MarketMaker helps attract bookings and build occupancy

For ten years, Donna Green’s primary goal has been to drive enough revenue from her multiple holiday homes to cover her costs when she isn’t staying there. Donna is laser-focused on strategically and proactively managing her rates to ensure she is attracting travellers, capturing demand and keeping her holiday homes booked throughout the year. 

Donna invests in her holiday homes, adding popular amenities like Peloton fitness equipment, Wi-Fi and new children’s toys each year. She also invests in property upgrades to make each home more comfortable and attractive for her guests. 

Donna is aware that price is a key factor in a traveller’s booking decision and works hard to stay competitive while ensuring she isn’t underpricing her listings. But staying competitive has not always been easy. It can be challenging and cumbersome to manually dig through often incomplete data to compare similar properties, and a manual review typically does not include key factors like traveller demand, market seasonality and amenities.     

In fact, her properties are sometimes equated with rental homes that have fewer features, making it difficult to fairly compare rates. To truly determine which properties are competitive benchmarks, her many investments need to be considered.

Luckily, Donna discovered and started leveraging Vrbo’s MarketMaker tool to give her deeper insight into the markets and competitors where her properties were located. This knowledge could help her win bookings and drive occupancy rates higher. 

MarketMaker gives property managers and owners an easy way to see supply and demand and events in local markets, and review upcoming reservations and rates over the next year. The tool shows how many travellers are searching in the area, alongside current and forecasted occupancy rates. It also shows the average rates for a targeted set of similar properties. 

Donna found that with MarketMaker, she was able to tailor the competitive set to focus on properties with features and amenities that were truly comparable. Donna says that one of her favourite features of the tool is the support around cancellations. If she receives a cancellation, MarketMaker proposes a recommended rate for the cancelled dates, and she can quickly market her listing with the recommended price, with confidence in her pricing strategy. 

Today, Donna says that MarketMaker saves her time and delivers insights that help her choose the right strategy to reach her goals – optimising either for revenue or occupancy. The tool uses data on bank holidays, seasonality and more to provide rate recommendations. Combined with her knowledge of local conditions, Donna has all the information she needs to manage rates for optimal results. 

She is optimistic about the future and, as the travel industry continues to recover, she plans to closely monitor traveller behavior and remain flexible as traveller needs change.  

Donna is even considering expanding her Vrbo business by adding new properties to the platform. MarketMaker will remain a key tool in her toolkit for growing her already successful holiday rental business. 

Property managers and owners can use MarketMaker to enhance their own competitiveness.  

Learn more about MarketMaker in the Vrbo partner dashboard and see how it can help your business today!