February 2, 2021
Live Demo: Art, the Automated Rate Tool, With Vacation Rental Expert Antonio Bortolotti
Listen in on two vacation rental experts! Last week, our own Cliff Johnson joined Antonio Bortolotti, host of the Vacation Rental World Summit, for a discussion on all things pricing. Cliff and Antonio dissect the principles and practice of revenue management, then dive into a live demo of Art, the Automated Rate Tool—our new dynamic pricing software for vacation rentals that helps professional managers set the right rate for every property, every night.
Watch the full video (the in-depth demo begins at 7:08) or check out a few highlights below. And when you’re ready to start optimizing your own rates, try a 30-day free trial and see Art in action for yourself!
How Art differs from many pricing tools—which often rely on historic data to predict future value (5:35):
“Art is a way to get you as close as possible to fully automated rates for your property…Our focus has been more from a demand perspective—how close can we get to understanding the demand for a given property on a given day, the economic perspective on it. So Art is really an attempt to capture that, display it to the managers, and allow them to make modifications on top of that if they’d like. So you have the ability to go in and change any price on any given day.”
Key features of the Automated Rate Tool (7:19):
Cliff explains how Art uses large market cohorts to understand demand and seasonality (7:19), and a much narrower cohort to set a base rate for each property (8:33), representing where the property fits within the competitive set within the market.
He also gives Antonio a tour of key features that help managers meet their owners’ expectations (9:33), such as minimum rates and unique settings to attune each property to market sensitivity and revenue goals.
What’s the greatest value or the benefit of the Automated Rate Tool over alternatives? (16:47)
“I think there are two big differentiators. One is the approach that we took on building the models. We went for building smaller cohorts—taking a smaller group of comparable properties to get a more accurate price—and we focused more on demand-based pricing than we do on historical pricing…the other piece is that we’re self-critical. We have a team of senior revenue managers who are constantly providing feedback while using our tool, and telling us where there may be flaws in the model or where there could be feature improvements. Since we have that internal team, we’re adding a manual review process for quality assurance on the models themselves.”
Still have questions? We’re always ready to geek out on revenue management. Request a private demo of Art and start your 30-day free trial!
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