This article is part of our Rental Scale-Up vacation rental management conference series. This is an extract from our May 2020 conference: “How villa and holiday rental managers are navigating the COVID-19 crisis in Southeast Asia and Oceania.”
Vacation Rental Management Conference: AllTheRooms’ Victor Bosselaar
Victor is a Data Sales and Partnerships responsible at AllTheRooms – the world’s only complete accommodations aggregator, combining hotels with vacation rentals, secret deals, and all other types of accommodations. Victor collected unique insights when it comes to the rental properties management, especially in the light of the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Vacation Rental Management Conference: Video From The 2020 Southeast Asia & Oceania Conference
- Victor worked in the marketing/media sector of the travel industry before he joined AllTheRooms.
- The company’s new “forward booking index” helps clients understand when recovery will happen and what it will look like.
- Victor shares future booking data for Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asian markets.
- In Australia, bookings for the next 180 dates are lower than last year, but when we compare the last 30, 14, and 7 days, the amount of bookings is increasing steadily, showing recovery.
- In Sydney and Melbourne specifically, the amount of new bookings between 30, 14, and 7 days is less than Australia in general, showing a slower rate of recovery week after week. This trend makes sense when we consider that people may not want to travel to urban areas right now.
- The Surfers Paradise market is showing a steady amount of new bookings week-over-week, and some dates in the next 180 days are performing better than last year.
- In New Zealand, the booking within the next few days are on par with last year’s level, and the next few months are pacing nicely.
- The booking trend for Auckland looks similar to Sydney and Melbourne, with fewer new bookings within the last few weeks.
- Overall, Australia and New Zealand see some domestic travel, so we can notice a trend of recovery, although still fewer bookings than last year.
- In contrast, Indonesia’s future booking curve looks bleak; very few new bookings were made within the last few weeks. This trend makes sense when we consider that most of Indonesia’s travelers are international, rather than domestic.
- Bali’s booking curve looks similar to Indonesia as a whole, with just a small amount of bookings coming in at the last minute and hardly any new bookings for dates further into the future.
- Singapore is pacing slightly better than Indonesia and Bali, while the majority of new bookings were made for travel dates within the next couple weeks.
- Thailand’s future bookings are also concentrated within the next two weeks, though Bangkok is not seeing much pickup like other urban areas. Koh Samui has seen significant pickup for bookings in the next week, with at least one date reaching last year’s occupancy level.
- Looking at booking feeder markets, we see a shift toward domestic travel in Australia and New Zealand between pre-COVID times and now.
- New Zealand’s graph shows a smaller share of domestic travelers compared to pre-COVID, but Victor isn’t sure why that would be the case.
- Domestic share in Indonesia has decreased, while Australia, Russia, and Germany show growth – likely people who are stranded or chose not to go back to their home country.
- Share of bookings from Russia and Germany in Bali and Ubud have increased significantly. Travel back to Russia is very difficult right now, so many Russians who were in Bali when the pandemic started were either not able to return home or chose to remain in Bali.
- Thailand sees an increase in share of European origin bookings (Germany, France), Russia, and Canada. Bangkok sees an increase in share of bookings from China.
Vacation Rental Management Conference: Full Conversation Between Victor Bosselaar And Thibault Masson
Thibault:
Dear Rental Scale-Up club members. Thank you for joining us. Now I am with Victor Bosselaar. He’s in charge of data sales and partnerships for AllTheRooms. We’ll be talking about data. What’s, what’s very important here is that usually we get a ton of data about the U S market, but Europe, but not so much about either Australia, New Zealand or Southeast Asia. All the rooms has been really amazing here. They put data just for us, so you’ll be able to see what all the rooms can usually provide in your market. But here we have exclusive view of, of the trends, how the crisis was, what to expect in terms of demand. And Victor will actually guide us through this. So let’s do Victor, I’d like to welcome you and thank you for being here. How are you?
Victor:
I’m quite well, thank you for having me on. We appreciate it being able to talk to your audience
Thibault:
When your members. Alright, it’s a pleasure. I see behind you a whole board like notes of mysterious words and diagrams. So it’s no secret that your company is into data. So can you maybe introduce a bit, I mean your background and so more about all the rooms.
Victor:
I can talk about my background, I could also talk about this background and I’ll be honest that this is from the data team and I understand none of this. They must have to, they have explained it to me again. So you mentioned I’m on the sales and a bit on the marketing side. So and that into my background you know, I’ve always worked in the travel industry and the tourism industry. From the media standpoint. I have a background, I have a marketing background. And so I used to work for this company in foreign media and then had some other jobs in New York city. And then what I did is I took essentially a one way flight down to a Medi in Columbia. Just wanted to kind of a change of pace, something different. And I found this, this great travel tech company called all the rooms.
