After 2 years of tracking Vrbo booking trends, we're finally ready to put them to work. You can now opt in to have Vrbo data drive your dynamic pricing recommendations if you are in a Vrbo heavy market. We did want to add a few findings from out testing:
We default to using Airbnb data, and have found that switching to Vrbo data does not materially change your price recommendations in a Vrbo heavy market. This happens for a few reasons:
Many properties cross-list on both platforms.
The way we collect market data is by scanning listing calendars on Airbnb or Vrbo and inferring if unavailable dates are bookings or not. As a result, it doesn't matter where a booking comes from (either Airbnb, Vrbo , another OTA, or a direct booking!). When a booking is made, we see the dates disappear from the calendars, and then run our algorithms to filter out potential owner/maintenance blocks. If it looks like a booking, regardless of where it comes from, we consider it a booking!
Our algorithm looks at broader booking/occupancy trends in the market, and applies those trends on top of your base price (How Are the Price Recommendations Calculated?). Though there are properties in each market which list only on Vrbo or Airbnb, the broader booking trends stay similar when a vast majority is listing on both OTAs.
Hang on - if the price recommendations don't change, should you bother switching to Vrbo data? Here are some helpful tips:
Switching to Vrbo might make sense if you are in a market that's heavily dominated by Vrbo (the image below shows some such markets - you can reach out to our team to inquire about your specific location!)
Although the price recommendations might not change much, you might want to look at the comps in Neighborhood Data and compare prices against the market using Vrbo data.
Alright - if you want to make the switch, how do you switch over to using Vrbo data then?
The feature is only available on request, so please reach out to our support team atsupport@pricelabs.co to enable this!Our team can also help evaluate if switching to Vrbo would be the right choice for your market.
Once enabled, this feature is available under "All Customizations" as seen in the below screenshot.
Dynamic Pricing provides automated daily rate and minimum stay updates based on market data and your listing performance. You can deep dive into how it works here. We analyze each listing and recommend daily rates based on several factors. We control ...
Managing prices across multiple platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo can be challenging, especially when ensuring consistent pricing and avoiding double charges. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps to set up your PriceLabs account for both ...
Data Sources and Processing Data Gathering Currently Market Dashboards is using scraped data from Airbnb (and VRBO too). For a listing, all data we gather could be found by going to that listing’s public Airbnb/VRBO page and looking through their ...
Airbnb's search engine plays a crucial role in helping travelers find the perfect accommodation for their needs. To ensure that guests are shown the most relevant listings, Airbnb uses a complex algorithm that takes into account a wide range of ...
The Pricing Offset customization allows users to apply a Fixed or Percent price adjustment on the Recommended Price after all other customizations have been applied. This feature is especially useful for ensuring comparable pricing across different ...
Sign up for training
To help you get the most out of PriceLabs, we have training webinars in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. Click here to Register.