Dynamic Pricing Gaps Costing Hosts Thousands – Market Data Reveals Competitive Advantage Strategies with Jamie Lane

Summary and Highlights

🎯 Meet Jamie Lane: The Data-Driven Voice of Short-Term Rentals

Jamie Lane serves as Chief Economist and SVP of Analytics at AirDNA, the industry’s leading short-term rental data intelligence platform tracking millions of properties worldwide. With over 14 years of experience in hospitality economics, Jamie brings a unique perspective as both an industry analyst and an active STR host in North Georgia’s mountain markets.

His groundbreaking contributions earned him the Innovator/Disruptor award at the 2023 Shortyz Awards, while his market insights regularly appear in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Bloomberg. Beyond the data, Jamie co-hosts AirDNA’s STR Data Lab podcast and has been documenting his own hosting journey on YouTube, applying market intelligence to real-world property management decisions.

Before joining AirDNA, Jamie spent a decade at CBRE, leading research and forecasting teams. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Georgia and a Master of Science in Business Economics from Georgia State University.

📊 The Great Channel Shift: From Direct Dominance to OTA Growth

The pandemic has fundamentally altered guest booking behavior, creating lasting changes that continue to shape the industry. Prior to 2020, many large property managers generated the majority of their bookings through direct channels. Today, OTAs command increasingly larger market share—but the story has an interesting twist.

While larger property managers have seen their direct booking percentages decline, smaller hosts are actually trending in the opposite direction. The proliferation of user-friendly PMS platforms, such as Guesty and Hostaway, among others, has democratized direct booking technology that was previously accessible only to enterprise-level operators.

“If you think back in 2015, like I was hosting and for me to get a direct booking website, like Guesty didn’t exist, Hostway didn’t exist. Like all these large PMS companies that we sort of take advantage of now just didn’t exist,” Jamie explains. This technology gap meant most individual hosts had no practical path to direct bookings beyond building everything from scratch.

📱 Mobile-First Booking Revolution

Perhaps the most striking trend shaping guest behavior is the explosive growth of mobile bookings. Airbnb disclosed that 58% of their Q1 bookings came through mobile devices—up from 54% the previous year. This isn’t just a slight preference shift; it represents a fundamental change in how travelers discover and book accommodations.

For hosts building direct booking websites, this trend requires a mobile-first design approach. Sites that feel clunky on mobile devices or fail to optimize for smaller screens risk losing nearly half their potential bookings to competitors with superior mobile experiences.

The demographic driving this shift skews younger, with travelers in their twenties and thirties showing a strong preference for completing entire booking flows on mobile devices. These guests don’t just browse on mobile—they research, compare, and complete transactions entirely through their phones.

🏔️ Supply Growth Slowdown: Good News for Existing Hosts

After years of explosive inventory growth reaching 20-25% annually during peak pandemic periods, supply growth has dramatically decelerated to approximately 4% in 2025. This slowdown isn’t due to decreased demand—RevPAR remains at all-time highs—but rather reflects challenging investment economics.

Home values have increased roughly 50% over three years, while interest rates jumped from 3% to peaks around 8.5%. Meanwhile, STR revenue has grown approximately 30% over the same period. The math simply doesn’t work for many potential investors who previously found attractive cash-on-cash returns in the 20-40% range.

“Most investors now are like, the only reason why they’re able to make it make sense is because of the tax benefit. If you’re just underwriting the cash flows and what the investment’s gonna take, unless you have that tax benefit, it doesn’t make sense,” Jamie notes.

For existing hosts, this supply constraint creates favorable operating conditions. Less new competition means better occupancy rates and pricing power—assuming hosts stay competitive with their data-driven STR strategies.

💰 The Revenue Management Gap: Leaving Money on the Table

Despite the widespread availability of dynamic pricing tools, only about 25% of hosts actively use revenue management platforms. This creates enormous opportunities for data-driven hosts willing to optimize their pricing strategies beyond simple seasonal adjustments.

Markets like Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, where 85% of listings use revenue management solutions, demonstrate both the competitive advantage and necessity of sophisticated pricing. Hosts in these markets who don’t actively monitor competitor rates and adjust pricing can quickly lose bookings to more agile operators.

“There are so many incremental bookings our industry could be getting if we just did a better job of managing rates throughout the season,” Jamie emphasizes. The impact exceeds that of new amenities, professional photography, or other property improvements.

🌍 Economic Headwinds and Guest Behavior Changes

Several macroeconomic factors are creating booking pattern shifts that hosts need to understand:

Compressed Booking Windows: Guests are waiting longer to commit to travel plans, with booking windows in mountain markets declining approximately 8% year-over-year. This reflects economic uncertainty and guests’ reluctance to commit to future spending.

International Travel Trends: American travelers are increasingly choosing overseas destinations, with demand for Japan up 30% year-over-year. Meanwhile, Asian travelers to the US remain 50% below pre-pandemic levels, particularly impacting West Coast markets.

Income Tier Differences: The booking slowdown primarily affects budget-tier properties, while luxury accommodations maintain stronger forward pacing. Higher-income guests continue booking with minimal changes to their travel patterns.

🎯 Channel Diversification Strategy: The Essential Playbook

Rather than choosing between direct bookings and OTA channels, successful hosts are building diversified booking portfolios. The optimal channel mix varies significantly by market, guest demographics, and property positioning.

Jamie recommends starting with market research: “Understanding the channel mix in the market that you’re looking to invest in. There are a lot of markets where maybe you don’t need to be in multiple channels, maybe you just need Airbnb direct.”

Some markets generate significant international traffic through Booking.com, while others see minimal traffic from certain OTAs. Instead of trying to “boil the ocean” by listing everywhere immediately, hosts should focus on the 2-3 channels driving meaningful bookings in their specific market, then expand strategically.

For hosts seeking to increase direct bookings with consistent quality, understanding your market dynamics is essential before making channel decisions.

🚀 Technology Stack Evolution: From Basic to Professional

The maturation of STR technology has eliminated many barriers that previously kept smaller hosts from competing with larger property managers. Modern PMS platforms now offer enterprise-level features at accessible price points, including:

• Multi-channel listing management
• Automated pricing recommendations
• Direct booking website builders
• Guest communication automation
• Financial reporting and analytics

AirDNA’s recent acquisition of Uplisting represents this convergence trend—combining market intelligence with property management tools to create end-to-end solutions for hosts of all sizes. This evolution mirrors what we see with simplified direct booking experiences.

