Definitely check out the Market Data - it shows the months of June, July, and August as high months and we increase prices for those. Are really recommend everyone leverage that Market Data because it’s purely facts and a great resource and you can make your own decisions based on that. By the way, did you end up getting a booking for GDC?
I would like to look at some current stats and compare them to last year… maybe you have them. But our revenue is down by about 50% for the first three months of this year over last and I’d like to know if that’s a market wide trend for the New York area. Wheelhouse is showing us booked at just 35% for next month so far, but they say the rest of our area, just on the other side of the river from Manhattan in NJ is booked just 13%! That’s way down from last year for us when we were always booked 90% of the time.
With such a dramatic drop is this something anyone else is seeing in the New York area, like hotels? Is tourism to New York really down that much over last year? If it is I would expect to see a lot of news stories about it but i havent found anything.
You can (scientifically) only change one parameter in an A/B test.
See, and that’s the problem here. You can actually not compare one year with the year before or the next year and also change the pricing system. If I would for example compare a year with a local terror attack (as it just happened in London days ago or before in Paris or years ago in Bali), that would effect the result and just not be fair.
And other aspects have an impact too, such as promotion of a region by the local tourism board and so on.
And this actually applies for what ever pricing service I use.
Can you show a test that actually compares the revenue (after all costs) for 4 or more different options, which would be:
- no pricing optimization in place (or say the knowledge of an average host, what ever that is)
- my/our experience applied
- your service
- different pricing services (your competition)
?
Well, we all know that the answer would be likely be NO. Because almost no one would have 4-6 identical properties for starters (only resorts or hotels) and they would than interfere with each other if differently priced but advertised on the same platforms.
It could even fire back, if the same unit type would be offered at different rates for the same stay dates. Guests would ask, why is the same room available at different rates, why is it now (after the cheaper offer has been booked) more expensive, …
So I think this aspect (an A/B test) does not really help here.
What else do you have to offer to convince me and other hosts, that your service is better than the others?
@JonYork - did you check other cities, like San Francisco?
That might be a national issue. I hear some Europeans would not want to visit the US now because of the - how to call it ??? new political leadership in the country 
I have a hard time seeing how a white north European with christian background would be personally effected by the changes, but that’s what I heard from some people in the old world.
yes, that is exactly the problem.
Well, first I’m not sure if there’s really a decline in foreign tourism to the US. I suspect there is but my suspicion only comes from my personal experience this year.
I did realize when Trump was elected that it would turn off a LOT of Europeans. The ones that stay with us are overwhelmingly liberal and they despise American Republicans and conservatives (of which I am one, but not a Trump one). I know just from talking to them that some of them wouldn’t make travel plans here if Trump was elected. That’s my hunch. But I’d love to see some real data on it.
Many Euros are more worried about the travel bans, and what happens if Trump does something irratic whilst they are in the air, etc. For example many EU countries took in tons of undocumented refugees, and what is Trump decides to revoke visas for citizens of those countries bc of their acceptance of refugees. We just had my husbands childhood BFF and his partner push their trip to California until 2018 bc of concerns over the travel ban. The partner although a EU citizen for over 20 years was an immigrant as a child from Iraq. Our neighbors in Spain also chose to skip a US visit this year bc they didnt like the uncertainity of what was going on with the travlr ban.
Does price lab has free trial? I am with beyond pricing, it seems too expensive. If they do the same thing, I will prefer to pay $20 per month flat fee.
YEs they have free trial
@JonYork yes, travel to the US went down. I am no sure how much. I just read it as a side note in a newsletter few days ago.
@Ping_Keck , can you let us know after you tried pricelab what you think about them?
@Ping_Keck that is my general issue too. I am looking for a company that manages property in the mid and soon high price market. so each % is painful 
I would not mind a flat rate, but I just have trouble explaining why we would have to pay much, just because our properties are higher priced…
Even more because we also need to get another provider in board to do the price distribution over the platforms (non of the price optimizers I know offers that broad enough for us).
@ianmchenry - what ways do you use to find or predict times of high future demand and low future demand?
Everbooked: I have not used them, but I spent a while looking. They have made a number of detailed reports which are kinda great. They show competitive listings in ways that are nice.
