Vrbo 2023 traveler value index:

Here is a link and my summary (the salient points for you might differ from mine):

Here are the excerpts for vacation rentals:

There’s a lot more detail in the report – worth a look!

Findings:

  1. Nearly half (46%) of people say travel is more important to them now than it was pre- pandemic.

a. They’re putting their money where their mouth is: while 31% say their travel budget will be the same as it was last year, 43% are upping their budget for the coming year. The amount people travel is also increasing: 79% say they plan to take a leisure trip in the next year, up from 76% just a few months prior, with the average person saying they plan to take two leisure trips.]

b. What’s most important when making travel decisions?

c. Change of scenery 49%

d. The physical and/or
mental health benefits 49%

e. Making up for lost time
with friends and family 46%

f. Having new experiences 43%

2. Travelers prefer to book with providers that align with their personal values.

a. 70% of people say they are more likely to choose travel options that are more inclusive, even if that comes at a higher cost.

b. 90% of consumers are looking for sustainable options
when traveling

  1. Despite fewer barriers to travel, travelers continue to demand flexibility.

a. They are comfortable booking five months in advance on average, up from the four months reported in April 2022 research.

b. Last year we found that consumers valued full refunds and enhanced cleaning practices above all other travel considerations — even price.

c. Around half of consumers say they would never book non-refundable lodging (47%) or transportation (51%) domestically, even if it was discounted.

d. Even more would refuse non-refundable lodging (57%) and transportation (59%) when traveling internationally. T

  1. The drastic drop in both international and business travel is temporary. As the world fully opens and companies adopt new workplace policies, the industry can expect a resurgence in both areas of travel in 2023.

a. In our research, only 8% of industry professionals say leisure travel is back to pre-pandemic levels.

b. But nearly two-thirds (63%) expect it to return within two years. International travel is likely to play a large role in closing that gap, particularly for regions most impacted by restrictions.

  1. Travelers’ need for extreme clean is waning,

  2. Price sensitivity returns as inflation rises.

a. In the biggest change year-over -year, low pricing reappeared at the top of the list when booking all elements of a trip: 27% of people say it is what they value most when booking travel.

  1. Travelers have yet to fully realize the benefit to travel loyalty programs.
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Duh. Yes, of course everyone wants full refunds if they decide to cancel, while seeing nothing wrong with holding a calendar hostage for 5 months.

And they want enhanced cleaning practices while balking at paying what they see as too high cleaning fees.

So travelers want lower prices for themselves due to inflation, yet are unaware and uncaring that inflation also affects hosts, and other travel service providers, who therefore need to raise not lower their prices.

This article should be subtitled “The World of the Entitled Traveler”.

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Couldn’t agree more @muddy

The findings are hardly rocket science :grin::grin::grin::grin:

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If you dive into the report you might find something useful to you. For example, I found this interesting: “According to our recent Sustainable Travel Study, 90% of consumers are looking for sustainable options when traveling.” . . . "Half are willing to pay more for transportation, activities, and lodging if the option was more sustainable . . "

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Just more entitled traveller stuff. They want to travel the world, creating a huge carbon footprint, yet don’t want single use items provided in their rental, or bemoan the lack of a way to recycle, while using a towel once and dropping it in a wet heap on the floor or complaining that there wasn’t any AC.

Or they’ll complain about bugs in the tropics, but not want the place to be fumigated with toxic chemicals.

People love going on about sustainability, while hypocritically doing whatever they please that’s convenient for them.

Not saying that hosts shouldn’t be environmentally conscious in their decisions, but I’m under no illusions that me not furnishing single-use plastic, having a compost pail and recycling, offsets the carbon footprint of the guests who just flew 3000 miles toget here.

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This really is about positioning the sustainable features of your listing, not logic.

[Good one, though!]

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My experience is that the VRBO surveys ALWAYS say the same thing. Guests want everything - fully refundable until the last minute, low price, no hassles, everything supplied, etc.

Of course they do. But in the real world (and not the fake world of surveys), their priorities are more nuanced. Bottom line? Understand your actual competitors and market accordingly,

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“Positioning”? Is that some fancy word for advertising?
I market towards guests who will be a good fit with my place, what I offer, and my lifestyle. I don’t offer things based on surveys of what some unnamed guests want.

No one’s suggesting that you do.

But if you do engage in sustainable practices and/or offer sustainable amenities, to me this survey suggests you’d be sure to mention them.

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I love that. How many people would say no? I’m surprised it wasn’t 100%. Saying it is one thing but actually doing it is another.

I noticed on the report that 11,000 actual consumers were consulted in the survey. That’s a drop in the ocean…

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That’s the magic of statistics, taking a small random sampling of a large population to learn their characteristics. A sample size of 11,000 is pretty large, even with a population of travelers that might be in the ballpark of 1.5 billion.

