Supply full in-depth

This data set represents the inventory of your market. It is updated around the 9th of every month, adding the previous month’s data to the table.

1. Methodology

1.a. Coverage

Transparent collects and aggregate publicly available supply information on a series of vacation rentals websites. The sites include:

• Airbnb.com
• Booking.com
• VRBO.com
• Tripadvisor.com

All listings publicly listed are made available through our database. This includes all listings searchable on the previously cited websites, even though they may have no calendar availability and excludes delisted listings.

1.b. Unification & Enrichment

After collection, the raw data is unified into a single, unique database where the data are standardized and then enriched.

The unification mainly affects the classification of the properties by type and the description of their amenities. In order to do this, Transparent converts all original classification and descriptions into a standardized Transparent classification.

The data enrichment is made at address level. Transparent collects disparate address information (lat, long, street name, zip codes, city names, etc) and from this information queries Google geocoder to obtain address information in a standardized format.

Transparent also enriches the database by inferring when the listing was first published. This piece of information is available under the field name “creation_date” in the supply snapshot template. In order to estimate the date of creation of the listing, Transparent takes into account the ID of the property, the date of its first review and/or the date when the guest created his account (when available). This information has a limited precision (more or less 1 month) and can be used as an estimation for supply net growth at monthly level.

1.c. Frequency of update

Our system collects data constantly. It performs queries around the world until all the listings are collected and starts over the operation.

The snapshots are available for each platform on a monthly basis, and will be updated in your Metabase instance around the 9th of every month.

The exports include a snapshot of listings that have been listed at least once during the month of the export.

1.d. Methodology by platform

· Airbnb

The Airbnb inventory data is collected directly from publicly available information on the Airbnb.com website.

· Booking

Booking inventory data is collected directly from publicly available information on the Booking.com website.

This platform is different from the others in the sense that it lists multi-unit properties into the same listing page. For instance:

Url: https://www.booking.com/hotel/pt/elias-garcia-residence.en-gb.html

Transparent lists each of these room types as a separate raw data element in the database. Each room type has a unique unified_id, and a common listing_id.

For the previous example:

listing_id = 1013241

unified_id = BOO1013241/101324101; BOO1013241/101324102;BOO1013241/101324103

The count of unified_id provides the total number of room types available on Booking.com and the count of listing_id provides the total number of listings.

Transparent counts the number of rooms available for each room type (unified_id) on Booking.com. This count is listed in the field called “cardinality”. The total supply for Booking.com is best estimated by summing the total number in the cardinality field. Please note that Booking.com only shows up to 10 rooms, so the maximum value in cardinality is 10 even if Booking.com has more supply of a particular room type. In the example below, this unified_id would have a 5 in the cardinality field.

· Homeaway/Vrbo

The Homeaway/Vrbo inventory data is collected directly from the publicly available information on Homeaway.com/Vrbo.com website.

Homeaway/Vrbo’s website aggregate inventory from brands the company has acquired over the years. Among others, these brands have their inventory included in the main Homeaway/Vrbo site from where we collect supply data: VRBO, VacationRentals, OwnersDirect, Abritel, Homelidays, Toprural, AlugueTemporada, Stayz and Bookabach.

· Tripadvisor

The Tripadvisor inventory data is collected directly from the publicly available information on Tripadvisor.com website.

2. Available Fields