When your listing is performing well, a natural question is whether the benchmark you're being measured against is the right one. This article explains how we set up your competitive data, why we use the approach we do, and what to do if you want to revisit it.

We use two separate datasets to monitor your listing's performance, and they serve different purposes.

The first is a broad market dataset. This is the primary benchmark we use to measure RevPAR Index, market occupancy, and market ADR. It's a larger pool of comparable listings - often 50 to 150 properties depending on your market and property type - selected to reflect the segment of the market your listing competes in.

The size is intentional. A dataset needs enough listings to reflect genuine supply and demand signals. Too small and it gets skewed by outliers - an owner who blocks dates frequently, a listing that's poorly managed, or a property that doesn't actually compete for the same guests you do.

This dataset is also dynamic. It updates automatically as new listings enter the market and old ones leave, which means it stays representative of actual market conditions over time.

The second is a hand-selected comp set. This is a smaller group of specific properties we monitor at the daily rate level. It's used to understand micro-level price positioning - how comparable listings are pricing on specific dates, how their calendars are filling, and where your rates sit relative to direct competitors. This is a closer, more granular view that complements the macro picture.

The broad market dataset is our standard because it gives us the most reliable read on supply and demand. A smaller, hand-picked set of listings can tell you what a handful of competitors are doing, but it can't tell you what the market is doing. Those are different questions, and the more important one for revenue management is the latter.

If a client asks to use only a narrow comp set as their benchmark, the risk is that the data becomes too thin to trust. A few listings blocked for owner stays, adjusting strategy, or simply underperforming can move the numbers in ways that don't reflect real market conditions. Decisions made against that kind of data can lead to mispricing in either direction.

There are cases where the broad market dataset isn't the right fit from the start. If your property is a genuine anomaly in its market - a large estate, a unique property type, or a listing in a smaller market where the comparable inventory is limited - we'll build a custom dataset upfront rather than benchmarking against a pool that doesn't reflect your real competitive position.

In those cases, the goal is still the same: enough data to understand how supply and demand actually behave in your segment. We're not looking for identical properties - we're looking for a broad enough view of the market to make meaningful decisions.

If you have a specific reason for wanting to look at your performance against a different benchmark, we're open to that conversation. Share your thinking with us - what you're seeing, what concerns you, or what you think might not be captured by the current dataset - and we'll give you our honest assessment.

Our recommendation will always be based on what gives us the most reliable signal for your market. In most cases that's the broad dataset. But it's your business, and if after that conversation you want to explore a customized view, we can work through that together.

If you have any questions, contact us at [email protected].