Travel Startup Smart Host Aims to Bring Flexible Pricing to Vacation Rentals
Skift Take
Whether it is Smart Host, another startup or one of the established players, the short-term rental industry is ripe for disruption in so many areas and someone is going to deliver on the dynamic pricing premise.
Travel startup Smart Host is attempting to bring a dose of hotel and airline pricing methodologies -- namely pricing based on ever-changing demand -- to the vacation rental industry.
Co-founder and CEO Evan Hammer says the Techstars startup, which plans on presenting its solution in Austin September 3 and beginning a beta with several property management companies, is aggregating all sorts of pricing, booking and events' data from public and private sources to enable property managers and vacation rental owners to take advantage of dynamic pricing based on expected demand and market conditions.
While hotels and airlines may alter their pricing several times daily, vacation rental owners and property managers are way behind the curve on dynamic pricing, Hammer says.
"Collecting data is a di
