Cornwall Holiday Let Market Insights Report 2025

We are delighted to announce our popular Market Insights report for another year. Using data and statistics from our parent company Sykes Holiday Cottages, plus our annual consumer survey results, we reveal how the holiday let market is performing in Cornwall. 

Read on for a summary of our report, including an overview of holiday let booking trends, occupancy levels and income in 2024, plus tips for optimising your property.

To download a full PDF copy of the report, please click here.

Use the quick links below to learn more about a specific area of the holiday letting market, or read on for an overall breakdown of our Market Insights Report:

• An overview of the holiday let market
• Top performing properties
• Improving your holiday let’s bookings and income
• Value-adding holiday let features
• Marketing your holiday home
• How Cornish Cottage Holidays can help

An overview of the holiday let market with Cornish Cottages Holidays

At Cornish Cottage Holidays, 2024 was another strong season for bookings, despite the current economic climate.

We saw slightly lower overall occupancy rates in 2024, due to a challenging winter period with relentless wet weather. However, late spring, summer and autumn performance was strong, with an average occupancy of 83% throughout the summer.

Overall, bookings per property increased by 1.6% and revenue per property increased by 1.4% compared to 2023, driven by an increase in customers making multiple short break bookings.

Here are some key statistics on how Cornish Cottage Holidays performed in 2024, and the agency’s key achievements for the year:

• We now market and manage a portfolio of 796 properties throughout Cornwall. This is an increase of 5.4% when compared to the same point last year.
• After a challenging winter, average occupancy throughout the peak summer holiday period was 83%. Overall in 2024, bookings per property increased by 1.6%.
• 23% of our bookings taken in Cornwall were made within four weeks of the holiday start date – a 2% increase from the previous year.
• Lead times for bookings during the summer are decreasing, with 2% of August bookings now being made on the holiday start date.
• 24% of our bookings were for short breaks. This is a 2% increase from 2023.
• Bookings were made up of 40% couples, 31% families, 27% adult groups and 2% solo travellers.
• As part of Sykes Holiday Cottages, we were thrilled to win GOLD at the 2024 British Travel Awards, marking our 11th consecutive win.

Top performing properties

Here are some of our top performing properties from 2024. Figures are correct as of 10/01/2025.

Sea View
St Buryan
67 bookings in 2024, 8 already for 2025

Lantern Cottage
Padstow
66 bookings in 2024, 23 already for 2025

Sun Rise
St Buryan
57 bookings in 2024, 5 already for 2025

Owls Roost
Near Falmouth
56 bookings in 2024, 13 already for 2025

Rose Villa
Newlyn
48 bookings in 2024, 27 already for 2025

Improving your holiday let’s bookings and income

Optimise your pricing

In addition to excellent marketing exposure, Cornish Cottage Holidays offers dynamic pricing tools, giving owners the ability to maximise their income as well as booking numbers. We automatically adjust prices in line with demand by analysing searches, booking trends and individual property performance.

Owners that take our advice and utilise our dynamic pricing tools, on average see 6 additional bookings and 21% more revenue per year, compared to properties that do not allow us to amend their prices.

Similarly, those that take our advice on where their base price should sit, earn on average 42% more revenue than owners who set their own pricing.

If you’d like to find out how much your holiday home could earn, one of our New Property Consultants would love to visit and give an honest appraisal of its income and booking potential. Or, if you are thinking of investing in a property and would like some free advice, we can help with that too!

Visit our Let your Cottage page to book your free, no-obligation visit.

Accept short breaks

We are seeing demand for short stays consistently growing each year.

24% of our bookings in Cornwall were for short breaks of three, four or five nights. This is a rise from 22% in 2023, however still lower than counties such as Devon and Dorset due to the longer drive time.

Our average length of stay in 2024 was 5.68 nights; a decrease from 6.14 nights the previous year.

Be flexible with last minute bookings

Last minute bookings are now the rule, rather than the exception.

23% of our bookings in Cornwall were made within four weeks of the holiday start date. This is a 2% increase from the previous year.

In August, 2% of all our bookings in Cornwall were made between 4pm the day before arrival and 12 noon on the day of the holiday start. Searches for last minute holidays peaked in July and August, and bookings from June onwards had an average of 9% shorter lead time than last year.

Ensure that your property accepts last minute bookings and enlist the help of an agency or caretaker if you require support with facilitating last minute changeovers.

For more tips, read our guide to preparing your holiday let for last minute bookings.

Accept pets

We’ve seen a 60% increase in searches for pet-friendly holidays since 2019.

We’ve also seen an increase in more specific property searches, such as ‘dog-friendly cottages in Cornwall by the sea’, ‘dog-friendly cottages in Cornwall with enclosed garden’ and ‘luxury dog friendly cottages Cornwall’.

Properties accepting pets earn an average of 2.5 more bookings and 18% more revenue than those that don’t accept pets.

Learn more about preparing your holiday let for pets in our blog on making your holiday let dog friendly.

Value-adding holiday let features

Hot tubs

Hot tubs are our second most searched-for holiday criteria after pets, and installing a hot tub could boost your revenue by 37%.

Garden/outdoor space

32% of guests consider a property’s garden or outdoor space when booking a holiday. It’s a good idea to have some outdoor seating for guests looking to dine al fresco in the Cornish sunshine!

Wi-Fi/technology

27% of guests consider good Wi-Fi or technology when booking a property.

Consider sustainability

As well as reducing your running costs and future proofing your business, considering your environmental impact can be a great way to accelerate your bookings.

74% of the UK public say they want travel companies to offer more sustainable choices, 65% would prefer to stay in accommodation if they knew it had sustainable certification, and 43% would be willing to pay more for sustainable options.

We have also seen an increased demand for properties with EV charge points. Holiday cottages with EV charging facilities receive around 260 searches per month on Google.

With only 5% of our properties currently having an EV charger, this is a great chance for owners to make their accommodation stand out from the crowd.

Wondering how to get started with sustainable holiday letting? Read our blog on making your holiday home eco-friendly!

Marketing your holiday home

At Cornish Cottage Holidays, we’re proud to offer owners the ‘best of both worlds’; hands on support and local knowledge from here in Cornwall, combined with the huge national marketing reach of Sykes Holiday Cottages.

All properties that join us are listed on both the Cornish Cottage Holidays and Sykes Holiday Cottages websites.

Here are some of our marketing insights for 2024, and ways we have secured bookings for our owners:

• We spent £35 million on marketing in 2024.
• Our Sykes Holiday Cottages website, which features all of our Cornish Cottage Holidays properties, had over 47 million website visitors in 2024.
• We dominate in Google search results, with a 30% market share amongst the four largest competitors in the industry.
• More people searched for Sykes Holiday Cottages than any of our competitors in the industry, with over 3 million searches for Sykes in the last 12 months.
• We launched several successful booking initiatives, such as our free cancellation schemes and low deposit payment offer.
• We’re always expanding our wide network of 700+ partner sites, like Airbnb and Booking.com, giving owners the very best opportunity to be seen across multiple websites and platforms.
• Our customer app had over 60,000 installs. We’re proud to be the only UK holiday cottage brand with a customer app – and even more so because it’s rated 4.8 stars on iOS!

Download our full Market Insights Report

Do you own a holiday home in Cornwall, or are you thinking of letting your second home? Our 2025 Market Insights Report is an essential resource, filled with useful statistics and pointers for letting your holiday property, whether you’re an experienced owner or just thinking of buying.

To download a full copy of the report, complete the form below. Our team will also get in touch to send you a copy of our holiday home Owners Guide.