Direct vs. OTA Is the Wrong Argument, And These Numbers Prove It Nobody told me direct booking was supposed to be hard. I didn’t know it was a whole debate with sides and conference panels. I was employee number four at a resort that barely existed yet, and every booking we had belonged to Airbnb. […]
AI Search Didn’t Change the Rules, It Just Raised the Stakes on the Boring Stuff A family planning a trip to the Smokies used to open Google and type “cabin rentals Gatlinburg hot tub.” Now they open ChatGPT and ask, “where should six of us stay near the Smokies with a hot tub and good […]
Five Parts, One Loop: What a Vacation Rental Marketing System Actually Looks Like I can usually find the broken part within an hour of walking in. Not because I’m clever, but because it’s almost always the same break that I’ve seen every time I’ve audited marketing operations for short term rentals. The operator sits me […]
Why Your Creator Marketing Keeps Breaking Down And How to Fix the Part Nobody Talks About I talk to vacation rental operators every week, and almost every one who has tried creator marketing tells me some version of the same story. They found a creator. The creator had a good following, the right aesthetic, an […]
How to Reduce OTA Dependence: A Property Manager’s Playbook OTAs weren’t a trap. They were a shortcut, and for most property managers, a good one. One listing, instant access to millions of travelers, bookings without a marketing budget. That’s a real value proposition, and it worked. The problem isn’t that we chose to use them. […]
Airbnb’s 15.5% Host Fee: What It Actually Costs You And How to Take Back Control If you’ve been hosting on Airbnb for more than a year, you’ve lived through one of the most significant fee restructures in the platform’s history and if you haven’t adjusted your pricing yet, you’re likely losing money on every booking […]