📈 Rapid Fire Insights: Jamie’s Quick Takes

Most Surprising Data Trend: The performance gap between price tiers during economic uncertainty. Budget properties are seeing 5% occupancy declines, while luxury accommodations drop only 1%.

Biggest Host Mistake: Lifting hands off the wheel after implementing dynamic pricing. “Once you lose that rate, it’s really hard to get back.”

Revenue Management Reality: Hotels maintain steadier occupancy by pushing rates dramatically lower during off-seasons and significantly higher during peak periods—something STR hosts often resist doing.

Market Competition: In highly competitive markets like Gatlinburg, where 85% of hosts use revenue management, staying ahead requires constant data monitoring and rate adjustments.

📚 Recommended Reading

Jamie recommends two books by Nate Silver for hosts looking to sharpen their analytical thinking:

1. “The Signal and the Noise” – Essential for understanding how to separate meaningful trends from daily rate fluctuations
2. “On the Edge” – Explores risk tolerance and decision-making frameworks that directly apply to revenue management strategies

🔗 Connect with Jamie Lane

• Twitter: @Jamie_Lane
• LinkedIn: Jamie Lane
• Podcast: STR Data Lab
• YouTube: Jamie’s Hosting Journey

Listen to the full episode and discover how data-driven decision-making can transform your direct booking performance. Then visit CraftedStays.co to build a mobile-optimized, conversion-focused website that turns your market insights into actual bookings.

Transcription

Jamie: They’re pushing rates significantly higher during peak season, and when you look at overall occupancy, it’s relatively steady, but at a significantly higher rate. There’s so much incremental bookings our industry could be getting if we just did a better job of managing rates throughout the season. More than anything drive additional revenue and over and above new amenities, new photos, it’s like just do a better job of like how you’re setting the rates and how you’re varying rates as you get closer to booking periods and you’re gonna see magic happen.

Jamie: We’ve seen that with the adoption and the growth that Price Labs and all these companies, they’ve seen massive growth over the past 10 years.

Gil: Before we bring on my guest, I wanted to talk just a little bit about something that I’ve been hearing a lot from Host. I keep on hearing the same thing. I know my website isn’t converting, but I can’t afford $8,000 on a agency to rebuild it. Here’s the thing, you’re letting all these marketing strategies, you’re driving traffic and you’re putting it.

Gil: All to work, but if your site isn’t really built to convert, you’re basically lighting your energy and money on fire. And even if you could afford an agency build, every time you want to test something or make a change, you’re having to pay them again. You can’t iterate, you can’t test, and you really can’t improve on things.

Gil: You don’t need a custom $10,000 website. To get the conversion rates that really matter, you just need the right platform. That’s why I build craft estates. It’s purpose built for short term rentals and designed from the ground up to help you drive more direct bookings. You can finally turn that traffic into bookings and you can keep on testing and improving.

Gil: As you learn, you can make changes all in the platform. You don’t need to learn something new. So if you need some help or you wanna get started, go ahead and go to Craft to stays.co and start your free trial. Now let’s bring on our guests and dive deep into hospitality and marketing.

Gil: Hey folks. Welcome back to the book Solid Show, the podcast where we bring on top operators, discuss digital marketing, revenue management, and direct bookings. On today’s show, I’m joined by Jamie Lane. He’s a chief economist at Air DNA. We’ve got some big trends shaping the industry right now, like why mobile?

Gil: Bookings have exploded on Airbnb. Why direct bookings are on the rise for smaller hosts, but shrinking for larger property managers and how the supply growth is slowing even though demand is still strong. Jamie also share how guest behaviors is shifting, why dynamic pricing alone isn’t enough anymore, and what hosts can do today to stay competitive across all their channels. So if you’re trying to grow your short-term rental business and you’re trying to make smarter decisions, today’s episode is jam packed with a lot of insights and data.

Gil: So let’s get right into it.

Gil: Hey Jamie. Welcome to the show.

Jamie: Hey, Gil. Thanks for having me.

Gil: Yeah, it’s good to see you again. I think I last saw you at VR Nation. Um, I’m probably gonna see you at a wealth con as well too.

Jamie: Yeah, no, um, two great cities, uh, great short-term rental cities, Austin and Nashville.

Gil: Yeah. You must do a lot of the whole, uh, convention road show. You’re, you’re on quite a bit of them.

Jamie: Yeah, and it’s something I enjoy going and talking to our customers. Um, getting to talk with property managers hosts, like there’s wide variety, like difference between Wealth Con and Verma International, like, uh, it both short-term rental industry conferences, but wildly different audiences getting out to vacation, real World Summit in Rome this fall.

Jamie: Um, yeah, so it’s, I love going to ’em. It gives me sort of energy and what, what people are doing, new things that they’re doing, what they’re sort of seeing in their market. Like it’s great to. Sort of, and, and get the on the ground sort of pulse of what’s happening in the industry.

Gil: Yeah. And I think the, the interesting thing about your, you, you speak at a lot of them too, and I think that the big difference between you and some of the other speakers is that given the type of content that you produce and that you, this, this, the talks that you give, you pretty much have to set up a whole new one every single time because you need to have fresh data to talk about.

Gil: You can’t, you can’t reuse the last, the last gigs, uh, talk.

Jamie: No, it, it, uh, you’ll laugh. Uh, my desktop right now, I think I have like 20 different PowerPoints up. Uh, so like, it’s not only every conference, but it’s like, I mean, it could be on a single day of like doing virtual conferences of like what we’re presenting on to like hedge funds, like investing in Airbnb is entirely different than what we’re presenting on, on like a group of hosts in Charleston.

Jamie: Uh, yeah.

Gil: Yeah. And I, and, and even in this show here, like we’re gonna talk quite a bit about direct bookings. And so like, even that, you’re niching down quite a bit. You’re not just, you’re talking about the, the broader market, but you’re talking about one specific channel within the broader market as well too.

Jamie: And sort of channel trends are, and really, uh, interesting too because all these channels, like whether it’s our own direct channels, whether it’s Airbnb, vrbo, booking, Google Marriott Homes and Vows, they’re all investing massively into driving bookings to their platforms. And like you see some doing well, some not doing well, some trying to push into new areas, trying to drive bookings for certain segments.

Jamie: Like it’s, um, they’re all, we’re all competing for the guests. And ultimately like, and as long as bookings are going up, I am, I’m pretty excited about where the industry’s going. So. I’m pretty agnostic in general about which channel I’d like to see when, and just that there are multiple channels out there and options for guests and that people are using multiple channels.

Gil: Yeah, and I think from your perspective, your servicing, like the host or the property manager is the primary user of you and your services. So to I, I guess the, the host point of view, it’s, it’s more important that. Your market share is growing, that the TAM is growing, and that revenue mix could change year to year.

Gil: And, uh, we will talk about diversification, but it’s more important that the bookings continue to go up. That’s like the number one thing. Like RevPAR continues to go up, um, and then we get a little bit deeper of like, okay, how do you keep up more of that margin to yourself? And that’s a tighter discussion, I would say.

Jamie: Yep. And. A big thing that we’re tracking is like, take home, pay for the host, like at a listing level, at a host level. Are you earning more or less than you were at the same time last year? And what are the things that are driving sort of changes in occupancy? Like are more and more people staying in short term rentals?

Jamie: Are you seeing and what’s happening on the supply side? The supply side has probably been the, and the thing that’s changed the most over the past five years, like during the pandemic we saw a massive drop in inventory. we saw demand come back so quick, but we didn’t see the subsequent return in supply until like two years later and then it came back in a vengeance.

Jamie: Uh, and then like now we’ve seen supply growth really slow massively over the past year. And that’s, I great for existing hosts. Not great for the OTAs, not great for investors that are essentially not seeing a lot of new opportunity, and that’s why we’re not seeing supply growth out there. Um, so yeah, there’s, there’s all these sort of interactions between the investor side, the host side, and what that then leads for pricing trends.

Jamie: Like, are you able to charge more or less, like what are the units that are able to charge more? Um, what are the amenities now that you need to be adding to your properties to stay competitive? Like it’s all, and it’s all changing.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. We, we skipped a little bit that we, we would dove straight into the deep end. I’m gonna pull us back just a little bit so that people could get a little bit more context about you. Jamie. I know we’re a couple minutes deep into the, the show, but do you mind stepping back a little bit and kind of giving folks an introduction on who you are?

Jamie: Yeah, so I am the chief economist and SVP of analytics at Air, DNA. In air DNA if and haven’t heard of it, we are a short-term rental data analytics intelligence platform. So we track essentially every single short-term rental around the world. Um, we’re estimating what it’s earning on a day-to-day basis, and then we create tools for both investors and hosts to figure out where they should invest, how much property, how much, uh, those properties will earn, um, how to budget and sort of forward earnings for those properties.

Jamie: Um, and then how you sort of analyze and sort of the trends in that market, um, finding where in that market to invest. Um, what are the properties types that are doing well, not well. Uh, who are the major operators? What are the listings that are doing well, not well in that market. And then we’ve got tools for benchmarking your forward performance, looking at forward pacing trends.

Jamie: And even now we’ve got our own property management system. So you can list on multiple channels, create your own or connect your direct booking websites. So we sort of do now like soup to nuts, like help you find the investment and then, uh, manage it once you’ve got it live.

Gil: Yeah. What was, what’s the story behind that, that acquisition there? Music, I did not expect that one to come.

Jamie: Yeah. So, it was about a year and a half ago now that we bought up uplifting, uh, which we saw as like a great like, um, property management system for that gives you all the basics and is not the most complicated thing out there. Like, ’cause the average user of air DNA has like one to 10 listings and it’s where you find your first listing and where you find and where are you gonna add and your subsequent ones.

Jamie: Um, but what we saw was that, and even though we had great tools for hosts, like of once you’re already operating, like the typical subscriber to their DNA would stick around for, and just that first like three to six months, once they had their investment, once they’re up and going, there was no reason for them or a lot of users didn’t feel like they needed to stay on.

Jamie: Uh, but we were, and we’re seeing thousands of new subscribers every day, um, to our platform. Uh, we’re getting them right at the beginning, uh, and what we wanted to do, what a lot of ways we saw them, like doing great and sort of finding that inve initial investment, but then sort of dropping off in terms of what they’re doing in terms of operation.

Jamie: So, um, we started with content like how to help train people to be better hosts. And then what we saw is we had a great opportunity to actually bring that technology to them of like, all right, start with their DNA to find your investment. Then let’s move you through the funnel to actually using our software to operate your listing as well.

Jamie: Um, and that if we were able to do that, like then we are gonna help really set people up to succeed in this space. Um, and it was really a test. Uh, and what we’ve seen is like we’ve seen massive adoption of people that start with us that now stick around and use up uplifting, and that they’re able to, um, and better manage their properties.

Jamie: They’re not staying on a single channel, they’re not, and sort of getting behind in terms of guest communication, um, that they’re really, and, and, uh, doing a be much better job of, uh, uh, launching that property.

Gil: Yeah, and this kind of reminds me of something that we just talked about a little bit briefly on right before the show that I want to kind of dive into and have you kind of talk about, which is like kind of the trend towards direct bookings and what have you seen over. Let’s say like the last five years since the beginning of the Pan Pandemic and now the market landscape has changed quite a bit.

Gil: Like if you thought of like 2019 Airbnb already had a really big market share, but a lot of folks were doing direct. Airbnb had at that point, been around for a long time, but vacation rentals has been a long, has been around for much, much longer, where these really big property managers had already had a good foothold.

Gil: How have you seen things changed from pre 2020 to what it is now?

Jamie: Yeah. So if you rewind back to like early Airbnb days, so. Mean VRBO existed. HomeAway existed. Like they had relatively small shares, primarily with large property managers. Um, and even think about the name vrbo, vacation Rental by Owner. Like it was sort of meant for small hosts. Uh, though now it’s primarily used by the large property managers.

Jamie: Um, and most bookings were coming direct to property managers like the OTAs had very, and OTAs being online travel agencies like Airbnb, vrbo, booking.com had very little share. Um, and, and a lot of the property managers really had no reason to really use them ’cause they were getting such a small percent of overall bookings.

Jamie: Uh, fast forward to like 2016 through 2019, this was like the period of like massive growth for Airbnb. Uh, massive growth for vrbo. Uh, they were seeing. Just consumers were using these platforms more and more, and property managers really felt the need more and more that they needed to be on listed on those platforms to make sure that they’re keeping up with their competition.

Jamie: Um, and that’s where we saw Airbnb’s share of bookings really begin to increase. Um, um, just OTAs really take off. And then we had the pandemic, uh, which was in, in many ways a shock to both supply and demand, but it was also this, I, it lit this fire on the industry of like all of a sudden coming outta the pandemic.

