Skift Travel News Blog

Short-term rental data provider AirDNA, has acquired New York-based firm Arrivalist, a location intelligence platform for the travel industry. The deal brings both companies under Predictis, an umbrella group software and data businesses under Alpine Investors. 

The deal was funded by Alpine Investors, which recently raised $4.5 billion for its technology buyout fund. 

The acquisition will give AirDNA access to location-specific data applicable to short-term rentals. Founded in 2011, Arrivalist was among the first to use location data in the travel industry, offering insights into the way travelers interact with destinations. 

“AirDNA’s acquisition of Arrivalist represents a blueprint for continued add-on acquisitions to supplement organic growth and capitalize on derived data opportunities from adjacent data sets,” said Jean-Marc Levy, the chief executive officer of predictis.

The acquisition will offer more data services and products to destination marketing organizations (DMOs), hotels, and other clients. Cosine Group acted as the financial advisor to Arrivalist in this acquisition.

Despite the fears of recession and soaring fuel prices that have retreated somewhat in recent weeks, average daily rates for short-term rentals in the U.S. this summer jumped 7 percent year over year — and that’s nearly 30 percent higher than the summer of pre-pandemic 2019.

Those conclusions were part of an update to AirDNA’s mid-year 2022 outlook, which said U.S. average daily rate growth is highest in urban and coastal areas. (See chart below).

“As we look to summer 2022 (June-August), more STR nights have been booked than any other summer in history, as of the end of June,” the report said. “The previous record was set just last year, and the U.S. is currently seeing 12.3% more booked nights than at the same point in time in 2021.”

Short-term rental demand in big cities this summer, though, is still 28.3 percent lower than in the summer of 2019, AirDNA found.

In addition, AirDNA forecast that the U.S. supply of short-term rentals would jump 21 percent year-over-year in 2022 as both Airbnb and Vrbo increased their listings.

“With supply outpacing demand growth as expected, our outlook for occupancy is largely unchanged,” AirDNA said. “Our revised forecast now calls for U.S. occupancy to average 58.2% for the year, slightly lower than our 59.8% forecast in October.”

AirDNA’s occupancy numbers seems to be more bullish than those of Key Data Dashboard. The latter’s occupancy stats may skew more heavily toward vacation rentals specifically.

Occupancy rates in the U.S. in the third quarter (July, August and September) are currently at 39 percent, down from 45 percent during the same period in a standout 2021, according to Melanie Brown, director of analytics at Key Data Dashboard, which tracks vacation rental data.