Brace Yourself for Up-Tick in Vacation Rental Spending
A small shift in income can have a big impact on how families spend.
According to third quarter global online consumer confidence findings from Nielsen, consumers around the world are more sensitive than ever about their future spending budgets.
How would you allocate your monthly budget and where would you increase or decrease spending if your budget expanded or contracted by 10 percent? Nielsen asked this question in the above survey and got some interesting answers.
Nielsen said the results are very revealing:
Overwhelmingly, there is a sense of weariness and pent-up desire for a respite. When households contemplate a 10 percent increase in budget, we see a desire to expand allocation to indulgent categories like ‘pleasure travel/vacations’ (+29%)
That bears repeating — 29% wanted to spend it on a vacation!
Marketing Takeaway
Some of you may already be seeing year-over-year increases in your vacation rental business as the economy slowly turns around. The Nielsen report indicates that further increases in business are not far off as demand is clearly starting to swell.
Recent years have seen guests seeking (sometimes demanding) heavy discounts in rental rates. However, the economic laws of supply and demand, when coupled with the above data, seem to suggest that discounts may soon become a possibility, and not a requirement to close a booking for your vacation rental home.
Have you been discounting rates in recent years? Will you raise rates in 2012? Let us know with a comment below.
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