2023 In Review

This year brought us another benchmark year! Although we were expecting numbers to fall after the post-pandemic travel surge, we have been pleasantly surprised with just how many people are continuing to travel and what our new 'normal' looks like. We navigated updated fire codes and proposed rental caps, all with the help of our amazing guests and owners. 

Guests were also staying longer. Bookings for over a week were more common throughout the entire year. As more and more people were able to work and take classes from home, people were taking "working remotely" to a whole new level and doing their work from the island!

2023 brought people from all over the country to Isle of Palms! Here are the top 10 States people traveled from:

For comparison, here's where our guests came from most in 2021:

We even had some international visitors! Travelers from Canada, the UK, and Germany were choosing Isle of Palms as their vacation destination.

• Condos are continuing to be our most popular rental type as opposed to larger private homes. One-bedroom condos like the Sea Cabins and Port O' Call saw the most bookings among all of our condo rentals - a trend that began in 2021.

• We've been fine-tuning every aspect of the guest booking experience. While there is still a healthy number of reservations coming from both booking online and by phone, online booking continues to increase in popularity.

• People are adding travel insurance to their stays more than ever. Between a worldwide pandemic, hurricane evacuations, and everything else we've had thrown at us the past few years, people are learning more about the benefits of having insurance added to their stays. It can end up saving you a lot of money if something happens during your trip!

• In the rental industry, we call the number of days between time-of-booking and arrival date the "lead time." Over the past few years, our guest's average lead time has been:
• 2020: 82 days
• 2021: 99 days
• 2022: 88 days
• 2023: 91 days

*USE THESE NUMBERS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE!*

If you're looking to stay in a peak season like the summer, you'll need to book your stay at least 3 months in advance to have the best chance of securing your dream rental!

Looking at what people are already booking for 2024, we see continued growth and properties starting to fill up for this summer! The months of April and June in particular are already seeing a lot of interest, so we're excited to see what the trends are for vacationers this year!