Let’s take this forum. How often do we agree about any issue? We rarely do but on those rare occasions, we are not indicative of all STR hosts.

This is why, when people post surveys here, they are acting unwisely. At this forum there’s a huge diversity in the type of rental, hospitality industry experience, and just about every variable you can think of. We are hardly indicative.

Have you ever visited the Reddit hosts forum? It’s not even remotely similar to this one - and they aren’t indicative of all hosts either.

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Well, if you think all surveys are worthless, you can leave at that.

For me, so far, there is at least one nugget of value, that 90% of people are looking for sustainable-amenities and 50% say they are willing to pay for those. Now I already have several sustainable amenities, but besides the EV charging I didn’t mention them in the listing. Now I do by saying:

– Sustainability-related amenities: Electric charging station for your vehicle, house powered by solar energy, recycling, avoidance of single-use plastics and plastics in general, eco-friendly LED lighting .

So this seemed like a no-brainer to me.

Others here have responded to the popular dislike of cleaning fees by building that into their price. Would they be wrong to do so if that sentiment was expressed in a survey?

No one is suggesting that the traveler population is homogenous but where surveys or even anecdotal information suggests strong likes/dislikes among a significant portion of portion of potential guests a Host can consider (accept/reject/modify) whether a change in their listing, whether substantively or in presentation might be beneficial.

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I’m pretty sure that I didn’t say that but yes, many are.

Yet a couple of pages after that, is the following graphic.

Funny how industry professionals and consumers differ. Environmental policies get 8% from consumers and 12% from industry professionals

I think that most hosts (the ones here anyway) have good sustainability practices in their listings.

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No, there’s a hundred things one could mention about their listing and only so much space to mention them and as we know, many guests don’t bother to read thoroughly anyway.

I’ve never had any problem attracting the type of guests who are hip to composting and recycling and not wasting water, etc, without any wording about “sustainability”.

And Airbnb chooses what to highlight at the top of our listings, hosts have no choice in that, anyway.

As I said, I don’t choose my advertising wording based upon surveys.

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On surveys you said:

So not all are worthless but it’s unwise to post here.

Then you quote me quoting the survey saying that 90% are looking for sustainable amenities.

You then say YET (Emphasis added) and show a graphic that the #1 consideration is something else, sustainability being #1 for just 1 out of 12 guests.

No one is saying sustainability is #1. Yet 90% look for it and 50% say they will spend more for it.

I’m not asking guests to pay more for it. But now, prompted by this survey, I added the language stating what I already offer.


The challenge in any survey like this is to see if there are any takeaways for you. They’re not always presented to you on a platter.

It can be ‘work’ to figure out what, if any, relate to you.

I found one for me, so far, on presenting the sustainability amenities we already offer and in the same language of the survey (‘eco-friendly’ etc.).

There might be more. We have contactless check in: 1 out of 11 rate this #1 for them. I know we mention that. I’ll revisit my listing to see if I should highlight it.

The pricing’s a challenge. In summer we don’t charge a cleaning fee. I don’t ‘say’ in the listing that we don’t charge a cleaning fee, as I thought that obvious, But now, maybe, I’ll mention it.

[The ‘quote’ feature suddenly does not work for me. Maybe you guys disabled it for me. Hehe]

Finally, you say you think most hosts here have good sustainability practices in their listings.

Then I suppose that one nugget is for the rest who don’t.

P.S. If it’s so unwise to post surveys, why not just ban them?

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Surveys seem much less valuable than real world experience and reading of the experiences of other hosts. And I can tell you that I’ve read plenty of posts by hosts complaining about guests blasting the AC or heat while leaving the windows open, leaving the lights and AC on when they are out all day, taking half hour hot showers, using a bath towel once and then helping themselves to clean ones, motoring through a roll of tp a day per person, while I’ve never read a host saying their guests complained about not having a recyling bin.

But do let us know how much your booking rate increases by mentioning LED lightbulbs. :wink:`

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So you say you’ve not had a problem attracting guests without any wording about ‘sustainability.’ It sounds like you mention composting and recycling.

This post was not written to you alone. If it has no applicability to you, that’s OK.

You say it’s not worthwhile for you to mention them in your listing because guests don’t bother to read thoroughly. That’s OK too.

Thanks for sharing.

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Why does it “sound” like that? I don’t. My whole point was that you don’t need to mention those things to attract guests who are on board with those things.

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I don’t know about ‘need’ to mention.

I understand that you choose not to mention these things. Your rationale seems to be, you say, that “many guests don’t bother to read thoroughly anyway.”

Not surprisingly, I choose to mention these things for the few who might.

Reasonable people can agree to disagree. Others can keep seeking the last word.

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