Victor:
Yeah, just all the rooms, which is a travel and meta search and accommodations met a search engine. And so then I started from a marketing standpoint there kind of created my own a little department, if you will, in all the rooms. We saw that we were sitting on this very rich data set for us to be able to feed our meta search platform. We had a very robust database and data in the short term rental space where we pull data from guys like Airbnb, VRBO, HomeAway, booking.com, TripAdvisor, vacation rentals. And we were able to, you know, mine and curate these reports for guys in the, in a destination marketing organization space. Also for hotel brands. We’re able to digest it as well for a property management companies and individual homeowners and hosts. And for that side of what we’re really looking to do is we typically we typically on past performance, so you’re kind of comparing your benchmarking your property to what the market is doing and you know, we’re focused, we focus mainly on Airbnb and VRBO for that data given these current times.
Victor:
A lot of our partners, certainly on the enterprise side, but kind of across the board are very interested in what we’re seeing in future booking and future demand profiles. And really, so we’ve recently built out a new product called their forward booking index over the last two, three months to really feed that need, that niche that, that, that people need is understanding you know, what that future demand profile looks like. And what we’re trying to do with that is trying to track a shift in consumer sentiment or traveler sentiment in hopes to identify or predict a recovery and when a full recovery is going to happen or when a partial recovery and at what rate. And so that’s, that’s what we’ve developed for for our partners, for our, for our clients. And that’s some of the data that we’re going to be going through today. Trying to understand what’s taking place in you know, in your, in areas such as New Zealand Australia and some of the Southeastern Southeast Asia regions. And when are we, what kind of recovery are we seeing, if at all, at why are we seeing what we’re seeing and when can we expect it?
Thibault:
So again, so data that you guys have in some of these big conforms of your sleep, anything we need to know when you found me, Australia and New Zealand, Asia, are you, so you also have like people like Gaddafi for example, in your feeds.
Victor:
We, we have data on those feeds. So to, to feed our meta-search platform, we had a host of of suppliers and providers. We even had guys like Hostelworld Expedia and booking for hotels. So we have inventory and supply information of those guys. When we’re talking about performance metrics, we’re really focused on the short term rental market and we’re really focused on the, on the Airbnbs and the verbose and the homeboys mainly. And so that’s what we’re going to be looking at today. Those are, those are our main providers that we look at from a performance metrics, occupancy rates, supply demand.
Thibault:
Cool. That’s pretty exciting. So I think it’s just, just dive into it. The short charts and data you guys have put together kind of thing.
Victor:
Sure, sure thing. Let me share my screen.
Victor:
All right. So yeah, the areas that we’re going to look at here is that side. We’re going to focus on Australia, New Zealand and some Southeast Asian countries and regions and then some of the cities within each. And then some main themes are going to pop up, which I’ll go through. As we look at the data and we’re going to be looking at two main pieces here that kind fall into the themes that we’re going to speak about. One, we’re going to look at a future bookings as I mentioned, that’s really going to tell us what type of recovery are we seeing in these different regions. Cause it is different in, in, in different areas. And we’re all also going to look at is origin data and origin data is of the bookings that have already happened pre and post [inaudible]. Are there shifts in where the traveler is coming from?
Victor:
It’s going to be, that’s very important to note. Cause that has also a lot of effects or effects a lot in the type of recover we are seeing. So one of the main themes that we’ll discuss but let’s look at here quickly at Australia. What I want to mention first is if you’ve seen the red, the red line here is the the forward booking of of last year. So we’re always going to be benchmarking ourselves to the performance of the, of of 2019. This is what we’re going to call a quote unquote healthy demand profile. This is what we should be seeing. Obviously we always want to improve year over year, but given these times, this is going to be our benchmark. This is what we’re always going to be looking to kind of close that gap. As you can see, the, you know, 2019 is certainly outperforming what we’re seeing in 2020 and what we’re trying to see as a closing of that gap that lets us know that we’re in a in full recovery.
Victor:
And so what we’re looking at is so this was pulled this past weekend May 22nd. And, and so that’s what we’re seeing here. This is this is may 20 excuse me, May 22nd, and we’re looking forward 180 days. And what we’re seeing here in these, these these lines here is when we pulled the, that same data in previous either weeks or of the past month. And what that shows you is as, as the time goes on, what does that increase in occupancy rate and how, and what rate are we getting closer to what we should be seeing in 2019 now as you will, you’ll notice, we’ll see it in other graphs. This is a, a healthy, this is a promising looking recovery trend here. Okay. So, Oh, so in between here where this is about 16 days. And so we’re seeing, and again, we’re always looking at a particular point in time.
Victor:
We’re looking at May 22nd and between the, within those five days, you saw an increase of say a three to a 4% occupancy rate for, for that day. And then there’s a steady increase. So that means is over that time travelers are seeing competence or having confidence in being able to book short term rentals throughout Australia. Okay. And so again, decent looking, this is promising. We like what we see here and we’re not, we’re not out of the woods yet. We’re not close to what we should be. But we’re, we’re, we’re seeing some some good signs, some promising signs.
Victor:
But within the last seven days I’m correct cause you say it’s pretty close to where it should be. Right? Well this is for the upcoming days. Sure. So it is getting closer. There is a bit of a like a two day lag here as you see what we don’t have are those the peaks. Right. And the, those peaks are usually the normal the normal peaks of a weekend performance, that sort of thing. So we’re not getting that just yet. It’s a little bit more normalized if you see, we’re not seeing that normal peaks. But in, in some cases, yes, that as you see here, this, this is a, there’s a very small daylight in between it so that, that is a great sign. The purple is the data that we pulled on Saturday. So that is the latest data that we have. It’s the blue here that is seven days before. So the difference here, excuse me, the difference in between those two are the bookings have been made.
Victor:
And so if we look at what we see in Melbourne, we’re gonna look at Melbourne and Sydney, but let’s take a look at Melbourne. We’re w that is, we see much more daylight in between that if compared to Australia as a whole. And not only are we very far away from where we should be with respect to a 2019 performance or a benchmark, it’s also, we’re not seeing that as great of a movement in between data polls in between the weeks that we’re pulling or months. And that tells us that there is less competence. Travelers have much less competence in being able to book a short term rental book travel in the more urban areas in Australia. It’s not only that, they don’t have confidence, they also don’t still want to. There is certainly right now a negative perception in with urban areas in, in being able to book travel or wanting to go there.
Victor:
In fact, people are, are going the other way around. They’re getting, trying to get out of the city. That’s one of the main themes here are, and it’s not only in Australia but in, in North America and Western Europe, what we’re seeing is that the urban areas rather than our shade suburban and rural areas are outperforming in, in terms of recovery and just straight out outperforming that of their urban counterparts. Which I guess shouldn’t come as much of a of a surprise. It’s the urban areas that are really the hotspots, the virus hotspots that are spreading, people are trying to get out of the city. And in fact, in New York, in areas surrounding New York city for example, we’re actually seeing an increase in year over year occupancy rates. Funny enough of people at least during during crisis mode, people wanting to get out of the city, it was almost like a respites for them.
Victor:
So in a a Metro area for in New York, we saw you know, a normally 25% occupancy rates for this time that shut up to 65% occupancy rate cause people just wanted to get out of the city. And I, we do expect to see that trend, not that specific trend, but the theme of people wanting to get out of the city to continue and the cities will have a tougher time and longer time in terms of recovery. And so that’s what you’re seeing here in these graphs. And that is a common in, in many other areas.
Victor:
Let’s see. And if you Surfer’s Paradise little, it’s a bit of a different story as, as you can see it certainly we are surface paradise does have a better recovery profile. Then the than Melbourne and Sydney for example, as you can see, at least in the short term we’re seeing a greater recovery. There’s still work to be done for bookings that are going out a bit further as you can see. But it, bookings in the short term are, it’s, it’s a promising look. But we’re certainly not up to up to the level where we should be. And that’s another thing that we’re seeing of late and it’s not only what we see in in Australia for example, is lookings in the short term. So we’re seeing more recovery of bookings in the short term rather than bookings in the longterm, at least for right now.
Victor:
The data doesn’t tell exactly why that is. It’s anecdotally what we believe is because people are are, are cooped up. They’ve been in their home for say, two, three months, whatever it may be, and they just want to go out and they just want to go on a vacation. And usually these are like mini vacations as you’ll see. Also with our origin data. There’s a, a shift in where people are coming from and it’s very regional or domestic travel. And so that’s what we’re seeing here. Bookings in the short term. Something also Airbnb has alluded to as well. A couple of weeks ago when they spoke, they you might’ve seen in the news they’re having some troubles at the moment, financial or otherwise. But what they are seeing is an increase in bookings in the seven day to 30 day period. And so that’s what we’re seeing data.
Thibault:
Yeah, exactly. There’s an interview over the weekend of prying chest Kia. He did confirm that a huge trends in the next seven days or thought out flaggy I think he was even saying like further than six months from now, either either right now this is a dog, which obviously it could be a bit because here we’re talking about Australia and New Zealand where obviously it’s not the same season as in us where I guess he’s sticking his where you store the data he’s taking from it from the U S but still as you just said, you can see here clearly people are like okay, let’s, let’s book now for now.
Victor:
Exactly. Exactly. And that’s what we’re seeing kind of across the board generally. Alright. And so if we look at New Zealand or, or which one would be Melbourne, Melbourne, yeah. So Melbourne we kind of packaged that up with Sydney as you can see, very similar trend line to, to, to Sydney. Again, another big big urban sprawling area, very tough on recovery. There is some slight recovery here as you, as you see, there’s some increase in confidence over those time periods, but we’re really seeing a drastic gap in, in what should be a, again, a normal power demand, future demand profile. Again, very similar to that of Sydney as you can see trends almost identical. Cool. Thanks for extending. No, not a problem. And if we want to look at New Zealand I mean New Zealand is looking pretty good.