Jamie: People wanted to travel, but they didn’t wanna stay in hotels. They wanted to stay in short-term rentals. Um, and Airbnb, VRBO were these names that people had heard of, maybe hadn’t tried yet, but it was a safe way to sort of do that first booking. We saw a massive first time adoption of a new guests coming in the industry, trying short-term rentals for the first time.

Jamie: Um, mostly staying with individual hosts and mostly staying like outside of the major cities, staying even outside of the major vacational markets, like going to these small towns all over the world. Um, booking through Airbnb and vrbo, uh, and generally having great experiences. Um, and unfortunately this didn’t have like, and most hosts don’t have a direct booking option, so when these guests want to come back, they’re not being sort of trained to go direct.

Jamie: They’re getting trained to go back to the OTAs. So we saw Airbnb, vrbo, the major OTAs and really, and start to take more and more share of overall bookings. And we’ve really seen that continue to this day of I, um, um. In general, the OTAs garnering a greater and greater share of overall bookings at the expense of direct bookings.

Jamie: Um, and that’s primarily with, uh, larger property managers.

Gil: Yeah, and I think that that’s probably the difference in, or like kinda the caveat there is like if you look at the overall spread, if you think of it as a pie chart, um, that pie chart has shifted where in 2016, a good portion of that is probably a significant portion of that. The majority probably was direct at that point.

Gil: And as time went on, consumer behavior changed. The folks that were using these vacation homes were starting to become much younger generations. Even the traveler demographic has changed, and that’s mainly because Airbnb. Made it more appealing for younger, younger travelers to be able to adopt vacation homes as a way to travel.

Gil: And now a lot of times it’s the primary source of, of travel for a, a lot of folks in their twenties and thirties. Um, and what you’re seeing is that in now these large property managers that were so heavily weighted on direct bookings are now having to go to the OTA to really fill up their calendars all the way, especially for with their larger portfolios.

Gil: But there’s actually another side of that story as well too, where smaller hosts have already started to adopt direct bookings a lot more. And actually on the smaller host side, there’s actually been an upward trend of direct bookings over the last few years. Uh, and even specifically within the last like four or five years, and I’ve only been tracking this for the last few years, even in my space, the amount of demand for direct bookings, at least from a host perspective, has gone up enormously.

Jamie: Yep. And, and that I think really has to do with the technology that’s out there. Like if you think back in 2015, like I was hosting and like if I, I was on Airbnb. Like for me to get a direct booking website, like Guesty didn’t exist, host away, didn’t exist. Like all these large PMS companies that we sort of take advantage are of now that are out there that allow me to like easily, like, take direct bookings and build my own, uh, website, like just didn’t exist out there.

Jamie: So like, essentially, and there were property management systems, but they were built for large property management companies. They didn’t have cell service onboarding. Like, and they would’ve cost an arm and a leg to actually like, um, um, um, subscribe to. So like we are going from a point of essentially zero of direct bookings for hosts with like, let’s say one to 10 listings.

Jamie: Like unless you are really willing to put in the effort to build your own site and build your own integrations in with the other OTAs. Um, where to this day like. Host away guestie billion dollar companies. You’ve got companies like up uplifting Lofi, uh, owner res that are really built PMSs that are geared more towards smaller hosts.

Jamie: And like, it’s so easy now, or so much easier now to go from and being single channel to connecting the multi-channel, to deploying your own direct booking website and able to push guests, not only first time guests, but repeat guests to, if they want to come back, hey, book direct, you’re gonna get a better price.

Jamie: Uh, we built that trust, uh, together. Uh, you know what you’re gonna get. Um, and yeah, so we’ve seen much more adoption on the individual host side. It’s still way less than it needs to be, way less than it should be, uh, but it’s at least and growing.

Gil: Yeah, and I, and I, I see that trend naturally going significantly over the, the next few years as well too. And so I, I think like some of the trends that I’m starting to see is that one. Direct bookings is starting to be more trusted by a lot of travelers. As you mentioned, like when you’re revisiting an area, you’re probably wanting to look book direct, and very likely if you start to go from OTA and then booking directly the next time, very likely the next time you’re looking for a stay.

Gil: You might start on Airbnb, but you actually might transact on direct because you’ve actually, you know, that like there’s professional hosts kind of behind the scenes of every single Airbnb page out there. So I think like from a consumer behavior now, like guests are actually getting a lot more savvy about how they’re doing their shopping now.

Gil: And I don’t know if you see the same train.

Jamie: I hear, I hear it all the time with, uh, and anecdotally through friends, but you know, enough anecdotes and it maybe makes a trend of like. Jamie, let me tell you about the secret way of booking a property. Like I find it on Airbnb and then I reverse image, search the property, and then I find it on its direct booking site, and then I save 10%.

Jamie: I’m like, yeah, that’s awesome.

Gil: Yeah.

Jamie: Or all, I search the name or I see the name on the host and it’s a, usually a property manager and I can go and find their direct booking site and find that same property and, and save a bit of money or, and get this additional benefit of booking direct. Um, so yeah, like that’s absolutely a trend.

Jamie: And what I hate to see though is like, and I’ve done this many times myself. I go to book it direct and the price is actually higher than on the OTA or I go to book it direct and like there’s just something like one, it’s a site that looks like it was built in 1990s. I’m like, I’m not sure if this is actually a site that I can book on.

Jamie: I’m putting in my credit card and. Pretty sure there’s someone in, um, Russia that’s probably collecting this data, uh, right now. Um, as I book it, like, it just doesn’t feel like we all have a sense now of what a booking experience should be and a lot of times, and we can blame that on Airbnb of like, they’ve just made it so seamless.

Jamie: They’ve made it like a gr and look beautiful to be seamless. And then when you go and do it direct, if it doesn’t have that same experience, it can really turn you off of potentially booking with that property manager. So it does make the quality of direct booking sites that much more important. In many ways.

Jamie: A lot of the PMSs haven’t caught up, catch, uh, caught up with what that experience should be.

Gil: Yeah, I mean, you bring up a really good point, and I had to learn this over time as we’re building craft as days is like when we first started off, we were building for desktop. We were building for large displays, and even when we were downloading the images or synchronizing the images from the PMSs, we would always grab the the highest resolution version so that we can show it.

