Airbnb is one of the most popular platforms in the world when it comes to booking vacation lodging. As of 2022, more than 150 million people across the world use it.
This has inspired people to put their own vacation rentals on the platform and hopes that guests want to book as many dates as possible. However, it does not always work out this way.
What do you need to know about Airbnb occupancy rates? This guide breaks it down.
What Are Airbnb Occupancy Rates?
Airbnb occupancy rates measure the percentage of lodging in one area being booked over a certain period. This takes into account the number of listings available on Airbnb and how often those listings get booked.
An example of this could be a listing in Grand Rapids that is available every day of the year. In this example, let's say the listing gets booked about 182 days per year. That would mean that this individual property has a 50% occupancy rate.
What Airbnb does is combine this total for all of the properties in one local area. So, let's say that there are 100 properties in Grand Rapids. If all of them have a combined average of about 132 days of bookings per year, that means that Grand Rapids would have around a 33% occupancy rate on Airbnb.
The higher the occupancy rate, the more income Airbnb hosts make. They need to do what they can to make sure that this stays up.
Watch the Competition
Something that you should note if you own rental property is how many people in your area are promoting on the same platform. If this ends up being too many people, there may not be enough guests to go around.
Last year, this occurred in some of the largest cities in the country. Of the top 50 largest short-term rental markets in America, occupancy rates declined in 31 markets. One of the biggest reasons cited for this is that in areas where the supply of vacation homes grew by more than 50%, the occupancy rate declined by 10% for individual properties.
This means that at some point, the largest markets may end up having too much competition. This is why you have to stay ahead of the curve and find new ways to keep making your vacation rental stand out.
Increase Airbnb Occupancy Rates
These are some of the biggest things that you need to know about Airbnb occupancy rates. At the end of the day, the higher this is for a host, the more likely the host is to make a profit off of this vacation rental property.
As a host, something you will have to keep an eye on is too much supply showing up in growing markets. When that happens, there may not be enough guests to go around.
That is when you may need help making your Grand Rapids property stand out. Message us here to see how we can help.