals are consistent and cover months of low occupancy. Based on a Snowbird Fest survey data, 51% of monthly renters stay for 3-4 months per visit and 81% stay for 2+ months. But why would they choose to stay in your rental for months versus a weekend? The infamous pandemic has created a new wave of monthly vacationers. The “new rules” of the post-pandemic steer guests toward monthly vacationing because of:
- the increases in the quality of technology for work.
- interest in more remote, scenic, and safer areas.
- growing trend of traveling nurses, military, and other professions.
- remote schooling becoming more mainstream.
- remote jobs growing and becoming more accepted.
- great strides in technology for cell phone internet.
The typical monthly vacationers include empty nesters with the ability to work remotely, remote schooling, disaster victims, retirees with the desire to get away and see new areas, and more.
According to our 2022 Monthly Rentals by Owner Guest Survey, 47% of monthly guests stayed in their vacation rental for three months or more and 34% stayed for at least 2 months.
Save Your Occupancy with Monthly Rentals
Remote work has undoubtedly given workers added flexibility, and this has helped spread peak demand over more months. This provides owners with consistent rental income year-over-year in the shoulder and off-seasons when occupancy tends to be low. Additionally, technology has arguably made travel an easier prospect for everyone from the ease of booking travel to the ease of researching and comparing trips, to staying connected on the go—baby boomers included.
Stats have shown that there are super high open and click-through rates online for monthly rental companies, and the phrase “monthly rentals” has increasingly successful search engine results. Listing sites can provide monthly rental leads, but they aren’t dedicated to a very segmented audience. Using a listing site like MonthlyRentalsByOwner.com can help you reach a wider audience with its additional features and integrations dedicated to monthly renters.
Monthly Rentals By Owner, a website that has been catering to the growing contingent of monthly vacationers since 2012, has an interface with tailored ads for property managers and owners, such as long-term stays pricing and descriptions, and clientele, such as their website’s unique features and marketing.
As of 2020, Monthly Rentals by Owner integrated with Nextpax Channel Manager and TRACK Property Management System (PMS) in order to more effectively partner with property management companies. They are progressively working toward additional software integrations to create an easier process for listing your properties with Monthly Rentals by Owner, providing access to thousands of additional monthly rental inquires for your properties.
While snowbirds are the monthly guests we’ve all known about for decades, Monthly Rentals By Owner is tied directly into the world-leader of snowbird rentals, the American Snowbird Network of Websites. For an additional fee, property managers can opt-in to also be featured, with no extra effort, to their website. Those websites include AmericanSnowbird.com, FloridaSnowbird.com, and ArizonaSnowbird.com. These websites have been around since 2003 and regularly produce thousands of monthly and seasonal rental stays. It is a must to add to your arsenal of lead-generation tools for monthly rentals.
Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in the world, and the vacation rental business is one of the most important sectors driving the growth as people are deciding to live and work from scenic locales. Not only the nightly and weekly mainstream vacation rental market, but also the monthly vacation rental market has hit its stride. This increasingly popular way of living somewhere for months at a time has opened up a whole new way of traveling that appeals to multiple generations and people from all walks of life. Take advantage of this trend and increase your occupancy through monthly rentals.
Very timely article. I have always felt that the lines are blurred between the vacation rental and housing markets as people choose to live and work flexibly.