It’s now official: the 2024 Olympics will be taking place in Paris!
Whether you supported this decision or not, it is now definitive: France will dedicate those next years to organising the greatest sports event in the world, in terms of attendance and prestige.
How can this event become an opportunity for the professionals? How can the vacation rental managers and owners prepare for this major meeting?
1. Rental investment & the Olympics: a good idea?
This may be surprising, but organising the Olympics doesn’t necessarily implies a rise in the flow of tourists.
In Rio in 2016, around 500.000 tourists* visited the Brazilian cultural capital whereas in 2012, during the London Olympics, more than 7 million visitors had entered the city for this event… Showing a 30% decrease in the visits**, during the two weeks of the Olympic Games.
Succeeding in targeting and calibrating investments for the upcoming games is a real concern.
Jacques Lavie, founder of BnbLord, thinks “no investment should be done for a one-time event. A property is paid off over several years, always aim to invest on a long-term strategy.”
However, “during the said timeframe, this can have a great impact on the prices, and it shouldn’t be underestimated. During the Rio Olympics, some of the Brazilian cities had been fast-tracked to the most expensive cities on Airbnb. Never risk missing the right pricing.”
Jacques also says: “I advise owners to watch how hotel prices will evolve in their neighborhood during that period, as this is a good indicator. They’ve engaged a price optimisation strategy for a long time now, in the manner of the airline industry. Additionally, you should also know the price evolution scale on Airbnb is wider. For example, if a hotel increases by 50% its prices, yours should then be risen by 75-100% for a nearby vacation rental”.
In his open letter to the French President Emmanuel Macron (letter in French only), Brian Chesky, co-founder of Airbnb, calls out to the public administration and encourages the French government to materialise the #MadeForSharing motto by promoting vacation rental in particular, so that anyone could enjoy the games.
2. How to prepare your vacation rental for the Olympics
The idea is then to adapt and prepare your housing, rather than investing for the Olympic Games themselves.
Here are a few tips for your vacation rentals, to benefit the most from the Olympics:
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Start setting up 1 or 2 years ahead and study cities in which trials will be taking place, especially if you own properties in those areas (such as Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux…)
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Adapt your workforce and be ready to face the tourist flow
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Manage your bookings, messages, payments and listings thanks to a vacation rental software, especially if you manage or own several properties
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Adapt your pricing, using dedicated tools such as Wheelhouse, PriceLabs or Beyond Pricing
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Have little attentions for your sports fan guests: provide an Olympic trials calendar and detailed map, add a few beers in the fridge to welcome them, not forgetting a flat-screen tv for them to enjoy the event, in case they can’t physically attend the games
Any other tips you would like to share? Add them to the comments, and we’ll add them to this article!