“Location is the most important criteria for travellers when booking.”- Brian Chesky, CEO & Co-founder, Airbnb

Location can make or break a vacation. We don’t need to explain why it’s the most important factor when choosing accommodation. Today’s travellers want to experience the city through the eyes of a local. But what makes a good location?

For Nexmoov’s users, the answer is transportation. 90% of our users consider proximity to transportation services very important when booking their vacation rental. This ranks above attractions they want to visit (73%), being close to restaurants and bars (67%), and being in a specific neighbourhood (64%).

Nexmoov strives to connect travelers with the best accommodations for their travel needs. Transportation is key to our service. A complaint about vacation booking platforms is that every listing says they’re in a perfect location. Our team of trained urban planners calculates the real accessibility of rentals from platforms like Airbnb, Homestay, and Housetrip.

Nexmoov decided to test if demand for transit access impacts the supply-side of the vacation rentals market. Does transportation affect price? For our analysis, we mapped all the metro and bus station in Montréal, as well as all the vacation rentals offered on our site according to price. We then calculated the time it takes to walk from these accommodations to the closest metro or bus station. With these numbers, we analyzed the correlation between walking time to reach public transit and price of the accommodations.

We’ve already found that the greatest share of accommodations in Montreal is located in the Plateau Mont-Royal borough followed by the downtown Ville Marie borough. Unlike a lot of cities, the densest borough of Montreal is not the city center, but the Plateau. This translates to the highest density of vacation rental units, with over 150 units per km2 compared to only 75 units per km2 in Ville Marie. As seen below, the highest concentration of units is around Mont Royal metro station in the Plateau.