As discussed in part one of our Six Nations analysis on London, Paris and Rome, we have seen sporting events fuel a vacation rental market’s fire: events such as the football world cup and the olympics easily have the power to double the demand, and therefore daily rates and occupancy of their host cities.
We’ll pick up where we left last week; having analysed the big tourist and business capitals of Europe that are hosting the Six Nations matches, we were anticipating the tournament to reverberate even more through our 3, smaller, remaining host markets.
We’ll pick up where we left last week – having analysed the big tourist and business capitals of Europe that are hosting the Six Nations matches, we were anticipating the tournament to reverberate even more through our 3, smaller, remaining host markets.
Once again, each city’s graphs have hosted match days highlighted (in aqua/green). When reading the graphs, it is worth considering the weekend dates surrounding match days as they are of course similarly affected. As a result, all calculations compare data from those full weekends against data from the other weekends. Calculations are made using data from professionally managed listings only.
Dublin
Dublin is known for its rugby-loving, patriotic crowds, and it could be the place to be afterall, the Irish have been crowned champions on 3 of the last 6 occasions, most recently in 2018. And a few people seem to agree – looking at occupancy in the chart below, you can see a significant increase in occupancy on match weekends. The weekend of 15 March is both the closest to St.Patrick’s Day and the final weekend of the Six Nations, so we decided to exclude this from our calculation, returning a 20% lift in match weekend STR occupancy over other weekends.
In our second graph you can see the match day ‘dots’ sitting atop pricing peaks. Discounting our finals weekend, PMs are currently increasing their short term rental rates by 5% to €190 per night over matches hosted in Dublin. Overall, Dublin’s second match, Ireland vs. Wales is the most significant peak.
Edinburgh
Despite the Scottish capital being a larger market – 14,982 vacation rental listings to Dublin’s 9,137 – the tournament seems to have had more of a profound effect. In the above VR occupancy chart, we can see match weekends as the clear winners, with the only other significant peak being Valentine’s day. In fact, occupancy is 21% higher around matches than for other weekends.
Short term rental pricing through the Six Nations in Edinburgh appears to follow trend with the occupancy seen above. Both match weekends present significant peaks, towering an impressive 29% over other weekends, with the Scotland/England match on 8th Feb advertising slight higher rates and enjoying a 69% lift in occupancy.
Cardiff
Rugby is Wales’ national sport, and with their team reigning champions, the tournament is no small event. Cardiff’s smaller supply of 3,800 vacation rentals we would leads us to expect greater impact in peak times, and the tournament does not disappoint. The graph below tells us that match days bring their weekends a huge 88% more occupancy than that of an average weekend.
Wales are hosting Italy, France and Scotland on the final weekend. In terms of pricing the Scotland and France matches are roughly on a parr, with huge peaks averaging at £342, £190 and 125% greater than non-match weekends. Meanwhile, Cardiff’s second match, Wales vs. France has the clear edge in terms of occupancy at 75% higher than base. In general, match weekend average daily rate (ADR) sits 94% higher than those weekends with no match hosted, with price again following the trend of occupancy.
The Six Nations is a major sporting event, both for the participating countries and the Rugby world, and such high-impact events require sensitive and informed short term rental management in order to maximise revenue. For our final 3 host cities, particularly Edinburgh and Cardiff, professional property manager prices are reflecting occupancy, but what about demand? The percentage of vacation rentals already booked may compress your market, but does not necessarily foreshadow the existing demand.
Insights into market demand are a pivotal feature of Transparent’s market intelligence dashboard. If you want visibility over demand, day by day for the next year, or an array of other data such as reviews, we can help. Book a free demo call here: