Pricing strategy for your holiday home: how to price per day

Many owners choose one nightly price for their holiday home. Perhaps a higher price for the summer, a lower one for the winter. And then it stays that way. That feels clear and simple, but it almost always costs you money.

Demand for a holiday home changes every day. A Saturday in July is something different from a Tuesday in November. A weekend with a big event nearby is something different from an ordinary weekend. If you respond to that with a single price, you sell the busy days too cheaply and the quiet days too expensively.

In this article, we explain how to price per day. From seasons and school holidays to single nights between two bookings.

Why a fixed price does not work

A fixed price has two consequences. In busy periods, your property is fully booked quickly, often months in advance. That looks like success. But it usually means you were too cheap. Guests were willing to pay more.

In quiet periods, the opposite happens. Your price is above what guests want to pay at that time. The property stays empty, while a slightly lower price would have brought in bookings.

Dynamic pricing solves this. You adjust your price to demand, day by day.

Seasons and school holidays

The season is the basis. On the Belgian coast, the high season runs in summer, with busy weekends in spring and autumn. In the Ardennes, autumn and the winter holidays are stronger. In cities such as Ghent and Antwerp, demand is more spread out, with peaks around events and the end of the year.

Within those seasons, school holidays play a big role. Do not look only at the Belgian holidays. Many guests on the coast and in the Ardennes come from the Netherlands, Germany and France. Those countries have their own school holidays, and in the Netherlands and Germany they also differ by region.

A week that is quiet for Belgian families can be busy because a German state or a Dutch region is on holiday. If you keep an eye on that, you find extra demand that others miss.

Events and local crowds

Events attract visitors who are all looking for a bed at the same time. Think of festivals, major sporting events, trade fairs, conferences and public holidays. Local happenings count too: a funfair, an annual market or a sailing race.

Keep a calendar of what is happening in your region. Adjust your price in good time, because people often book far in advance for big events. If you only react a few weeks beforehand, you will already have rented out your property at an ordinary price.

Weekdays and weekends

On the coast and in the countryside, Friday and Saturday are usually the busiest nights. People come for a weekend away. During the week it is quieter, except in the school holidays.

In cities, it can be the other way round. Business travellers book from Monday to Thursday, tourists at the weekend. So look at the booking pattern of your own property and location. Set your price per day of the week, instead of one price for the whole week.

Minimum stay and single nights

The minimum stay is one of the strongest tools you have. A longer minimum means fewer changeovers, less cleaning and less work. A shorter minimum gives more chance of bookings.

The trick is to let the minimum move along. In high season, you can ask for a longer stay, for example a full week in summer. Outside the season, you lower the minimum, so that short weekend breaks are possible too.

Filling orphan nights

Single nights regularly appear between two bookings. Suppose one guest leaves on Tuesday and the next arrives on Thursday. With a minimum of three nights, you will never sell that one Wednesday night. An orphan night like that earns nothing.

A good pricing strategy catches this. You allow shorter stays in those gaps, possibly at an adjusted price. That way you rent out nights that would otherwise stay empty.

Early booking and last-minute

Guests who book far in advance are usually looking for a specific period. For popular dates, you then do not need to give a discount. On the contrary: if a busy period fills up quickly, that is a sign to raise the price for the remaining nights.

As a date gets closer and the property is still free, the situation changes. A night that is not rented out is gone for good. Then a lower last-minute price can make sense. Do so in moderation, though. If you routinely give too much discount at the last moment, you teach guests to wait.

An early booking discount, on the other hand, can help to fill quiet periods early. Use it selectively for dates that are traditionally hard to fill, not for your busiest weeks.

Occupancy is not the goal

Many owners steer by occupancy. The fuller the calendar, the better, they think. But a full calendar is not a goal in itself. You can rent out every night simply by being very cheap. Then you have a lot of work, a lot of wear and tear and little income.

A better measure is the revenue per available night. You divide your total revenue over a period by the number of nights the property was available. That single measure shows whether your combination of price and occupancy is right.

A simple example. Suppose that in a month you rent out twenty nights at a low price, or fifteen nights at a higher price. The second scenario can earn as much or more, with five nights less wear and tear and fewer cleans. So always look at the whole picture, not at occupancy alone.

Look at your competitors

Your price does not stand apart from the market. Guests compare. So regularly look at similar properties in your area: the same size, the same capacity, a comparable location.

Pay attention to their prices for the same dates, but also to their availability. If most comparable properties are already fully booked for a given weekend, there is little supply left. Then your price can go up. If they are all still free, demand may be lower than you thought.

Do compare fairly, though. A property with a swimming pool, a sea view or lots of strong reviews can ask a higher price. Place your property realistically within that picture.

Tools for dynamic pricing

Keeping track of all this by hand every day is a lot of work. That is why there are tools that adjust prices automatically based on market data. They look at demand in your region, at bookings of comparable properties, at seasons and events. On that basis, they suggest a price every day.

Such a tool is no substitute for your own insight. You set a minimum and maximum price yourself, and you decide which rules apply to length of stay and discounts. But the tool makes sure your prices move with the market every day, even when you do not have time for it yourself.

A tailored pricing strategy

A good pricing strategy needs daily follow-up. YourDomi adjusts the prices of the properties we manage every day based on market data, with attention to season, holidays, events and single nights. Would you like to know what that could mean for your property? Request a personal proposal.