Gil: And then we found out that when we started to showcase it on a mobile device, these images were way too big. They just loaded way too long. And so what we ended up having to do was we now convert every single image four times over. So we have two desktop versions, a tablet version, and a mobile version.

Gil: And that allows us to have this really like compact one for the mobile devices that they still look really good. There’s only so many pixels on an on, on an iPhone. Even. Even, even the latest ones, they still look really good, but they just load just so much faster. But if you’re on a large display, you get to see all of that on a much larger display.

Gil: And so we’ve learned that over time. And then the second like generation of it was we started to look through and analyze, okay, now that we’ve optimized for SEO and really like site performance, we then figured out like, oh, there’s actually a pretty big difference in terms of site traffic. 46% of traffic is actually coming on mobile devices.

Gil: And when we figured that out and we started to play around with how do we want the mobile experience to be like, we saw this huge shoot up in conversion rates. We made things that are very specific, like the mobile navigation of going from the homepage to the search page, to the property page and to checkout is quite a bit different on, on desktop versus mobile.

Gil: And so when we adopted that mobile first, like it changed the way that we built trust with the end guest in mind. And we just saw conversions go straight up. And you’re absolutely right where a lot of times either if you’re building the site off of like a Squarespace and you’re using those widgets, it just doesn’t feel right.

Gil: And you can tell that fishy feeling like, can I actually trust this site? And I think that that’s why we’ve seen such a big difference between folks that are maybe cobbling something together or they’re using a PMS website. Then they move over to us and why they see such a sharp peak or climb in conversion.

Gil: It’s, it’s that user experience difference and what you’re saying of like, they’re so used to shopping on Airbnb and looking at the mobile lab and how it feels and how easy it is to book. And then when they’re going on a direct booking site, if they have any in inclination that this is actually not a legitimate site.

Gil: Even a little bit, it may be false, but if they get that feeling, they’re not gonna book.

Jamie: Yeah, and it blow blows my mind when Airbnb discloses these numbers. Like 58% of their bookings in Q1 came through their mobile site. Like, that’s bananas. Like, like you think about booking behavior. Like, like I would like, yeah, they’ve disclosed like it was 54% last year, like they are growing exponentially.

Jamie: The number of bookings that are coming through their mobile site, like it’s ridiculous.

Gil: Yeah, and I think there’s a, there’s a lot of trends and it could be also the demographic as well too. Like you’re starting to have younger folks and like my wife and I, like, we’re in our, we’re pretty much in our forties and like we still go to the desktop and we prefer a large display. Anytime we’re doing heavy shopping, like if we’re buying something big, we don’t do it on our phones.

Gil: And I know a lot of the younger generation, they won’t do that on desktop or laptop. They will do that on mobile and they feel very comfortable doing all their shopping on mobile. So it’s just a big demographics difference. And if you’re looking at the trend, a lot of vacation, second home markets, the trend is now you’re not just capturing folks that have been using vacation homes for a very long time, but a lot younger hosts that are looking for not a hotel experience.

Jamie: Yep. Absolutely.

Gil: Yeah, it, it was, it was really interesting that you, you mentioned like this big trend from 2016 to now it, it almost feels like we were once in an age where there are these big local monopolies where in a specific market you had these really big PMs in there, and we’re now getting to a place where there’s a lot more fragmentation.

Gil: You’re getting a lot of hosts that have only maybe a handful of properties and they’re operating on their own, but they’re now leveraging technology in new ways. Like you mentioned the PMSs, like they’re using these tools to really be competitive. And in many ways what I’ve seen, and maybe because I’m on the host side of things, I just see this big maturity of hosts always trying to figure out how do they upskill themselves.

Gil: And I don’t know if you’ve seen the same, because you see this from the very beginning of them being infant investors and getting in for the first time and seeing them graduate over time.

Jamie: I mean, there was. You go back even just a few years ago, like there’s just like, unless you’re a big property manager, how are you gonna do revenue management before Price Labs wheelhouse or beyond? Like you are gonna, and maybe, and get a sense of trends like in that you should be, during high season you should charge this much higher than in low season.

Jamie: Like I should increase rates on the weekend weekdays, but still to this day we only see about 25% of hosts using any sort of revenue management platform. Or like varying rates. Like yes it’s high adoption in large property managers, but even like to this day, even with all this sort of ready, readily available tools and even free tools through Airbnb, like not many people are actually using it to sort of level up on their performance.

Jamie: So.

Gil: do you think that is?

Jamie: Uh, I think a big part of it is education. Like people just don’t know what they’re leaving on the table in terms of, and I see it more like you and we inherently have a sense of like what we could get during peak season. And like that we maximize the rate during times when people are gonna book at the detriment to like how low we actually need to set rates to drive bookings during the off season.

Gil: Yep.

Jamie: And like industry occupancy, and especially if you look at different markets, like compared to hotels, like our occupancy varies so much more wildly than hotels. And then you look at the rate differential of like, hotels are pushing rates way low during off season. They’re pushing rates significantly higher during peak season.

Jamie: And when you look at overall occupancy, it’s relatively steady, but at a significantly higher rate. So like there’s so much incremental bookings our industry could be getting, if we just did a better job of managing rates throughout the season, that would, and more than anything, drive additional revenue.

Jamie: Um, and over and above, like, uh, new amenities, new photos, like, it’s like just do a better job of like how you’re setting the rates and how you’re varying rates as you get closer to booking periods. Like, and you’re gonna, and you’re gonna see magic happen. And I, we’ve seen that with the adoption and the growth that Price Labs and all these companies have, have seen, like they’ve seen massive growth over the past 10 years.

Jamie: But it’s still like, I think Price Labs is closed. Like they’ve got 450,000 listings that they, um, manage rates for. Industry globally has 12 million listings, plus like, it’s such a small percent that they’ve actually penetrated to, and they’re clearly the biggest, um, I doing this in our, in our industry.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s a pretty big spread. I’m actually surprised that like Air DNA hasn’t gotten into that space, and maybe because it’s already been so competitive in, in that market there, but that’s, that, that, that, that was always surprise me.

Jamie: Yeah. And we do have a suggested rate, and we haven’t pushed into sort of the automated, uh, pushing of rates. Um, and it’s something we may, may get into in the future, but, and there’s, uh, no lack of, um, feature functionality that we want to sort of add, uh, for investors for sort of our core client base of like helping people find the right markets, helping people underwrite those investments, um, and getting the right.

