With the pandemic, it has become increasingly evident that the guest profiles of short-term rental have changed, adding new audiences looking for accommodation, diversifying the market, and creating segments that were and are important at this time when tourism is still suffering the consequences of the coronavirus.
According to the President of the Association of Short-term Rentals in Portugal (ALEP), Eduardo Miranda, in an interview with the Lusa agency, nowadays we can consider digital nomads, patients in treatment, teachers, students, health professionals, or divorcees, as new guest profiles.
The trend in accommodation in urban areas, such as Porto and Lisbon, is to reinvent in order to meet the needs of a public seeking to stay ‘mid term’ (medium and long term). “The future of touristic accommodation is to diversify the market segments beyond the classic tourist market”, adds Eduardo who during the interview spoke of the sector’s balance in 2021 and some perspectives for 2022.
Other new segments in the AL market, besides the typical tourist who opts for short stays up to a maximum of one week, are the business segment. We talked about this subject in our blog. Be sure to read it on the link.
The ALEP president points out that the extended-stay segment like business brings “agreements with big companies” that are constantly sending people to certain destinations or cities for work. “Multinationals are always doing training and developing projects, and so we get into that corporate ‘mid term’, and that also comes to diversify the options quite a bit,” allowing AL owners to not just depend on one segment.
In the summer, naturally, the AL can take advantage of simple tourism, but when winter comes, receiving other guest profiles can be extremely interesting and profitable. Besides being profitable, Eduardo comments that the law says that local accommodation is “temporary accommodation, namely to tourists, that is, it doesn’t have to be only for tourists, but it can be for someone who is working, doing a project in another country, in another city, research, but it is a temporary residence. So, for those who still had doubts, medium/longer stays are allowed by law.
Longer stays is a topic we have been talking about since the beginning of the pandemic. And it has been a successful modality that has helped our partners get through the crisis in the best possible way. Read more on this subject in our blog.
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If you want to know more information about stays for the most varied guest profiles, contact us by e-mail: sales@lovelystay.com. We have a team ready to help and clarify all doubts!
Translated by Miguel Marinho Soares
