A few weeks ago I launched a survey among property managers, property managers, asking the % of bookings they had for Airbnb vs Booking.
Far more % went through Booking than the market share would reveal. Of the 50 property managers who responded, almost half had more than 80% of the bookings booked through Booking!
I was surprised because my impression is that the fees should be around 60% Booking and 40% Airbnb. I speak in very general terms, only apartments, only Spain, and without considering other channels. I generalize a lot to make simple the reflection that I share.
I found no recent public figures to confirm or disprove this, so I’m relying on ListingOK’s internal data, which is consistent with what is commonly discussed in the industry. If anyone has accurate information, I’d be grateful if you could share it!
The funny thing is that, in conversations with managers and owners, I always hear a greater preference for Airbnb (for various reasons beyond the scope of this post).
So I was expecting something closer to 50% / 50%. I was expecting a graph like the one on the left, and the one on the right came out.
Like any human who encounters something they don’t understand, I came up with a theory that would reassure me and bring order to the confusion. And it is this: many managers are not aware that they are renting cheaper on Booking than on Airbnb. Or, put another way, they don’t care about having lower rates on Booking.com.
This hypothesis has gained even more traction recently. We started working with a large client who had just 8% of bookings on Airbnb. The first thing we did was to match prices on Airbnb (adjusting the markup). Without touching anything on Booking the result is that a few weeks later more than 30% of the bookings are coming through Airbnb and I suspect it will reach 35%.
(Their type of ownership is “very Booking” so not reaching 40% will not invalidate my impression that Airbnb must be running around 40% nationally).
Why does all this matter?
It matters because having lower rates in one channel over another means you are billing significantly less than you should be.
If there is a strategy behind prioritizing one channel over another, this may be tolerable. But if there is no desired preference and the distribution of our bookings between Airbnb and Booking does not resemble market share, you are losing money.
I intend to make another post to explain why this is so.
I close the post with a clue as to why this happens: many managers, although they apply a higher surcharge on Booking.com compared to Airbnb, are not aware of the real impact of discounts, promotions and various Genius that Booking.com constantly introduces.
If a manager has a distribution of bookings heavily weighted towards Booking.com, I recommend spending a few minutes comparing the final price that a registered user sees on each platform, looking for the same property for the same dates.com, I recommend spending a few minutes to compare the final price that a registered user sees on each platform, looking for the same property for the same dates.
If the difference is large, the surprise can be unpleasant: you have been losing revenue without realizing it.
But the good news is that correcting this is simple: by adjusting prices to maintain parity between channels, your revenues will improve immediately.
Disclaimer: As I mentioned before, this is a simplified analysis, thought in general terms and applied to a large number of properties.
