Getting insights of your local market can be challenging as a vacation rental owner or property manager. And while there are ways to access them through software providers like Transparent or AirDNA, we believe that having more data sources is usually a good thing. Booking.com launched the Supply Flow Score a few months ago – a new metric that will help you determine the quality of your supply, as well as what’s available and provided to travelers on their platform.
But wait… what is a supply flow?
Supply flow is the total number of rooms you’ve listed on Booking.com. However, not all of these available rooms show up in search results for the following reasons:
- You haven’t synchronized all your rentals to Booking.com yet
- Rooms or rentals synced lack information about their Rate plans
- Updated rentals or rooms with rate plans have restrictions applied to them
It’s the model that they use to visualize their inventory, different supply stages (see image below) and helps them identify where the gaps occur. For example, Booking.com could spot that 30% of your uploaded rooms have no Rate plans and therefore aren’t bookable on their platform.
Properties’ supply flow on Booking.com has four different levels:
- Total capacity. A rough estimate of the total number of rooms that are available
- Uploaded rooms. The total number of rooms that have been uploaded
- Inventory rooms. The total number of synchronized rooms with Rate plans and calendar information
- Front end rooms. The average number of rooms that are shown on Booking.com’s search results when considering all possible lengths of stay
How to access supply flow data
Go to Booking.com’s Connectivity hub to easily access your Supply flow score. You’ll also find a list of availability opportunities, locally relevant data and performance tips based on current demand patterns to boost your Supply flow score.
How to improve your supply flow
Booking.com takes the guesswork out of increasing supply flow by delivering insider data to its hosts and managers. They recommend implementing the following strategies:
1. Load availability for upcoming months. More than a third of searches on Booking.com are for the next three months; which is in line with the proportion of searches for the same period in 2019.
By updating your availability, you can gain more awareness and prevent missing out on potential bookings, especially last-minute reservations.
2. Reduce length-of-stay restrictions. Based on Booking.com data, as well as Lodgify data, short-stay and short-booking-window reservations have increased since the pandemic. Travelers are increasingly booking more one-night and two-night stays. However, almost half of vacation rental owners and property managers that are listed on Booking.com don’t appear in travelers’ search results due to length-of-stay restrictions. Which takes us to our next tip…
3. Be careful with your restrictions on Booking.com. Some properties don’t ever appear on their search results no matter what travelers are searching for. This is due to listings having too many restrictions that automatically exclude them from “regular” searches. Some examples include:
- A listing that set up a restriction that only allows reservations at least one day in advance, while travelers are searching for accommodation they can check into that same day.
- A rental property that set up a three-night minimum length of stay restriction, while travelers are searching for one-night and two-night stays.
Too many restrictions can reduce your brand awareness, benefit your competition and impact the volume of bookings.
4. Quickly generate guest reviews. Several shorter reservations can help you get multiple guest reviews faster than fewer longer ones. Reducing minimum length of stay requirements will help you earn more guest reviews and improve your overall property score.
Over to you
Make the most of Booking.com’s demand insights to help improve your supply score and boost bookings. Just head over to your extranet and access your local data and access metrics such as booking windows, traveler types (domestic and international), devices used for booking, top countries – and much more!
What’s more, connect your Booking.com listings to your direct booking website using Lodgify’s channel manager, and instantly synchronize your calendars, bookings, payments and rates in one centralized dashboard.
