5 Ways to Increase Vacation Rental Occupancy in the Off-Season: Your Peak Season Can’t Last All Year
It goes without saying that peak season is the best time of the year for vacation rental owners and property managers, as that is the time of year when they enjoy the highest demand.
The constant reality of needing to attract guests and reach maximum occupancy is one of the most distinct features of the hospitality industry. Because of that, you need to have a good understanding of seasonality in order to increase vacation rental occupancy.
No matter how successful your vacation rental property is, the high demand and peak season can’t last all year long.
When your busiest time of the year comes to an end, it can be easy to think that there isn’t much you can do to help your vacation rental business. However, you just need to adapt your business to receive more bookings in the off-season.
As a vacation rental owner or property manager, you can’t just rely on peak season to attract people to your space. Even in the off-season and shoulder seasons, you still want to obtain higher rental occupancies and revenue–even if the nightly rates, length of stay, and desired amenities look a little different from peak season.
Every vacation rental has a different off-season. Seasonal demand and location play major roles in this. While a beach condo is less popular during the colder months, a cabin in the mountains isn’t a guest’s typical first choice for a summer vacation. As a vacation rental owner or property manager, it’s your job to define exactly what time of year your off-season takes place and adapt your marketing strategy accordingly.
But how can you stay ahead and maintain a high occupancy? Easy—stand out from your competition by being visible where your guests are searching.
We know—that’s easier said than done. In a crowded vacation rental market, it’s not enough anymore to update your interior or offer new additions like an updated coffee machine. Boosting vacation rental occupancy during times of low demand is all about improving your customer service, being creative with your marketing, and becoming more flexible.
There is a specific crowd of vacationers that actually prefer and actively pursue vacation rental bookings in the off-seasons to avoid crowds and save money. This is an advantage for you as the property manager or vacation rental owner. You just need to make your property the most visible and attractive choice for these guests that are already looking.
We’ve gathered some of our favorite ideas on how to maximize your vacation rental income by boosting your occupancy rate during the off-season.
1 — Offer Longer, Monthly, Multi-Month, & Seasonal Guest Stays
Stays that meet or exceed 28 days is the fastest-growing vacation rental length category, according to a recent study by AirDNA. Monthly renters can make you money, and that makes them incredibly valuable to you as a property manager or vacation rental owner.
Monthly rentals are one of the best ways to cover months of lower occupancy. Based on Snowbird Fest survey data, 51% of monthly renters stay for four or more months per visit, and 81% stay for at least two months. But why would these renters choose to stay in your property for months versus just a weekend?
The COVID-19 pandemic created a new wave of vacationers—specifically monthly vacationers.
Post-pandemic, guests are more likely to choose monthly rentals because of:
- Increased technology and the increased prevalence of remote-working employees and contractors.
- Recent migration from larger cities to more remote, scenic, and safer areas.
- Growing trends of traveling nurses and other traveling professions.
- Increasing normalcy of remote schooling and homeschooling.
The typical monthly vacationers include empty-nesters who have the ability to work remotely, families who do remote schooling, retirees who have a desire to get away and see new parts of the world, and even disaster victims.
Remote work and schooling has undoubtedly become more popular over the last few years and given families more flexibility. This opportunity provides owners with consistent rental income year-over-year in the off-season when occupancy tends to be low.
2—Determine What Each Season Means for Your Vacation Rental’s ADR and RevPAR & Identify Potential Guests
Seasonality is a major factor in tourist demand during specific periods of the year and includes reasons like temperatures and holidays or events. Whatever the reason may be, seasonally creates the demand fluctuations that, in turn, create what we know as our off-seasons.
So what does off-season exactly mean for your vacation rental?
The answer to this question depends on the location of your property and the type of guests that you host. From one location to the next, the off-season can change quite a bit. A vacation rental in Breckenridge, Colorado will get most of its bookings in the winter months while a Florida beach condo would get most bookings during the spring and summer months.
As a vacation rental owner, it is your job to know the off-season for your property, because that will help you to successfully promote it during this time.
Vacationers who tend to travel in the off-season tend to be quite different from the large crowds of peak season. Targeting the right audience such as families with young kids or retired snowbirds that are more likely to travel in the season with less crowds is the first step.
