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In our latest webinar with Dennis Goedheid (CEO and founder of Casiola), Richard Vaughton (CEO and founder of Yes Consulting) and Bart-Jan, one theme became impossible to ignore: revenue management in short-term rentals is no longer primarily about pricing. It is about visibility, booking probability, and operational quality at scale. This blog expands on those ideas.
Watch the full recording here.
Why pricing alone won’t grow your STR portfolio anymore
If you’re still thinking revenue management is just about pricing, you’re wrong. Dynamic pricing is no longer a competitive advantage. Every serious operator uses Pricelabs, Wheelhouse, or Beyond Pricing to factor in seasonality, events, and competitor data. Revenue growth today is driven by making timely, informed decisions based on a property´s booking probability and demand.
In our latest STR Rev Talk webinar with Dennis Goedheid (Founder of Casiola) and Richard Vaughton (Yes Consulting), we broke down what revenue management actually looks like today and why most portfolios are still making sub-optimal decisions.
Revenue management is more complex than ever
Dennis compared the evolution of revenue management to the early days of Google AdWords.
In the beginning, revenue management was simple. There were only a few levers to adjust, and early adopters could generate strong results without dedicating a full team to optimization.That phase is over. What used to be a set-it-and-forget-it practice has become a specialized discipline.
Dennis experienced that shift firsthand. As Casiola grew into a 300+ home portfolio across multiple destinations, revenue management became too complex. In the early years, he was the revenue manager himself. Then he hired full-time revenue managers. But over time, he realized something critical: Most of the time was not spent optimizing revenue. It was spent fixing distribution issues or researching why a property was not performing as expected..
“When we had internal revenue managers, most of their time (70%) was spent on research of non performing properties and fixing distribution issues . While only 30% was spent on strategic decision-making..”
The real problem wasn’t pricing. It was distribution and ranking.
Dennis made it clear during the webinar: lowering the price will not necessarily generate more revenue if the listing itself is not visible (i.e. ranked high enough an OTA)..
There are nine factors that impact ranking on Airbnb such as inaccurate listing, a poor review, perceived value vs price, booking pace, and other factors that suppress ranking and conversion.
In many portfolios, revenue underperformance is not a pricing issue. It is a visibility issue.Dennis strongly believed that revenue management and ranking go hand in hand. But maintaining and optimizing listings at scale across Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com is extremely complex.
And as he put it, what works today in revenue management may not work tomorrow. Trying to fix constantly shifting integrations while simultaneously optimizing booking pace and pricing strategy stretched the internal team too thin. Revenue management had evolved from a tactical role into a full-stack operational discipline.
Why Casiola outsourced revenue management to Otamiser
The decision to outsource was not about cutting costs. It was about specialization and focus. Dennis realized that if revenue management had become as complex as Google AdWords, then it required the same level of dedicated expertise.
He partnered with Otamiser (AutoRank) to centralize and professionalize revenue optimization. The collaboration started with a controlled experiment: 50 underperforming units in Orlando and Miami.
The goal was simple: fix the fundamentals. Otamiser identified distribution bottlenecks, optimized listings, measured visibility using a proprietary ranking algorithm, and aligned revenue strategy with ranking performance.
Within three months, the bottom 50 units moved into the top 50% of the portfolio.
Performance did not improve because of aggressive discounting. It improved because Otamiser fixed distribution issues, applied ranking to drive pricing, promotion and policies to make smarter, faster decisions.
- RevPAR increased by $18
- Occupancy increased by 19%
- Page views surged by more than 40,000
This validated Dennis’ belief that revenue management is a “package deal”, you cannot separate pricing from listing optimization and ranking.
Centralization creates scale
Today, revenue management at Casiola is completely centralized and outsourced to Otamiser
Why? Because fragmented decision-making leads to inconsistent performance, owner pressure often leads to short-term pricing decisions and because booking pace and ranking require portfolio-level oversight.
Dennis shared a clear example from a 120-unit complex. Owners complained about lower nightly rates. A $95 minimum rate was introduced to stop complaints. The complaints stopped, but the data showed that units without the minimum generated $1,000–$2,000 more revenue in three months.
Accepting slightly lower early bookings improved ranking and booking probability, leading to stronger long-term performance. That kind of strategic decision-making requires discipline and data. It cannot be driven by emotion.
Outsourcing freed Casiola to focus on growth
By outsourcing revenue management, Casiola removed the daily operational burden from its internal team.
Instead of troubleshooting integrations and reacting to underperformance, Dennis’ team can focus on:
- Improving owner relations
- Enhancing guest experience
- Expanding into new markets
- Growing the franchise model
Meanwhile, Otamiser handles:
- Distribution management comprised of:
- Listing optimization
- Ranking
- Cross-OTA performance alignment
- Revenue management
In a mature market where everyone has pricing tools, the advantage lies in smart, informed decision-making. As Dennis said, if you are not a good operator and you do not deliver a strong guest experience, no tool will get you to page one. But if you are a strong operator, optimizing visibility and ranking can dramatically amplify your performance.
Conclusion: Revenue growth starts with visibility, not just pricing
Revenue management has entered its professional era. Tools like PriceLabs, Wheelhouse, and Beyond Pricing are now standard. The real differentiator is how well you connect pricing, distribution, ranking, and strategy into one coordinated system.
Casiola’s journey shows that growth doesn’t come from reacting faster to rate changes, it comes from understanding booking probability, protecting visibility, and making disciplined, portfolio-level decisions. In today’s market, revenue management isn’t a function. It’s an integrated operating model.
The operators who treat it that way will succeed. The ones who don’t will keep adjusting prices, and wondering why performance doesn’t follow.
We’ll analyze your current OTA visibility and show you where you stand in your market and where revenue opportunities may be hiding.