Those who have booked a hard-earned beach holiday are seeing significant savings this January compared to past years, new data shows.
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Some locations were up to $127 cheaper per night this January, compared to the previous year, data provided to The Canberra Times by Airdna reveals.
Airdna analyses short-term rental data across booking platforms Airbnb and Stayz. It provided a point-in-time comparison for bookings made by December 20, 2023, for stays in January 2024 and compared it to the previous two years.
The total number of booked nights for January 2024 was up 9 per cent in Mollymook compared to the previous year and up 13 per cent in Batemans Bay and Broulee.
Bookings were down in Mollymook Beach by 18 per cent compared to last January.
There was slight rise in available holiday properties in most of these areas and an even more significant increase in the number of nights available to be booked.
In Mollymook, the number of available nights was 3334 in January 2024, up 11 per cent on last year when there were 2994 nights available.
Batemans Bay and Broulee also offered more holiday rentals this year, with available nights up 26 and 24 per cent respectively.
Available nights were down slightly in Mollymook Beach, with 6458 nights available this January compared to 6623 last January.
What are people paying?
Holidaymakers are forking out more than $500 per night to stay in Mollymook or Mollymook Beach this January, the data shows.
Prices in some locations were heavily discounted from the prices paid last January.
It should be noted cleaning fees are included in Airdna's average daily rate for previous year metrics but are excluded from current year metrics as the data is "forward-looking".
The data shows people who booked by mid-December 2023 paid an average $506 per night to stay in Mollymook over January, compared to $570 the same time a year ago.
The average daily rate in Mollymook Beach was $518 this January compared to $645 per night the year prior.
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The cost of a holiday rental is also down in Broulee this year, where people are paying $485 per night compared to $566 last year.
Prices are up in Batemans Bay, however, where the average daily rate is $456 compared to $433 last year.
Holidays getting shorter as costs rise
Despite lower prices in some areas, holidaymakers are still feeling the pinch, one local holiday rental operator says.
Joyce Asbury, principal at Fraser-Gray Real Estate, said demand for holiday rentals was strong through the Christmas and New Year period, but had dropped off for the remainder of January.
Ms Asbury said families were taking shorter holidays this year thanks to cost-of-living pressures.
"A lot of people are feeling the pinch with holidays," she said.
"Families who have been coming here for years, where they would have two weeks' [holiday] they're probably only having one now."
Beach holidays were also once again competing with overseas trips and cruises post-COVID, Ms Asbury said.
"Some of the places, the dearer ones on Airbnb, they're three and four thousand [dollars] a week. Families can go overseas or go on a cruise for that," she said.