Jamie: Historical data to help them make and good, good investment decisions.

Gil: Yeah. ’cause I’ve always seen air DNA as being this, basically this data platform, uh, where you can, you can really extract out a lot of value from this. And now that it has acquired uplifting, it is able to then harness that data. To actually inform how hosts and give hosts more tools in that. So like I can totally see, I would not be surprised if the next time we chat you’re like, Hey, go.

Gil: Like, we actually have released this specifically for uplifting and we’re powering all their dynamic pricing now and we’re now releasing this to anyone that’s using any of the supported PMSs. Like, I would not be surprised if like, that is the progression of how air DNA kind of evolves and leverages data in, in other ways as well too.

Jamie: I wouldn’t be surprised either.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah. you talked a little bit about kind of like how things has changed over time and this really big inflation of demand during the pandemic as people were looking for some relief away from home during the pandemic and then supply really catching up in. This really big volume here in like 21, 22.

Gil: There’s this huge spike in demand, like in supply there. Now that, like, can you tell me a little bit or talk a little bit about like what are the trends that you’ve seen specifically in 25 and kind of approaching 26? Like what do you expect there from a, from both a supply and demand perspective?

Jamie: Yeah. So on the supply side, it’s been really interesting over the past two to three years. So back in 2020, we were seeing growth year over year growth in supply of like 20, 25%. Like that’s massive inventory growth. Um, yeah, it, it’s nuts. Um. That slowed in 2023 to about and 10%, uh, it slowed in 24 to about seven, seven 8%, and now it slowed even further in 2025 to about 4%.

Jamie: Um, so for an industry growth industry and to go from 25% growth and pre pandemic, we’re growing 10 to 15% just to give you sort of a baseline

Gil: So like 20 19, 20 18, we’re at 10% growth.

Jamie: 10% growth, and you sort of drop the listings during the pandemic. You sort of make up for it growing outta the pandemic and then we sort of decelerate. Um, in a big part of that deceleration is what we’ve seen saw happen during 20 21, 20 22, and 2023 in terms of home values and interest rates.

Jamie: Uh, because, and we’re not investing in a vacuum. Like if you just look at short term rental revenue, be like Gil, we’re at all time highs for revenue. We’re at all time highs for a. Like occupancies back to pre pandemic levels. Like yeah, we saw sort of a cycle of occupancy go really high in 2021 and 2022 and come back down, but like overall things look great.

Jamie: We would be like scratching our heads of like, so, so why aren’t people investing at the same rate in short-term rentals anymore? And then you go look on the cost side of like, okay, what does it cost to acquire a new home? We’ve seen on an average a 50% increase in overall appreciation of homes over the past three years.

Jamie: We’ve seen interest rates go from 3% to, and it got to a peak of what, 8.5% now sitting around 7%, like that’s massively increased the sort of and monthly payment that it would take to, and, uh, get a new investment. Uh, if you’re fan financing it and you sort of compare that to the overall increase that we’ve seen in revenue.

Jamie: Yeah, it’s up about 30% compared to three, four years ago, but that’s nowhere near the increase that we’ve seen in the, um, average payment that you need to acquire that listing. Um, and what that’s meant is like the investability of the industry right now is just way down. Um, and it’s, and it’s not attractive as an AC asset class compared to other potential opportunities out there.

Jamie: Um, yes, there’s still opportunities, but I mean it’s, and not as many sort of, um, and investment opportunities that are gonna pencil and make sense.

Gil: yeah. Yeah. I, I think from a, from a, like a cash on cash perspective, if you looked at, if you looked at. Perhaps maybe a hundred homes that were purchased in 2021. 2020. Your cash on cash on average would have been in the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties even. And now if you’re looking at the last a hundred homes that are sold and you’re trying to figure out what the performance of that is, you’d be happy in the teens or twenties range even for, in terms of visibility.

Gil: And I, I bet you a lot of that actually now is still driven by the tax benefit more than anything else. I, I, I think a lot of folks got into like short-term rentals in the very beginning because strong cash flow and tax benefits and now that cash flow there isn’t as strong and like the only saving grace, or not the only, but one of the big saving graces is really that, that tax benefit.

Jamie: Yeah, and it talk to investors regularly and like most of them now are like, the only reason why they’re able to make it make sense is because of the tax benefit. If you’re just underwriting the cash flows and like what the investment’s gonna take and sort of what the return’s gonna be unless you have that tax benefit like.

Jamie: It doesn’t make sense. Um, so yeah, there’s a lot of, um, I think, uh, optimism around sort of the new, uh, tax bill, uh, and bringing back a hundred percent depreciation, uh, and that, and making the tax benefit that much more attractive, uh, and really, and having the potential to re-accelerate growth in short-term rental investment.

Jamie: Um, I mean, it’s not gonna do anything to sort of help the, the annual cash flow. Um, I, we’re gonna have to see some either changes to interest rates or home values, uh, to make a, a big dent there. We, we are seeing some contraction in many markets around the country in terms of home values. Uh, we’re seeing and investors be able to come in and, uh, and make offers that get accepted that, and do.

Jamie: I can make an investment cash flow. Uh, so I’m more and more optimistic that an investment is gonna pick up. Uh, but not in a way that I’m, I’m expecting that we’re gonna get to six, seven even and 10% growth in the coming years. Like essentially I think in our forecast is in the 4%. Today is maybe 5% next year.

Gil: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, but that’s also good from, from an existing investor

Jamie: Oh yeah. Like I have now being a short-term rental operator myself, like I do, I do not wanna see 10, 15% growth in my market. Given what we’re seeing on the demand side, because that’s the other end of the equation is, and what we’re seeing in terms of guest adoption, um, I knew, uh, people sort of, and, uh, staying in short term rentals, um, and also just overall travel to the us.

Jamie: Um, and the economy is clearly. Weakening right now, and we’re not seeing the amount of job growth that we’ve seen in, in years past. Uh, we are seeing unemployment rate tick up. Uh, we’re fortunately seeing inflation come down. Um, but, and there’s been a lack of inbound, uh, travel to the US especially in 2025, especially in markets sort of exposed to Canadian, European travelers.

Jamie: Uh, there’s more and more Americans traveling overseas. And so, and if you’re looking at, and, and international travel makes up about 15% of overall guests, uh, stays in the us. So if we’re seeing less inbound, more outbound, like that’s a recipe for and slower growth. Um, and then there’s whole bunch of uncertainty around the economy right now.