Victor:
And even in that short term in that, you know, let’s see, we’re looking at a 15 day period. We’re almost on par as you, as I mentioned, there’s like I say, two day lag or so. But we’re almost on par with the forward performance of last year for at least that 15 day timeframe, which is great news. When I, as you can see as we go further out and then you know, that that confidence just isn’t there yet. People haven’t really, they’re not back to normal. You know, once you know these, these restrictions are loosening up, people will just say, you know what? Let’s do something, they want to do something quick. But again, why we’re seeing why the we’re not meshing up there is people aren’t just booking yet. They’re not planning that far out just yet. It’s too early to to make that. But going to what we just mentioned before, funny enough, it’s really those first seven to 15 days. And, and what was that? What we’re seeing across across the board in New Zealand.
Thibault:
Queen’s birthday’s coming up next weekend if they use it. And so it could be a,
Victor:
Is that a, a a big for subluxation? It’s a thing. So yeah, so this is, this is great news. And we expect to see similar trends here for some of the other areas as well as they loosen their restrictions. Again, those seven to 15 days booking should start back to quote unquote normal. It’s always tough to, when people ask, when are we expecting recovery? The question always is, what does recovery mean? What does that look like? Because that goes in phases. If you look in the short term, you can almost say, Oh, we’re at recovery here. But really if you’re looking at that healthy future demand profile, we’re nowhere, we’re not there yet. We’re certainly not there yet. We have a long ways to go, but this is encouraging, very encouraging. And that again, and, and the, the, the increases between these timeframes is also very encouraging.
Victor:
So if we look at all Auckland specifically, we’re not getting that same level of increased competence, although I have to say we’re comparing this to say a Melbourne or Sydney. This is doing better than them as a, as see the greater sense of recovery, greater sense of competence, being able to book larger increases in between the reporting periods that we see. And we are following some of those those peaks and troughs. But again, still while waste the go, it kind of goes with that, you know, urban to rural theme if you will.
Thibault:
Well, it’s still very interesting. It’s that far out in the future I guess. I guess it’s probably Christmas. Christmas Eve and new year’s Eve. We, you could see in a overall new Zealand’s data you have, you can sort of see the dates for years, even Christmas Eve, this small small peaks. And here we can see anything. So maybe, maybe it’s not what you do for Christmas. You could spend your time in Auckland. I miss that. I’ve looked too, but it’s not even there. Where there your slide, you could kind of guess where Christmas and then and yours, there was some bookings happening. So it’s interesting as well. Yeah.
Victor:
Yeah. but I think also at least certainly in the States if you’re going to, when we book things like 4th of July weekend or if you book certainly like Christmas those sort of vacations are usually outside of the urban area anyways. So like New York city for example, doesn’t have great occupancy rates for Christmas necessarily. People go outside, at least that’s more US-based.
Thibault:
Sydney, Sydney would be big New Years’ Eve that I say that’s very compressed. My lack of knowledge about Auckland’s where Y yeah, maybe it’s [inaudible] somewhere else.
Victor:
I might have to claim my American ignorance and I, I’m not familiar with Auckland as much so I can, I can only comment on what the data’s saying. Okay. And I think we want to take a look now at some of the South, South, Southeast Asia, excuse me, Southeast Asian countries where it’s starkly, starkly different from what we’re seeing in Australia and New Zealand. And something I mentioned earlier at least to you is what, and the reason this is going to be a theme for all the other the regions and countries in Southeast Asia. What we look at is we attribute this to a regions or countries or areas with a strong domestic tourism with strong domestic tourism tend to fare better. During these times. Obviously there are international travel bands that lead to it. So I would say that people from outside cannot come in.
Victor:
When we look at the origin data, you’ll see where people are going to Indonesia, going to Bali going to Thailand or for the most part, non domestic travelers. Maybe in Thailand you’ll have people within Thailand, they’ll travel. But going to Bali for example it’s everybody from, you know, the U S and Australians and Germans, what have you, and obviously during these times that is not possible. So areas with a weak domestic tourism profiles will fair, won’t fare as well. In terms of recovery, they’re really relying on international travel to help them come back, which will be a which will take longer naturally for recovery. And just because the international borders open up, that doesn’t necessarily mean international immediately comes back. I think that we’re seeing across the board is more domestic, regional travel or what this is really I think it’s a terrible term, but it’s an American term called staycation, which means that there’s a vacation or a holiday that you stay in your area. I know it’s a very, it’s a horrible term. We tend to have those terms in America, but that is a theme that we were seeing in week. We expect to continue seeing just because of the perception here that people are still kind of scared and will be for a little while to, you know, hop in a plane or being a confined area, go to an airport. And so that’s not going to, that’s going to be tough for guys in Indonesia, in Thailand and what have you.
Thibault:
Yeah. It’s just interesting to your point is that except he has very strong domestic travel markets. But it’s not the same type of Fundations that we’re tourists international tourists state. For example, right as we’re still being [inaudible] is a lot of moves, a lot of things happening in the front by that that sits we now of course have people which are that we don’t have the money who couldn’t book the last in body for example. Right? It’s a, to your point, it’s not probably the center of properties or channels either. Right? that’s our books. Diagnostic clinical use by people from Singapore or Hong Kong. Singapore is officially who could come for a staycation, start finding flight body. You could come for a staycation, but it’s yeah right now it’s probably not coming.
