How to Use Short Term Rental Trends to Grow Your Airbnb Vacation Rental Business in 2023

What are Short Term Rental Trends?

Short term rental (STR) trends are the current and predicted future patterns of behavior and preferences among hosts and guests in the vacation rental industry.

Short Term Rental Trends in 2023

1. Direct bookings to grow
2. Standalone channel managers become irrelevant
3. PMC consolidation to slow down
4. Luxury vacation rentals outperform lower-end properties
5. Lower-end hotels outperform luxury hotels
6. Vacation rental inventory to re-diversify
7. Real estate prices remain high
8. US domestic travel market strengthens
9. EU enjoys increase in American tourists

Why Are Short Term Rental Trends Important for Airbnb Vacation Rental Hosts?

Whether you list on Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com or many platforms including direct booking, short term rental trends can impact the success of your business. By staying up to date with the latest trends, you can make informed decisions about how to manage your property and attract guests.

For example, if the market is trending towards budget travelers, you may want to focus on marketing budget-friendly amenities and attractions. On the other hand, if family travelers are a growing segment, you could consider making your home child-friendly. Meanwhile, if the trend is towards staying longer, you may want to consider preparing your home accordingly and adapt and evolve your business strategies to stay competitive and maximize profits.

How to Use Short Term Rental Trends to Grow Your Airbnb Business in 2023?

Trend 1 - Direct Bookings to Grow

Already saturated and highly competitive, no new OTAs are expected to enter the market. Furthered by the increasing competition and lower profitability, uncertainty, and perception of Airbnb unprofitability, direct bookings will continue to increase market share.

What Hosts Can Do

If you don’t include direct booking in your channel distribution strategy already, it is time to begin. Vacation rental hosts should focus on building and promoting their own brand, website, and marketing channels. By offering unique and personalized experiences, hosts can differentiate themselves from competitors and build a loyal customer base.

Trend 2 - Stand-Alone Channel Managers Become Irrelevant

OTAs are looking to work closer with connectivity partners to bring in inventory and achieve shared goals as higher interest rates, more regulation, and increasing labor and energy costs, put greater pressure. Property management systems, with their full complement of features, will overtake channel managers in their relationship with platforms like Airbnb.

What Hosts Can Do

If you are still not using a channel manager or don’t use a vacation rental software, it is time to invest in a proven property management system like Hostaway to streamline, automate, and scale your business.

Trend 3 - Investments

Consolidation amongst property management companies will slow down as publicly traded companies continue to underperform. Instead, venture capital investments will focus on bigger and more profitable companies while smaller, unprofitable businesses will struggle for funding.

What Hosts Can Do

If you are considering working with a property management company, make sure you do your due diligence and choose one that is not only doing well at present but also will do so in the future.

Trend 4 – Consumer Preferences

Luxury vacation rentals will outperform lower-end properties.

Meanwhile, low-end hotels will outperform luxury hotels due to increasing budget constraints of travelers. Travelers will choose shorter trips over longer trips, i.e. driving instead of flying, national instead of international.

Mid to long term stays will continue to be popular.

What Hosts Can Do

Hosts with high-end properties should focus on attracting luxury travelers and consider listing on luxury-minded platforms like Airbnb Luxe.

Airbnb hosts can also consider focusing on marketing to budget-conscious travelers to a slice of that pie.

From digital nomads to family travelers, catering to longer rentals, if you are not doing it already, will help you increase bookings and grow profits. From making your property more long stay friendly with appropriate amenities to adjusting your minimum nights policy, hosts can reap the rewards of guests who stay for longer.

Trend 5 – Re-Diversification of Inventory

Travelers are returning to cities, improving urban vacation rental markets. Remote work in leisure and lower-cost markets is continuing. Corporate travel has returned even as it has changed with companies cutting down on frequent trips and focusing on staff retreats instead. This and more inventory types will see demand as traveler demand increases.

What Hosts Can Do

Vacation rental hosts should consider the current and forecasted demand and expected revenues for different traveler segments, the investments required for catering to each segment, and the property types they are working with to decide their traveler segment strategy.

Trend 6 – Real Estate

Demand for short term rentals is expected to remain high, despite the steady increase in supply over the high return years of 2021 and 2022. This in turn will drive up prices for properties suited for vacation rentals, putting them in the hands of larger operators, who are less impacted by interest rates, over smaller ones.

What Hosts Can Do

If you are looking to scale your business by acquiring more properties to list, consider rental arbitrage instead. Despite increasing regulation and higher rents, rental arbitrage allows Airbnb businesses to scale faster and easier at lower capital investment. For those hosts looking to get out of the game, this can also be a good time to sell your Airbnb vacation rental business and reap a good profit.

Trend 7 – Regional Trends

EU

Favorable exchange rates see American tourists increase however domestic demand decreases due to inflation, energy costs, and the Ukraine war.

North America

The high dollar will keep international tourists from returning in large numbers to the U.S. and Canada. However, the domestic market will strengthen further and Northern American travelers looking to travel abroad will shift to new destinations such as Latin America.

Asia

The continued uncertainty from pandemic restrictions will affect many Asian markets, particularly in the first half of the year. The Australian and New Zealand markets will continue to experience strong domestic demand even as energy costs limit international travel.

What Hosts Can Do

EU hosts can focus their marketing efforts on attracting U.S. tourists, offering amenities and Experiences suited to the traveler segment. American tourists, in general, enjoy experiences of cultures and those they deem to be uniquely British, German, etc that may not work with local travelers. In contrast, North American hosts should focus on domestic travelers. Many travelers will look to drive to avoid both the costs and delays of flying, and amenities like parking and a refreshing welcome basket will be worthwhile. Australian and Kiwi hosts should also focus their marketing more on domestic travelers.