Jamie: Uh, there’s guests waiting longer and longer to book. Unfortunately, right now they’re still booking. But the fact that there, there’s so much uncertainty right now around what’s gonna happen in the future, and it’s not gonna take much to sort of push us over the edge and, and potentially bring us into recession.

Jamie: So, I mean, there’s a lot of questions still about the economy and what it’s gonna look like over the years ahead.

Gil: Yeah, and I, I don’t know how it is like kind of throughout the states, and maybe you have more visibility on this, but at least on our, in our markets and even here locally in the Bay Area, so I’m in San Francisco.

Jamie: Mm-hmm.

Gil: I find that a lot of people are traveling a lot more abroad now. I, I think people are holding onto their dollars in fear that something is coming up.

Gil: Like I went to the, I went to the amusement park this, this weekend and normally that amusement park is jam packed. And for whatever reason it was a lot emptier this year than it was the last two, three years and where season pass older because our kids just love, love being able to go there. But it’s scary to, to see it just so much more empty, maybe even like 20, 30% emptier than it was last summer.

Gil: And even in our markets, we’re having to drive our prices down just to stay at the same occupancy level, and we’re seeing that booking window really compressed specifically in our mountain markets. I don’t know if you’re seeing the same on your side.

Jamie: Yeah, no, we’re, we’re absolutely seeing a compression in, in booking windows. Uh, people don’t want to commit to forward plans if they don’t have to. And if they see, they go on to book and they see a lot of options and that they don’t have to like press book, that they can keep waiting, um, and that, and they’re doing it.

Jamie: Um, so we’ve seen and booking windows compressed just this year or last year to this year in mountain markets down about 8%, uh, and 8% like in shorter booking windows like. In a market that’s typically like 50 days and now you’re getting like 45, 42. Like, they’re like, it, it, it gets to be really concerning on like if you’re gonna see guest book.

Jamie: Uh, and then it doesn’t take a whole lot of hosts to really start to worry that then they start cutting their rates ’cause they’re not seeing the conversion that they expect and now and guests are going to those cheaper units and then you feel like you need to cut. And that’s where like during recessions, um, and you can really see this rate spiral of competition to drive incremental occupancy.

Jamie: And like I, I spent, and prior to joining Air DNAI spent 10 years, uh, covering the hotel sector, um, and analyzing hotel pricing trends and like what we saw during the, um, a great recession. Average hotel rates were down 20, 30%. Like it was a massive hit and it took five, six years to recover rate back to I pre-recession levels.

Jamie: Like it was a slog to get back up there. And a big piece of it was, I guess, just got that expectation that they’d be able to get a, I mean, five star hotel at a three star rate. Uh, they sort of li lost price in integrity and anytime they tried to increase rates, like someone else was willing to cut rate and push rates to and push lower rates to the OTAs and drive occupancy.

Jamie: And it was, and once you lose that rate, it’s really hard to get back.

Gil: Yeah, and I, I bet you, because you’re now in a market where there’s a lot smaller operators, that rate spiral is gonna actually get magnified because if you’re thinking about it from a host perspective or property management’s perspective, if you only have a couple doors and you’re trying to make last year’s numbers, you’re trying to drive that and you’re trying to meet your occupancies, you’ll go. Pretty low that one year because you have a much smaller data set. Even if you’re using dynamic pricing, a lot of times a lot of hosts will use dynamic pricing for 30 days out, but when they’re in that 30 day window, they still don’t get a book. They’re starting to get a lot more aggressive. And so you’re seeing this really stacked hosts really stacking on top of each other where they’re trying to land on first page and they’re trying to find that sweet spot of like, how much do I need to lower my rate?

Gil: And one person will do it. A set of people will do it in only 20 spots. Like you’re gonna start to see other people starting to do a same. And before you know it, you’re starting to cut rates 30% plus.

Jamie: Yeah. And, and you’re in like super competitive markets where like everyone’s using dynamic pricing. Like I recently pulled the data on like markets that are like most competitive in terms of rates. Um, and Gatlinburg Pigeon Forge is number one. Like, it’s like 85% of listings are using some sort of revenue management solution.

Jamie: And um, uh, Branson, like that area is super high too. There’s other markets where like no one’s using it. Um, and it’s, and that’s what worries me too. If you’re trying to be competitive in a market where you have a lot of un uncompetitive hosts, a lot of them essentially have a cost basis that’s nil. Like they’ve inherited this home, they’ve, they bought it years ago.

Jamie: Like they don’t need to be competitive on rates to get the return that they need. ’cause essentially any money they’re earning from the property is a return. So their ability to cut rate and undercut you is, is really scary, um, on what could happen if we get into sort of a a, a rate cutting environment.

Gil: Yeah, so like maybe like double click on that one, like from like a GA member Pigeon Forge, given that there’s so much dynamic pricing being used or deployed out there with. With the hose, like how does that change the overall strategy of things like,

Jamie: And one, like if you’re not staying on top of the data, like you can get left behind in that market so quick. ’cause you have so many, like you talked about like staying on top of a page rank. Like if you’re not monitoring it, if you’re not, and knowing what you need to in terms of changing your rate to make sure you’re gonna get booked.

Jamie: Like if you sort of take your hand off the wheel for a few months and you could see bookings sort of collapse. And I think that’s what we see all too often as someone that’s used to getting booked at those rates and they’ve got their sort of, the way that they price. Maybe they’re not using software but they’re sort of, and managing rates in a certain way.

Jamie: Or they have the rates that they know that will get booked during certain seasons. Then all of a sudden they aren’t seeing the bookings that they expect, and they like, wait a few months and they’re on, I am wondering why. And then they go and analyze the data. It’s like, oh wow. Like the, the market’s moved down 10%.

Jamie: I didn’t, and now I’ve sort entirely lost bookings during the most important period, and there’s no way that I can sort of adjust to, to catch up. Um, and that I see that happen all too often. Uh, in markets like Gatlinburg, like Branson, like Broken Bow, um, even down in some of the beach markets, um, like, uh, 30 a, um, um, uh, you go out to Fredericksburg, um, and Joshua Tree and those are super competitive markets in terms of pricing.

Jamie: Uh, a lot of, and full-time hosts, uh, full-time investors, uh, that are looking to make a return. And if you’re not on top of. Your sort of strategy and you can very quickly get left behind.

