Slowed booking activity was an early sign of the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on vacation rentals. Between Mid-March and Mid-April, booking activity for the entire United States was about 80% lower than last year. In mid-April, booking activity started to slowly recover.
Seasonality and average arrival window vary by market and will affect how quickly some areas will rebound from COVID-19. While booking activity has dropped at similar rates across the United States, some markets will face bigger setbacks from the decline in March and April than others. For example, The Florida-Alabama Panhandle receives more of its annual bookings in the winter and spring while Hawaii is relatively steady throughout the year. To explore this, we looked at the number of guest reservations made per active property and grouped them by arrival window and booking month. Here’s what we found.
Most vacation rental reservations made in January-March for Hawaii have arrival dates more than 60 days out. In March of this year, booking activity was about half of 2019. Arrivals within 30 days fell only slightly and the biggest drop was for arrivals 60+ days away. January and February were stronger than 2019, which may help offset some of the impacts of lower booking activity in March and April.
March, April, and May are not the most popular months to book a vacation rental in Colorado’s Western Slope ski areas. This means that property managers there will be less impacted than in markets where spring is a strong booking season. While January and February saw more bookings than last year, March and April were much slower. In March, reservations for each arrival category fell at about the same rate.
North Carolina’s Outer Banks have a much longer booking window than many other markets, with the majority of reservations made during the offseason made for arrivals more than 60 days out. This year, March reservations were about half that of 2019. The decrease in April has been even sharper. This may mean the average booking window for summer 2020 stays becomes shorter than last year if travelers wait for restrictions to lift before they book.
Rentals on the Panhandle receive the most reservations in February-June. Many of these reservations are for spring and summer stays. Like other markets, March booking rates were about 50% of 2019. However, the sharpest decline was for reservations with arrivals more than 30 days out. Reservation activity for arrivals within 30 days declined only slightly as travelers still booked spring break trips before the pandemic escalated in the United States. April was especially hard on rentals on the Panhandle, with bookings about 75% lower than last year.
Property and destination managers around the world are holding their breath to see how travelers react once restrictions are lifted. When guests are comfortable vacationing again, we’re likely to see even more changes in booking windows and volumes compared to 2020.