4 Ways To Improve Your Occupancy During Low-Season (Without Dropping Your Rates Through The Floor)
Updated: May 24, 2022
A lot of hosts think the only way they can increase their occupancy is to drop their rates.
But surely there's a better way...
I was of the same belief when I first started out.
Nobody booking my weekdays during low-season?
"Cool, lets just slash the prices by 70% to get someone in!"
And whilst this approach can increase your occupancy...
There's better ways to approach it without doing your own version of a "Rugs-a-million going out of business sale".
I want to give you some ACTIONABLE steps you can take TODAY to create your very own unique pricing strategy to skyrocket your occupancy.
Step #1
Pricing Software
The best way to start on your pricing journey is to download a tool called "PriceLabs".
PriceLabs is a leading Airbnb pricing tool that pulls in all the relevant data from comparable properties in your immediate location to help you understand how the market is performing, and how to best price your own property, according to your findings.
PriceLabs will assist you in determining your "4 Key Pricing Factors";
Seasonality
Special Events
Historic Trends
Supply And Demand
And will then give you the tools you need to help put your pricing on auto-pilot.
But remember, this is not a "plug-and-play" approach. Everything I teach here is not a "quick-fix".
At BeyondBNB.io, we tell clients it usually takes 90 days of trial and error to find your pricing "sweet-spot".
But I can promise you this... It's worth it!
Step #2
Understand The Supply And Demand In Your Market
Once you sync your listing, you can actually see the supply and demand of each day...
You'll see each day is outlined as one of the following;
Low-demand
Normal-demand
Good-demand
High-demand
PriceLabs is able to pull this data from the market based on how many properties there are in your area, how many are booked and how many are still available on the market.
You'll see how each day is priced differently.
The lowest nightly rate being $182 and the highest being $490.
The next thing you may notice is that the day priced at $182 is a "normal-demand" night (on the 5th of the next month, bottom row)...
And is priced lower than the two "low-demand" nights on the 20th and 21st.
Why would a night with greater demand actually be priced lower than one with less demand?
Which takes us to "Step 3"...
Step #3
Shoot For The Stars, And If You Don't Get There, The Moon's Pretty Great Too!
Let's take 2 dates into consideration...
The 20th of February and the and 20th of October...
Both dates are considered "Low-season" and lets assume they're both equally "Low-demand" nights.
Let's say today is the 10th of February, so 10 days out from the 20th...
Would you price both nights the same, when one is 10 days out, and the other is little over 8 months away?
Of course not!
And whilst this may seem logical...
How can you actually put this into practice when it comes to pricing at different lead booking times.
Firstly, you want to shoot for the stars when it comes to pricing your October nights.
Strive for the highest (within reason) rates possible in advance, and as date nears, start slowly dropping the rates until it gets booked.
"So I guess that means I should price the night in February cheaper then?"
Well yes...
And no...
Let me explain...
Step #4
Pricing Aggressively
So, back to the 20th of February, which is coming up in 10 days...
Should we be pricing it lower or higher than the 20th of October?
Question is...
What's your occupancy looking like within the next 10 days? Is every night booked leading up to it (90% occupancy)?
If so, we want to INCREASE the price.
Are there only a few nights booked (30% occupancy)?
In this case, we want to start dropping the price more and more as the date nears.
This approach is called the "Pricing Curve"
As you can see above, when your listing is far in advance with high occupancy we'll be increasing the prices by up to 20%.
And conversely, dropping the prices by 30% when the date is 0-15 days out with low-occupancy.
Here's an example of how you may price your listing accordingly:
Putting It All Together
As you can see, there are endless variables when it comes to how much you should be pricing your nightly rates.
If you're serious about taking your Airbnb to the next level, join me for my free pricing training webinar.
Where I'll run you through step-by-step how to create your very own custom pricing strategy.
Even if I can get you an additional 1 night per week booked at $192, over the space of a year...
That will result in an additional $10,000 in earnings...
Worth it?
I thought so!
If you're looking to learn more about how to maximize your Airbnb's earnings, click the link below to join me for my next free training event, where I'll go into detail on how we've helped hosts increase their earnings by up to 112%:
https://event.webinarjam.com/channel/free-airbnb-training
Best, Jordan Hrovat
Co-Founder - BeyondBNB.io