Perfectly pricing the most popular events in a short-term rental market is often easier said than done considering all of the factors that have an impact on event compression. At Beyond, we take pride in accurately pricing your listings for upcoming events, from holidays and celebrations to conventions and concerts. There are multiple ways that Beyond’s advanced dynamic pricing algorithm helps to ensure that your listings are priced correctly for all upcoming events. 

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Event Detection Philosophy

The first step in event pricing is detecting that an event is taking place at some date in the future. Events do not need to be defined by a physical, in-person gathering but can instead represent a short-term, abnormal change in demand and supply. Beyond’s algorithm starts by automatically detecting an event due to a rise in occupancy, a decrease in availability, an increase in average daily rates and prices, and more. The larger the shift in supply or demand compared to surrounding dates in the market and historical performance, the larger the price increase added to listings using Beyond’s dynamic pricing. 

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Additionally, the farther away that Beyond detects an event, the more severe the event pricing factor is. If a small change in occupancy is detected many months in advance, for example, Beyond’s algorithm would emphasize the event factor increase due to the abnormally large booking window. 

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Event Decay

Event pricing should never be static. At Beyond, we factor in how many days are left before any event and adjust event pricing impacts accordingly. Within the average booking window for the market, neighborhood, or specific event, Beyond’s algorithm begins to automatically decrease prices to ensure maximum occupancy. This is a crucial step in ensuring that event pricing can be adjusted automatically as well as minimize the use of manual overrides. 

Event Pacing

Analyzing how future dates are trending compared to the same period in previous years or the rest of the market is a critical aspect of revenue management and is commonly referred to as “pace” data. Pacing behind or ahead of previous years or the market can be an important indicator that signals a need for pricing changes. At Beyond, we apply this logic to event pricing by constantly analyzing event performance compared to different sets of data and adjusting prices as needed. For example, if we detect that Christmas is booking faster this year compared to last year, Beyond’s algorithm would increase the pricing factor to ensure average daily rates can be maximized. 

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Beyond also monitors how the entire market is performing for all upcoming events. If listings using Beyond’s dynamic prices are booking up at a slower rate than the rest of the market, an event pricing adjustment will be implemented. This ensures that Beyond users can spend less time manually adjusting their pricing strategies and spend more time on other revenue-generating activities. 

Search Demand

Ever since launching Search Powered Pricing & Insights in 2023, Beyond has used consumer search data to better understand how events evolve in any given market before any guests decide to make a booking. Beyond can collect and analyze search traffic and guest preference data from direct booking websites in real-time, allowing for automatic pricing increases if a specific date range starts to be searched for more than other dates. 

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For example, newly announced concerts and festivals often pop up quickly and attendees immediately search for availability of short-term rentals to stay at. Beyond can pick up on this demand before anyone books, allowing for an event pricing increase to be implemented to ensure that all rentals are priced appropriately. This prevents any underpriced bookings from taking place for Beyond users compared to the rest of the market. Search Powered Pricing is exclusive to Beyond’s dynamic pricing algorithm and has been able to protect many hosts and property managers from taking low bookings as demand rises. 

Off-Peak Event Pricing

The newest event pricing feature at Beyond automatically adjusts prices based on the availability of peak demand dates during an event period. For example, if a guest books for Christmas arriving on December 24th, Beyond would automatically lower the event pricing in place for December 22nd and 23rd since additional guests would not be able to stay through the peak event days on the 24th and 25th. This helps maximize occupancy around popular events, while keeping rates high for key days and also reduces the need for manual overrides, saving time and money for all Beyond users. 

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Since implementing off-peak event pricing earlier in 2024, Beyond has generated an additional 17% in revenue for users compared to the rest of the market over the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays in the United States. Over the coming weeks, Beyond will expand the implementation of off-peak event pricing to all markets and events.