Victor:
Got it. I think you’d make a good point about the platform. Obviously we are, our data is focused on the Airbnbs and the verbose of the world. That might then be more geared toward a particular clientele because when we look at the origin data, you’ll see it’s more Western country oriented and that might be something to point out that if you are focused on these specific things platforms, maybe we look at other ones if you’re not already doing so to maybe hopefully take advantage more of the domestic tourism because that’s really what it’s going to be right now and we’re going to continue to see those trends. Yeah. So just quickly, I think this is pretty self explanatory and what we’re seeing. Yeah. W we are, we are well below where we should be. Although this, this is somewhat of a good sign.
Victor:
Again, this is within, you know, a five day, seven day span. And so from, you know, a month ago to say 14 days ago, this increased by 5%, which is, which is a strong increase. Then it kind of tailed off, you know, this is where we should be and we’re well below that moment. So, you know, up to say 30% here, but we’re, we’re looking at you know, sub, we’re looking at single digit doc currency rates. So we have really some serious ways to go with respect to recovery for Indonesia as a whole. And then, you know, if we look at Bali, essentially the same trend lines, we’re not really, as you can see, there’s no real difference in blue tune nose. Yeah, again, same thing say 5% jump from 30 days to 14 days, but then tailing off and serious daylight in between where we should be just, I believe goes to the theme that we spoke about.
Thibault:
Yeah. And the volume market being so important. I guess Indonesia with goes to the global Kings and Airbnb, I guess a lot of the overall data over Indonesia probably wait a minute. Valley has big, big, big super big way into the weight, into the Indonesian data. So as far as, so maybe the charts have been similar.
Victor:
Yeah. And then Uber I think has a similar, yeah, it’s exactly the same essentially.
Thibault:
That’s interesting as well because what we have now in value as well, it’s like a while for last two months. None of us stranded travelers like either a digital nomads are there or a lot of Russian travelers there. And what we hear lots and have people negotiating super hard and then just like switching from one place to another. But it’s like we need a place like right now for two days from now. But that’s the only, so the only thing that happening, I don’t know if you can see if you see it on the dates out that some bookings happening from body to body. Cause I know that on the, on the, on the conference, grab a buddy managers or to tell us that there’s transactions happening on phones. What’s the WhatsApp or Facebook groups people on the items stranded who would be booking. But it’s yeah, it’s interesting to see again, the extra is that for the next few days and not much beyond that like exactly.
Victor:
We’ll see for Bali we’ll look at some the origin data. But I think we see it from a, from on a country where what countries are coming from, not necessarily cities and something we can possibly pull later. But that’s what we have for now. One thing I’m noticing, I don’t want to take up. I know I want to look at the origin data as well. I don’t know how we’re doing on time. I don’t want to.
Thibault:
Okay. I think we’re good. We’re good. We’re good. This is very interesting and it’s cool.
Victor:
Sure. okay. Singapore is a bit of a different animal than to the other regions in Southeast Asia. When we see, certainly when we see the origin data, they do have more kind of regional travel as you’ll see. Mmm. But again, you know, performance wise I think they’re doing a little bit better than Indonesia, a little bit better than than Bali. Again, if you look at that increase at least from the 30 days of 14 days. But there, there is a a pattern here, what we’re seeing. And for some reason that in the say the last 14 days, that last period has been a it’s been condensed in terms of, of people continue to, to book. And that’s something what we hadn’t seen in, in the other areas in sales from New Zealand where there was kind of consistent growth over those timeframes. It really has been condensed on top here. We, that is something we have to look into. Why we think that’s the case. Don’t have an answer for you guys right now, but I do find that an interesting pattern that we’re seeing with these South Southeast Asian regions. But continuing that pattern also is bookings of the seven to really five to seven days.
Victor:
Let’s see. And then we have Thailand to Bangkok. We’re looking, Thailand is looking better. Thailand is certainly looking better. But again, we’re really also, again, we’re going back to the five, seven days, maybe to 15 days. Performance sound like a broken record. But we are, but at least at that point we are getting somewhat closer than some of the other regions would just look at. Right? So there is a tightening of that gap. That’s again, what we’re looking for. Getting back to that, that baseline is, that’s what we’re seeing here. I’m so we’re not as good as this. We’re not looking as good as an Oakland. Or surface paradise, excuse me, not Auckland. Just New Zealand as a whole or surface paradise. But this is more promising than the other regions. We just saw you know, 30 days to 14 days. A nice jump that’s a, you know, say a 5% jump or so. And then a continuation of that look that is always going to be a little bit tighter as those, those, those timeframes are smaller. But that’s, that’s a better sign than what we’ve seen for in Indonesia. Bali ooVoo as well. But so generally better than what we’re seeing a bit more positive in terms of recovery for Thailand.
