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Coupled Supply and Demand Forecasting in Platform Accommodation Markets

Harrison Katz

Abstract

Tourism demand forecasting is methodologically mature, but it typically treats accommodation supply as fixed or exogenous. In platform-mediated short-term rentals, supply is elastic, decision-driven, and co-evolves with demand through pricing, information design, and interventions. I reframe the core issue as endogenous stock-out censoring: realized booked nights satisfy B_{k,t} <= min(D_{k,t}, S_{k,t}), so booking models that ignore supply learn a regime-specific ceiling and become fragile under policy changes and supply shocks. This narrated review synthesizes work from tourism forecasting, revenue management, two-sided market economics, and Bayesian time-series methods; develops a three-part coupling framework (behavioral, informational, intervention); and illustrates the identification failure with a toy simulation. I conclude with a focused research agenda for jointly forecasting supply, demand, and their compositions.

Coupled Supply and Demand Forecasting in Platform Accommodation Markets

Abstract

Tourism demand forecasting is methodologically mature, but it typically treats accommodation supply as fixed or exogenous. In platform-mediated short-term rentals, supply is elastic, decision-driven, and co-evolves with demand through pricing, information design, and interventions. I reframe the core issue as endogenous stock-out censoring: realized booked nights satisfy B_{k,t} <= min(D_{k,t}, S_{k,t}), so booking models that ignore supply learn a regime-specific ceiling and become fragile under policy changes and supply shocks. This narrated review synthesizes work from tourism forecasting, revenue management, two-sided market economics, and Bayesian time-series methods; develops a three-part coupling framework (behavioral, informational, intervention); and illustrates the identification failure with a toy simulation. I conclude with a focused research agenda for jointly forecasting supply, demand, and their compositions.
Paper Structure (33 sections, 2 equations, 1 figure, 2 tables)

This paper contains 33 sections, 2 equations, 1 figure, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Tourism demand forecasting since 2019
  3. Platform accommodation markets and the supply-side gap
  4. Two-sided foundations
  5. Platform accommodation: pricing, supply dynamics, and regulation
  6. The supply-side forecasting gap
  7. The coupling problem
  8. Behavioral coupling: policies propagate across sides
  9. Informational coupling: the missing ceiling
  10. Intervention coupling: endogenous regime change
  11. Synthesis
  12. A simulation-based demonstration
  13. Research agenda
  14. Methodological landscape
  15. The search-to-booking gap as a supply constraint signal
  16. ...and 18 more sections

Figures (1)

  • Figure 1: Simulation-based demonstration. (a) A single run: latent demand $D_t$, inventory $S_t$, realized bookings $B_t$, and the two forecast models over the test period. The supply intercept drops at $t = 151$. (b) Post-shock forecast errors. The demand-only model exhibits a persistent positive bias; the coupled model tracks the new ceiling.