Wheelhouse: Works great. Well designed. Great Customer Support and good User Interface. If you want more control than AirBnB smart pricing offers, this is the way to go. This is what I use. So far, I’m thrilled with them. For me, having additional control, additional information means that I can earn more money. The site makes it very clear how it’s computing the price and gives you friendly controls for making adjustments. It also lists what events are in your area (which is something I’ve always wanted). They take 1%, which for me is absolutely worth it.
Airbnb Smart Pricing: This used to suck and almost universally give prices that were too low. These days it’s not too bad. It tends to emphasize very consistent pricing for bookings that are more than a few weeks out. In my view, that means it sacrifices my potential earnings. But if you don’t want to have to think too hard, this is a perfectly respectable and practical way to go.
Beyond Pricing: They have really great blog posts. But otherwise I did not find them useful. They never replied to any of my emails pointing out notable problems with the site. They have an odd concept of “health” for a listing which from what I can tell is only useful if you want to always be booked solid, all the time, though airbnb. They were the first site to offer more aggressive pricing (which is good), but from my perspective their approach was not reality based. Their math is not transparent, which is a big deal for me. I used them for a while before I fully lost faith. You’re better off just using Airbnb Smart Pricing. Or if you want detailed control, use Wheelhouse. Or maybe Everbooked.
Did they up the prices this year for the weekend of 14th May in Barcelona???
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No!!! I had to manually!!
We are using Wheelhouse and Beyond Pricing, but I think I’m going to switch 100% over to Wheelhouse, as they seem to be more in tune with local events.
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@azreala I’d be curious to hear your opinion of SuperhostTools. It’s based on Airbnb’s Smart Pricing and should so should be better at identifying events/demand.
I use @smartbnb.io’s platform Smartbnb.io for automation and would NEVER in a million years trust anything that uses Air BnB’s Smart Pricing, as it is SO incredibly off for my markets. For example in SF right now we are charging $500/night I believe the ABB Smart Pricing wants me to charge $220. ABB Smart Pricing takes into account what other hosts in your area are charging, not necessarily local even demands, at least that’s how it was initially launched.
I agree, Smart Pricing is often too low, I wouldn’t recommend you use Airbnb’s Smart Pricing either. I don’t think Superhost Tools is what you think it is. It takes Airbnb’s Smart Pricing and builds on top of it, allows you to customize it. For example, if you think airbnb’s smart prices are too low you can increase them by a percentage or if you want to drop your prices for orphan periods (short periods between bookings) you can do that too. It basically gives you complete control over your prices and uses Airbnb’s Smart Pricing to detect events/demand.
It also has an automated messaging tool like Smartbnb but unlike them, it’s totally free.
That is what scares me! LOL, I want nothing to do with SP. My question to you is why, other than the ‘free’ part? BP, Wheelhouse, Price Labs, all do dynamic pricing with the user having to manually adjust. For example, I (obviously) use BP, and I basically adjust my Base price 1-3x a year, and that’s it. I don’t want to have to tinker with my pricing more frequently.
Fair enough. I can understand not trusting Airbnb’s Smart Pricing, I feel the same about pricing engines that only take a base price and a minimum price. I was using BP but then got some bookings for SXSW (I’m located in Austin TX) for way under market value (it shoudl be 3x or 4x my base price, it wasn’t). I looked at their settings and there was nothing I could do to adjust the prices for events. So then I switched to Price Labs which I thought was better, they had higher prices in the future but still didn’t let me set minimums for events in the future.
With Superhost Tools I’m able to increase my Airbnb Smart Prices by 20% which in general is about right. Then I set a minimum price for bookings past 30 days, and a higher minimum for bookings past 180 days. This is great because if Smart Pricing thinks my prices should be even higher then my minimums (think SXSW) then the prices adjust accordingly. Then I added rule for orphan dates that are less than 3 days apart and not weekends and a rule that decreases my prices gradually over the next 7 days so that if I have any availability in the next week my prices get gradually more and more competitive. I know that might sound like a lot but I haven’t had to touch it in months and I only have 2 or 3 unbooked nights a month. I also finally feel confident that someone isn’t going to book my place for too low of a price.
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Price is never a problem when you deliver value, and have dedicated people delivering it.