Victor:
And then if we look at Bangkok, not so much, again going with the theme of big urban areas that people do not want to are less comfortable in booking. That’s the just the consumer or the traveler sentiment we’re seeing across the board. That, yeah, people are just not booking these urban areas. And although there is some, you know, there’s some light here which tells off. So we do have that seven day window that people are booking. We are very much far away where we should be hinting at a recovery that will take a little bit longer than some of the other areas that we’ve looked up.
Victor:
I’m going to go now into, Oh, and then we’ll have floss one. This is an interesting one. This certainly kind of bucks the trend of of the other areas that we looked at. And now what it continues that trend here is that’s, you know, that’s a, that week, that’s seven day booking timeframe. And if you actually look at, there’s only one day in which we hit our 2019 levels, right? And hit hit our baseline. So that’s essentially just one day does and then it kind of tails off a bit. Okay. But so that is at least the, the, the start of that were quote unquote back to normal. Obviously we’d have to see more of this type of trend for us to be back to normal. But again, we have that one data point and that’s, this is what we’d like to see this increase over those timeframes.
Victor:
It tells us that people have confidence in being able to book again. And this is a very good sign that we’re at least, at least at one point hit normal normal occupancy rates. But again, as a, that’s been tailing off. But what that tells me is this should improve. As we go and you know, we’ll be pulling it in next week and the following week and that we expect to have at least more of that seven day range meet up with our, our, our baseline. That’s, that’s what we, I would expect to see in the coming weeks or that, you know, what we’re seeing is that seven day, 14 day forward range where we’re, what people are booking. I expect us to be able to get closer to what that 2019 demand levels. So this is an interesting one. Certainly bucking the trend or bucking the pattern for what we sell for the other Southeast Asian regions.
Victor:
Okay. so I believe we ran through all the forward bookings or the future booking the future demand profiles of the areas. Now we want to take those same areas of what we want to do is we want to look at the origin data. Where are people coming from? And as I mentioned, just to reiterate the areas with a greater domestic travel profile tend to fare better, Mmm. With respects to recovery. As a whole are on the whole. But again, as you mentioned before, we are looking at at Airbnb, VRBO, HomeAway platforms. So that might skew where people are coming from. So something to note while we go through this through this data.
Thibault:
Chinese travelers, Southeast Asia, Chinese travelers who are probably booking through different channels.
Victor:
Yup. Yup. Exactly right. And then so not only are, and you’ll see a lot of these already have an established, you know, we’re talking about strong domestic tourism, so they already have that. But what you’re also seeing is from P pre and post a covert, and I’ll explain what that means in a sec. You’ll also see then a shift in, in a greater percentage, a greater ratio of domestic travel. And when we’re saying pre and post covert, obviously we’re still very much in the, in the midst of [inaudible]. But what we’re talking about is that time when it started really kicking off, that’s when in the news, in the media where it became, okay, this thing is spreading. A lockdown measures are starting to take place. So I think we to, to be on the generous side. We did mid February or February one is when we did that cutoff.
Victor:
Obviously, you know, it was in the news prior to that, but it really wasn’t kicking off as a global pandemic yet. And so we said, okay, February one, that’s really, you know, what, it kind of kicked off in the media, in our minds and we thought that that’s when all these things would start taking place. So that’s what we, what we mean by pre and post covert is around the February one. Okay. So looking at Australia as a whole, as you see Australia, the domestic travel is by far the, the, the greatest piece of where people are coming from when they’re booking through these platforms. And as you’ll know, so then, then also over time you’ll see an increase in the ratio of domestic travelers here again, blues prior to February one and then in red, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s past that point. And yeah, and then also a lot of that has to do with mainly, you know, any international travel bands. And that sort of thing.
Victor:
When we look at some of the cities in in Australia, similar although they have a, a larger international tourism profile then, then, then Australia as a whole, at least with respect to ratios and percentages. So where we saw 80 to 85% you know, for Australia as a whole when we’re looking at Melbourne and Sydney as well where that goes down to about 55%, or let’s call it 58% of [inaudible] and then that jumps up to 60 to 63% a postcode period. And then you’ll see, you know, for those other areas that there is, except for the United Kingdom, everything else kind of drops off. Again, the makeup of the, of the tourism of travelers.
Victor:
And then Sydney, same thing. They even have a lower percentage of, of domestic travel, although, and you’ll notice there’s a, so there’s about a 5% difference. So far, again, we only expect that to grow grow further. This is a trend that we expect to continue in the, at least in the short term is yeah, more of these staycations a greater propensity for people to stay within the region. You know, just yeah, domestic travel or even smaller like short term and it travel via car, that sort of thing. Here Surfer’s paradise goes more towards our trends that we see as Australia as a whole, a greater percentage of domestic travel versus some of the bigger some of the bigger cities. Again, that goes again to also are their ability to recover quicker, larger domestic tra tourism profile is again, you’ll see a quicker recovery, better recovery. And here pre and post COVID do you see an increase in domestic travel of about about 7% here. 6%.