You probably have a good idea who your ideal guest is for your vacation rental property is. While in the summer, it may be a family of four who wants a beach vacation with lots of fun activities in the sun, that may not be the case for the off-season months, where indoor amenities like heated pools and hot tubs may be the top criteria. It’s also common to find smaller amenities like community rooms, on-site activities, and proximity and walkability to local attractions is more important to guests during these times of the year.
In order to determine your ideal shoulder season and off-season target audience, you will want to rely on your data. Who booked your property previously during these seasons? The first step is understanding your past guests through past bookings and defining the demographics, and that will help you determine who your target audience is moving forward.
Once you’ve decided on who your ideal target audience for the off-season should be, you will want to ensure that your vacation rental is suitable for that type of guest, such as providing blankets and firewood for the fireplace in cooler months, an easy-to-use iron for business travelers, and great WiFi for remote workers.
3—Adjust Off-Season Pricing & Offer Discounts
During the off-season, it is important to ensure that your pricing strategy is competitive. Since you know the pattern of demand at your vacation rental property best, you’ll know that you only need to lower your prices when the demand drops. You’ll also know that some weekends will continue to be in high demand, so keep your prices higher during those times.
Reducing your rates during the off-season seems like an obvious way to increase your occupancy. Matching your pricing to the time of the year is a great way to reach budget-friendly travelers who specifically seek out travel in the off-season.
Lower your rates enough to make it tempting for off-season guests without understating your services and losing out on income. By adapting to the current time of year, your vacation rental will be more appealing to guests who are searching.
In addition to adjusting your pricing for the off-season, it is also the perfect time to offer specific discounts and promotions.
Off-seasons are what discounts were made for in the vacation rental industry. People love discounts and the perception of getting a good deal. Budget and last-minute travelers tend to search for good deals during the off-season months, so making your discounts clear and effective is important.
You can offer discounts like “20% off when you book 1 month or more!” Offering savings like these is one of the best ways to increase your occupancy during the off-season. Multi-month pricing discounts will also attract even longer-staying guests such as snowbirds, traveling nurses, and others.
4 — Reach Out to the Guests Who Know You Best
Now that you have your pricing and discounts in order for the off-season, it’s time to reach out to potential guests. You’ll want to start with the obvious ones—previous happy guests. These guests already know your vacation rental property, know you as a host or property manager, and you already have their contact information.
It’s obviously always easier to reach back out to previous guests than to create new guests who have never stayed with you before. This is true all year long, but especially in the off-season. Reaching out to past guests is a faster, more efficient, and less costly way of increasing your occupancy. If you have created a positive guest experience in the past, you should have no issues securing a high conversion rate after reaching out to past guests.
Your guests are always your best marketing assets, and repeat guests are an investment for vacation rental companies that give you a good return. So in theory, the more repeat guests you can secure, the higher your ROI.
The off-season is the best time to reconnect with these past guests and welcome them to visit you again. The same family who loved visiting you at your cabin in the mountains last winter will love it just as much in the off-season when the crowds are smaller—especially with a special offer discount for repeat guests.
5—Partner with Niche Vacation Rental Websites
The off-season is the perfect time to try out new booking channels. Everyone knows about the large online booking websites like Vrbo and Airbnb, but monthly bookings require more explanations of terms and allow owners and property managers to price in different way for these guests. Even if you are already listing your vacation rental properties on the major websites like Vrbo or Airbnb, trying out niche vacation rental websites like Monthly Rentals by Owner is a great goal for this time of the year.
If you own a property that can appeal to a specific type of guests, such as monthly renters, niche vacation rental listings can be very beneficial for you all year long.
Vacation rental owners and property managers turn their attention to these niche listing websites with well-targeted audiences for a number of reasons.
- Getting more niche bookings by solving the needs of a specific traveler
- Higher occupancy in the off-season
- Higher revenues per booking
- Becoming less dependent on the major listing websites
For example, major listing websites can provide monthly rental leads, but they aren’t dedicated to a very segmented audience. Using a niche listing website like https://monthlyrentalsbyowner.com/ can help you to reach a wider audience with its additional features and integrations dedicated to monthly renters.
Increasing your occupancy during the off-season doesn’t need to be as difficult as you think. Just because the crowds are smaller doesn’t mean your occupancy rates need to drop. By implementing the suggestions from this list, we are confident that you will be increasing your off-season occupancy in no time.