The Transparent survey is back: get your hands on the Latin American Vacation Rental Survey 2021! We ask LatAm property managers all the important questions to bring you the analysis and insights you need to optimize your strategy for 2022.
Our full report covers the following areas:
- Growth: inventory & booking revenue
- Distribution: OTAs & channel management
- Services: cleaning, maintenance & upselling
- Operations: pricing, data & technology adoption
- Sentiment: industry climate, regulations & COVID
Download the full report; usually €299 but free for our followers
Latin American Vacation Rental Survey 2021 key findings
Through our analysis we have identified some key trends from our 2021 Latin American vacation rental survey.
Property managers responding to Latin American Vacation Rental Survey 2021
We had a wide range of respondents, with the average represented being a coastal property manager (PM) of 10-49 properties, based in Mexico. We found a number of trends across our categories of respondents in terms of location type and size.
Firstly, answers pointed to bigger PMs benefiting from economies of scale: they employ fewer staff per property managed, and also deal with larger owners on average. The positive news is that our larger PMs were founded on average in 2016; meaning that PMs can become market leaders in just 5 years.
Services
In terms of services (e.g. cleaning), all were most likely to be provided directly, but another trend for larger PMs is that they are more open to outsourcing some of these services. One major take-home was that a third of responding PMs do not upsell any services at all, which can be a big revenue opportunity.
Distribution & technology
Respondents derived most bookings and satisfaction from Airbnb and direct channels, and the main OTAs all achieved higher satisfaction scores for larger PMs. Only 35% of these bookings were taken through a channel manager. Indeed, while PMS and keyless entry were the most widely accepted, the adoption of technology is generally lower than findings for the US and Europe. This is somewhat surprising given the most supported sentiment in the survey: “technology has helped us lower our costs”. Could we see a big increase in technology adoption in the coming months?
Marketing, revenue management & data
Some more increasing trends include marketing spend and data investment. 64% will increase their marketing spend, and this was exaggerated in larger and urban PMs. Whilst 31% still do not invest in data, those investing project double the revenue growth in 2021; no wonder 60% plan to increase their investment next year.
Another big correlation with increasing revenue is rate updates. 58% of respondents update their prices less frequently than weekly, yet daily adjustment brought almost double the revenue growth than those updating their rates quarterly.
Performance & outlook
Ultimately this report brings positivity to the Latin American vacation rental news reel: inventory growth for 2020 was at 94% on average, while booking revenue was up 29%. Respondents expect both to increase for 2021. This is a very bright outlook for a sector of the travel industry unavoidably impacted by the pandemic. Indeed, only 15% of property managers expect a full recovery to extend past Q3 of 2022.
Download the Latin American Vacation Rental Survey 2021 for free
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