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Stefan Nikolic: Airbnb – some notes and observations

By popular request – a reproduction of Stefan Nikolic’s talking points at his recent webinar The future of short-term rentalschallenges and opportunities in the post-lockdown world.

  • US Travel Association analysts are predicting for domestic tourism to increase past pre-COVID levels in 2022, domestic business travel will reach 76% of pre-pandemic levels, and international tourism will reach 72% of pre-pandemic levels this year.
  • Furthermore, demand for alternative accommodation (instead of hotels) is on the rise with 33% of all global accommodation spending predicted to be spent on alternative accommodation this year, compared to 24% in 2019.
  • Airbnb also reported a 48% increase in gross bookings in the third quarter of 2021 compared to the third quarter in 2020, and are predicting this trend to continue into 2022 now that vaccine rates are up.
  • Airbnb’s third quarter is actually higher than pre-COVID levels of the same period, supporting the idea that guests are increasingly booking more short-term rentals instead of hotels.
  • Since Airbnb went public in December 2020, their stock prices have increased by 17.77%, showing the recovery of the entire market is well on its way.
  • We experienced an average occupancy rate of 65% across all managed properties in quarter 3 2021, but this figure is mainly dragged down by lower occupancy in October. In October, we achieved 59% occupancy, 74 % in November and 63% in December.
  • The average nightly rates have increased significantly in December ($153) compared to November ($113) though, increasing earnings for our owners despite the slightly lower occupancy rate.
  • Moving forward, so far in January we have achieved an average nightly rate of $178 and the occupancy rate looks like it will be around 65% across all properties. 
  • We predict that February will see higher nightly rates and occupancy rates due to business travel returning to Auckland. February is usually one of the best months of the year.
  • There is still a massive shortage of Airbnb listings in Auckland as a lot of owners have locked in long-term tenants. The shortage combined with increasing demand will make for a very good rest of quarter four.
Stefan Nikolic

Stefan is the Managing Director of Zodiak Management, an all-in-one Airbnb management service. 

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