How Experience Kissimmee Used STR Data to Understand Their True Lodging Industry

Our biggest challenge was not knowing anything; nobody was collecting information. Kissimmee is sitting on a huge number of vacation rentals, but there was no data on the most basic metrics. What is the average occupancy? How much are properties going for per night?

Experience Kissimmee is a Destination Marketing Organization based south of Orlando, Florida. Millions of travelers from across the world visit Kissimmee each year for its iconic theme parks and the extraordinary flora and fauna offered by The Sunshine State. 

Research Manager Ty Marion strives to understand the growth and performance of Kissimmee’s 45,000+ accommodation offerings. Kissimmee’s inventory is split 50/50 between hotel rooms and vacation rental units, which range from one- or two-bedroom houses to fifteen bedroom villas, and are all managed by professional property management companies.

What issues did Experience Kissimmee face pre-AirDNA? 

Before connecting with AirDNA, Experience Kissimmee only collected data from hotels. This only captured 50% of the market data. Ty changed this by also collecting data from other sources, such as vacation rentals, to get a more complete picture of the market.

Ty was well aware that the Experience Kissimmee team were lagging behind in gathering crucial information that could be used for internal reporting, marketing and tax collection. With the demand for vacation rentals rapidly increasing, this was not a minor issue.

However, Ty found it difficult to find data on vacation rental performance in Kissimmee. It was hard to request and collect short-term rental data from so many different property managers

AirDNA's online platform MarketMinder is now a valuable tool for Ty and his team. They use it to track Kissimmee's performance against global trends in the vacation rental industry, and to plan their vacations more efficiently.

By gathering data on nightly rates, occupancy, booking lead times, and guest arrival times, Experience Kissimmee will be able to create more effective ad campaigns at the right times.

“We wanted to come up with our own assumptions analyzing the data. AirDNA - unlike other competitors – provides us with the raw data we need to utilize our own functions and methodology to interpret the data the way we want.”

Now, Experience Kissimmee can look at how many days in advance visitors are booking and where they are coming from. Having this information at their fingertips helps to move the needle from Orlando to Kissimmee.

Experience Kissimmee collects Tourism Development Tax (TDT), which is 6% of the nightly rate and is reinvested into the area and the organization. The team fully appreciates the tourism dollars that vacation rental guests contribute in the form of tax remittances. This fiscal year (October 1st, 2017 to September 30, 2018), vacation homes in Osceola County overtook hotels in their market share of tax collections, representing 48%.

How did Kissimmee, a destination marketing organization, find better data on vacation rental performance in Kissimme?

How Experience Kissimmee Used STR Data to Understand Their True Lodging Industry

How Experience Kissimmee Used STR Data to Understand Their True Lodging Industry

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