About Booked News
Booked News reports the numbers behind short-term rentals: what a night costs, how full the calendar is, who is booking and when, what the platforms take, how many rentals a market has, and what an owner actually earns. Rules and platform changes are covered too, through what they do to bookings and money. Every story leads with a figure from its source and says who measured it.
How the site is made
The desk files two stories a day, a column of briefs every morning, and the Week in Numbers every Saturday. Each story begins on the wire: the desk reads trade publications, data and analytics publishers, platform announcements, investor releases and the business press, and the editor picks the stories whose sources carry hard figures. The desk then fetches the source itself, and a story only goes ahead when that source holds real numbers to report.
The writer files a data story in the Booked News form: the lead figure and who reported it; what the data shows; how it was measured; what moves the number and who it affects; the desk's read, labelled as opinion; the caveat, which is the strongest reason the figure could mislead; and what to watch next. On some days the second story is an analysis column from the desk's topic bank, written from recent reporting the desk fetches for that subject, under the same rules.
Two more desks get every story before it runs. The standards desk reviews every specific in the draft against the source material, and a figure audit matches every number in the draft against the numbers in that material. A figure that cannot be found in the source is cut, and a note at the foot of the story says so. The picture desk draws an original illustration for every story rather than pulling a stock photograph, and the Illustrations Director approves each drawing against a shared picture-desk standard used across our titles.
The rules of the site
Lead with the number. A story starts with a figure from its source, or it does not run. If the material has no figure for a point, the point is made without one.
Say who measured it. Every figure is attributed to the organisation that produced it, with the comparison basis the source used. The desk does not calculate new figures from someone else's data or round them into something tidier.
Opinion is labelled. The reporting is the reporting. The desk's view sits in a box headed The desk's read, and right after it, The caveat sets out what could make the figure misleading.
Independent. Booked News is not affiliated with Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, any data vendor, property manager or software company, and it accepts no payment for coverage. Analysis is not legal, tax or investment advice; confirm the figures and rules for your own market before you act. The full sourcing, figure, illustration and corrections policy is on the standards page.
The masthead
8 editors file Booked News. Each one's page carries every story they have written.
Executive Editor
Ruth Okafor
Runs the desk, the rules-and-money beat and the weekly numbers letter.
Rates Editor
Theo Lindqvist
Nightly rates, ADR and the pricing moves behind them.
Occupancy & Demand Editor
Amara Osei
Occupancy, booking windows, length of stay and the demand behind them.
Platforms & Fees Editor
Leo Varga
Platform fees, commissions and every policy change that moves a payout.
Supply Editor
Sunita Rao
Listing counts, new supply and saturation, market by market.
Investing Editor
Callum Reid
Revenue, returns, financing and what a rental actually earns.
Illustrations Director
Ines Albrecht
Draws the picture on every story and keeps the register of every image.
Data Standards Editor
Paul Ostrowski
Every figure in every story is checked against its source before it runs.
Read the desk every morning.
Leave your address for the Booked News briefing: the day's figures, each with its source, in one short email.