Victor:
Okay. And then let’s New Zealand. This one odd let me take a look. This one. Oddly enough, what does does not follow the trend of Australia? What we’re seeing is actually from pre to post a drop in in domestic travel. As you can see here, a drop about say 3%, 4%. Oddly enough, where that’s making up is all a little bit of touch in Australia. I touch in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, which we find a very odd Trent. We haven’t been able to put our finger on the, the reason for that just yet. Can we just pull that data? So it’s something we should look into. But that New Zealand certainly bucking the trend but we’re seeing in in Australia and other areas. That’s interesting. Yeah.
Victor:
But in Auckland, when we look at it continues that, so increase in domestic travel from say 32%, 37%. But again Auckland not much lower with respect to domestic tourism. They make up, you know, from here we see about a third of the tourism or about a third of people booking short term rentals. And then kind of somewhat evenly spread out too from the U S and Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada. Again, we’re looking at our top 10 origin countries. And so you do see especially in the U S you see that that so there are, they take less than a percentage of the people. They’re again hinting at a greater and it increase in domestic tourism, but it’s a more international profile than a New Zealand as a whole. And some of these other rural areas really, again, hammering home the, the theme we’re talking about that areas with the greater domestic tourism have a better chance of recovery.
Victor:
Okay. So Indonesia as you mentioned here that it’s that the domestic travel is the, is the number one. So Indonesia is the top origin destination for tourism. So even through these platforms and then, but actually from what we’re seeing is that has actually decreased, oddly enough. From, you know, they made up about 27% or at least guys booking through an Airbnb booking short term rentals. That actually went down to say a 24%. Oddly enough. But that’s also kind of a download ground USA being the second largest country where people have it from. That also has then gone down
Thibault:
And I was already here and just seeing enough, I don’t know if it’s explained something about museum, but here clearly we can see the trend in the Russians that as a trend, right? These are people who are on the Island or in Bali for example, who need to book something. It’s probably, I don’t know, maybe it’s alterative right. Maybe there’s so many of them that it’s making the percentage of people from Indonesia go down just because actually Russia is increasing and it’s so native.
Victor:
Yeah. And it’s something we can certainly look into. But the, that is an interesting trend here. What you said that, that pickup of people from Russia and and that, that, that probably then makes up for why we’re seeing that gap here on the floor from Indonesian tourists. Sure. Okay. Bali, same thing. See here and then Russia seeing a similar trend here. Again, a decrease in about say 5%, 4%. Oh, excuse me, this is a USA. I apologize. My mistake this must be because I would have to look into why that is. So Indonesia here falls into the Mmm, five fifth spot right now if you think about a PRI, but prior to prior to covert, it would have been in in fourth place. It had been a fourth top country of tourism, but then got surpassed by both Russia and the United Kingdom over over that time as well as Germany. It looks like. So oddly enough, also Australia is bang even so we haven’t seen really a change, at least in, in, in ratios, in percentages. We USA a big dropoff no surprise there. What I am surprised about is Indonesia being at the six spots
Thibault:
Again, right? It’s, it could be people who are maybe Australians or Germans or Russians who are on the Island. It’s just just booking, right? Nine will be the contract. Virgin says Russia, Germany, Australia. Cause it’d be a few accounts, but actually they’re from Indonesia.
Victor:
Yes, correct. I think that would be, that’s a fair assessment. What we’re seeing. And then if we would even in Indonesia further down the list here the, the increased by Russia is, that’s an interesting one to me. You know, that that does seem to be a theme across all the areas in Indonesia and areas within. So, so that is, that is an odd one to me. It’s funny to see but they’re really the only one that we’re seeing an increase relative increase compared to all the other ones and it paid Germany here. And maybe the, I think w what you’ve mentioned is a very fair assessment of what, what we’re seeing here in the, in the data.
Thibault:
No, it is, you’re great because again, we hear the story and we reverse it, but we heard these stories about, Hey, restaurants are stranded. You like, yeah, how big, how big is that story? And then booga data would have, wait, wait a minute. There’s something happening with Russia and like, Whoa, this stories do make up. I mean, at least we kind of see something in data that could be it. But that’s interesting. That’s
Victor:
Interesting. My question then for you is why a Russian specifically more than other nationalities? Because just two reasons. First, some people want first at the beginning it’s been very hard for them to go back to Russia. The sys, Bonnie, you have to be on this very short list of people could be going back to Russia. Other countries could leave body basically or decide to stay on. So this way, the tendency of a lot of Russians understood. Understood. Okay. Interesting. okay. When we look at Singapore, I mean it’s a pretty obvious here that the increase in domestic travel here from I think this is the, the, the starkest the biggest difference from from all the areas that we looked at that increase in in domestic travel here we’re looking at a 9% normally you know, prior to COBIT, excuse me, the, you know, 9% of short term rental bookings came from Singapore and now it’s up to 25%.
