Vacation rental property managers in Europe are increasingly turning to Airbnb and Booking.com as distribution channels, however they are seeing gains in direct bookings for certain kinds of properties.
According to the European Vacation Rental Survey 2018, conducted by Transparent to more than 500 property managers in 23 European countries, Airbnb and Booking each account for 30% of property managers’ bookings, compared to the direct channel, which accounts for 26%.
HomeAway delivers just 8% of bookings, while TripAdvisor drives 3%.
Property managers who manage between two and nine rentals receive most of their bookings from Airbnb (37%), while property managers with between 10 and 49 or with more than 100 properties get most of their bookings from Booking (34% for each).
Direct bookings do lead for property managers with one property (37%) and for property managers with between 50 and 99 rentals (29%).
The direct channel also drives the most bookings in the United Kingdom (41%), while Booking leads in Italy and Portugal (42% and 46%, respectively), and Airbnb wins in Spain and France (38% and 29%, respectively).
Notable also in France: 21% of bookings come from HomeAway, although the platform accounts for less than 10% of bookings in other countries.
Properties located in urban areas receive the most bookings from Airbnb (39%) and Booking (33%), however the direct channel drives the most bookings in rural (54%) and seaside (37%) areas.
Taking on tech
When it comes to adoption of technologies, property managers are primarily invested in channel managers (67%) and property management systems (59%).
They have far less interest in keyless entry (23%), connected thermostats (20%), guest management tools (11%) and smart home devices (10%).
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The more rentals property managers have, the more likely they are to use PMSs: 90% of property managers with more than 100 properties use a PMS, while usage hovers around 77% and 62% for property managers with between 50 and 99 listings and between 10 to 49 rentals, respectively. Just 29% of property managers with between two and nine properties use a PMS.
Property managers in Portugal and France use PMSs the most (88% and 79%, respectively), and property managers with seaside properties use the technology the most (73%) and with urban properties the least (51%).
The trends for channel manager usage follow a similar pattern.
Marketing matters
Some 56% of property managers plan to increase their marketing spend over the next year, while 41% anticipate maintaining their spend and 4% plan to reduce.
Property managers in Portugal are the most interested in increasing their marketing efforts (88%), as are property managers with mixed and seaside properties (64% and 62%, respectively).
Property managers in France (51%) and Spain (50%) or with urban (49%) or rural (48%) properties are most likely to maintain their marketing spend in 2019.
Few property managers - 13% - buy market data, and of those that do, 51% spend less than €1,000 a year.
Just 4% of property managers spend more than €10,000 a year on market data.