Victor:
By far the biggest increase that I think we’re seeing in these different regions. You know, you would say number two, going down Australia, Germany. Funny enough, it has somewhat of an uptick going from say 3% to 5%. And at the tail end, Japan and France as well. But again, as you might mention, it could be due to guys that are trying to write it out so to speak. There could be an element there. But again, big increasing domestic travel and this, that’s what we’re looking for. That’s going to be good sign for a quicker recovery.
Victor:
All right, let’s take a look at our couple of other areas. We have Thailand, Bangkok, we want to take a look at here. Thailand comes in at number three as their as top origin destination China and USA being one and two respectively. Both you China in U S seeing a drop in making up of those travelers. Thailand unfortunately as well, where we’re seeing is similar to what we saw in Indonesia, but Russia, Russians here trying to arrive that out. Apparently. Maybe we’re seeing similar themes with German nationals as well as French nationals.
Victor:
Yeah. Bangkok some. Okay. So here we’re seeing actually an increase in ratios of Chinese nationals that are in Bangkok. You say opposite trend going down, similar to what we saw in Thailand as a whole. Germany, German national staying here, trying to ride that out. Australians as well. Thailand that’s called that about even for argument’s sake. But here Japanese and French nationals, again also an uptick guys trying to write it out, quote unquote. And then close the movie. This is quite an interesting one as well. But similar similar to what we saw in Thailand as a whole, again, German nationals, French nationals Russian nationals, those are the ones that seem to be continued to be booking, staying here, trying to ride it out. And, and so as you mentioned, so it’s not like more people are coming in from those nations, but those are the ones that are staying there.
Victor:
Those are the ones that are booking more. And that’s why we’re seeing, cause it’s all relative. That’s why we’re seeing that increase. I mean German nationals from about 9% to make an up to 15% by far the biggest increase French as well. And then Russians as well. So interesting anecdotal evidence from your side. And then we’re seeing that being proven out with the data. So very interesting stuff on that end. And I, I believe that’s, that that’s it. You know, I hope that was insightful. At least give some idea of what we’re seeing. And certainly the, that, that, that forward booking, that future demand profile is something we’re keeping very close track of. And that’s something we’ll continue to update and share because that is how you’re going to get prepared and know when you can expect those bookings to come back and full swing.
Victor:
Just, you know, just to reiterate, we’re really seeing an uptick in the bookings in the short term. We’re really talking about, you know, five to seven days, sometimes to 14 days. That’s where we’re seeing the focus in recovery at the moment. We see good early signs that we’re going to get quote unquote back to normal. At least in areas in, in Australia, in New Zealand on the, on a whole more in the rural and suburban regions, it’s going to be a longer recover recovery for for urban areas as well as in some of these areas in Southeast Asia.
Thibault:
Thank you so much Victor. Because I think yeah, you just mentioned the trends and as we’ve seen, that’s a great summary and as well throughout this conference we hear several people and talking about a body, for example, Australia and from their own point of view, right, as property managers and here thanks to you, thanks to all the rooms, could really see these anecdotes take shape in this graph with this bar, right? Oh, the stranded Russia, the famous Australian versions. You know what? They do exist, but there’s other, maybe other nationalities out there, he’ll object, will know that people just being there, that people to be French people who retire to usually to Thailand to go there, some [inaudible] it’s just there. So it’s interesting because it does show, give some data, you know, some data behind the anecdotes. And I really liked this.
Thibault:
What were you gonna encourage everyone to reach out to you, to all the rooms because it’s really important to have ideas be opening doors. What does the data say? What can you learn from that? Then you could see that talking to each other. How matching both. Because obviously approach, imagine her or his market way better than us right now with the data. The conjunction is really, really amazing. So what would be the best way to exist for people who want to know more about all the rooms? Get some data. What’s the best way to reach out to you?
Victor:
Sure. I was just as, as you mentioned, was I just thinking about that. And something we are providing. We just recently launched our one of our interactive dashboard that is a, it’s still in beta beta phase and we are providing free access to anybody that wants to get on it. Unfettered access can search for any particular area. This is past performance. You go to all the rooms.com/analytics you’re able there to sign up. And the full launch is coming soon. Within a week or so. So if you must sign up prior to that, but once you’re in, you get grandfathered in and you’ll get access free access for like a month or so. And then after that there’ll be some paid versions. The forward booking index that I went over, it won’t be the full right but a pared down version will then be included on the dashboard as well.
Victor:
So that’s something you can keep track of and then you can see the, the, the recovery as it goes. So something to, to look out for that will come in later iterations of the dashboard. But again, go to all the rooms.com/analytics you’ll be able to pull up the performance for your area. You’ll see April, may is about to end. So in about a week or so, we’ll have may data and again, feel free to check it out. That’s how you get it. If you want something more in depth, you can always contact me and we can do some custom work together.
Thibault:
Amazing. Victor, once again, Victor Bosselaar from AllTheRooms. Thank you so much for your time. Super clear explanation and and well, I can only, again, encourage people to reach out to you. Have a great day.