Gil: Yeah, yeah. It, it almost tells you like when I’m on Price Labs, for instance, that that neighborhood tab, the second tab in there is actually the one that I look at more than anything. I, I, I care more about that than my actual calendar because that tells me what the spread of it from my occupancy versus the market’s occupancy.

Jamie: Yep.

Gil: Then also how to compare from last year, like last year we ended the year at this occupancy level this year. Are we lagging behind last year? And if so, like how much time until the remainder fills up? And I constantly look at that and that tells me like, okay, I actually should be ahead of it. Because for instance, if we find that market occupancy is far above last year’s occupancy, that’s telling me that the booking window has actually gotten a lot longer.

Gil: And what that’s telling me is like, okay, if I want to get fall booked up, I should be optimizing my fall now rather than after like, like come August, September season, where like typically it’s like a 30, 30, 45 day window.

Jamie: And I freaking love those views. Um, so much so that we have like essentially the similar type of views now in their DNA platform. Like you can look at forward occupancy and, and where rates came in last year. This year, you can see the range of your comp set and how their pricing on each day in the future.

Jamie: And then go into each of those listings and see how they’re actually pricing on any given day, um, in the future and how you’re. Sort of pricing into it on those available nights. So absolutely like those are the types of views you need to be looking at to make sure you’re pricing within the right range to get booked.

Gil: Yeah, I absolutely love this conversation. Like I, I, I get to geek out about data and also like ask you a bunch of different questions about like that that impacts me, but also like the wider market as well too and like validate are some of the trends that I’m seeing, like really true given all the discussions that we’ve had and all the discussions that you have outside of this conversation.

Gil: What are some of the nuggets that you found surprising when you’re looking at the data here?

Jamie: Yeah. One is how much it can change based on your sort of price tier. So we segment the data into in five different price tiers, luxury, down to budget. So luxury, like if you’re in Gatlinburg, like top 20% of four bedroom homes by a DR is gonna be luxury. Bottom 20% is gonna be budget. And so we divide up every market in between luxury and and budget.

Jamie: And then we can sort of aggregate that all up and sort of look at national trends, market trends, things like that, like the forward pacing, looking by price tier. If you’re on budget, like for the rest of the summer, we’re looking at occupancy down 5% right now. If we’re looking at luxury, it’s only down like 1%. So the, the pullback on the sort of shortened booking windows is almost entirely on those budget properties. And then when you break it out by location type, like where there’s big sort of concerns, it’s more on the sort of large and mid-sized cities. Like if you’re in a coastal market this summer, like especially coastal higher end.

Jamie: You’re sitting pretty, like people are booking, like they’re booking it in essentially the same lead times as before. Like forward trends are looking pretty, if you’re on the lower end in these urban markets, even in mountain markets, like we’re seeing overall pacing down about 3% for the summer, but then you sort of expand that out, like budget, really weak and luxury, not as like this sort of trend holds across.

Jamie: So it’s those lower income consumers that have really been and hit hard, uh, by the uncertainty, by inflation. Um, not necessarily knowing if they’re gonna have a job six months from now and wanting to wait to sort of make that sort of forward commitment on bookings. But if you’re in that sort of top and 10% of the income spectrum, like.

Jamie: You’re still booking without a abandon. You’re and traveling, you’re, you’re traveling overseas. And, and that’s where we see those trends very strong. If you’re a host now in Europe, like you’re feeling pretty good about this summer and people booked for in advance and like you’re, you’re not seeing those sort of same trends that we’ve been talking about.

Jamie: Yeah.

Gil: Especially in, in Europe where you’re getting a lot of overseas travelers coming into it. Um, here in the States, we have a lot of inter interstate travel there, especially in like pigeon forward gallberry, like we were drivable to what, more than half of America. Um,

Jamie: And Gatlinburg, like you’re one of the markets that could care less about international travelers, but that’s also means you’re more susceptible to domestic travel trends. Um, yeah. So

Gil: A lot, a lot of

Jamie: on average, like, it’s only like, I think it’s like three or 4% of Gatlinburg demand comes from international travelers.

Jamie: It’s not much.

Gil: It is very, it’s very, very little, but you’re right that like the folks around us in the neighboring states, they’re now traveling abroad and that’s, I think that’s where we’re getting hit probably more than anything else.

Jamie: Yeah. Why go to that berg when you can go to the Alps?

Gil: Yeah, I would too. I mean it in some places, especially in, in like Japan for instance, the dollar has gotten so strong for us that there’s just been a huge trend of folks just flocking over there. Um.

Jamie: yeah. And demand for Americans traveling to Japan is up 30% year over year. Last year was up 30%. Like the amount of Americans going to Japan because of the sort of currency differential has exploded. Like it’s, it’s massive. Um, and it’s, and it’s real in terms of like impacting US trends and we’re not, and it’s one of the, and the trends that sort of stayed sort of post pandemic is the, um, there’s been almost no recovery.

Jamie: From Asian travelers coming to the us. So if you look at occupancy trends like up and down the West coast, like from Seattle to um, um, even to like areas like Bend San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego, like such a high share of demand was coming from Asian travelers. Like they’re still down 50% compared to pre pandemic levels, and we’re not seeing growth this year much at all, uh, in terms of those travelers coming back.

Jamie: So that’s, that’s still weighing on performance on those western cities.

Gil: Yeah. So I guess, uh, in summary, what’s the, what’s the big takeaway from, from, from all of this?

Jamie: And one, it’s, I, you’ve gotta have diversification on your booking channels. Like, like, like if you want to get international travelers and they’re booking through let’s say booking.com and like you’re only on Airbnb or vrbo like. You’re not gonna be on that channel that they have that propensity to book through.

Jamie: Um, if you’re, and have a guest that wants to now book direct to then save on on those channel fees and you don’t have a direct booking website, like you may lose that potential guests next year. That and chooses another option that does, uh, that now went to the market and saw all those and other property managers that are there that are willing to make them a deal if they, if they book direct.

Jamie: Um, and we see, and all the time, like the OTAs are making changes. VRBO went through a massive platform in migration, uh, last summer. Um, uh, that, and they essentially turned off brand marketing. They saw a massive decrease in overall bookings coming through that platform. Um, so. Any sort of business that is too much dependent on one single channel and can really be impacted versus, uh, a listing that’s on multiple channels that when you do see one pullback that you can sort of see the subsequent impact or increase in other channels.

Jamie: Uh, you can dial down revenue management strategies across different channels. Um, create different sort of, um, discounts or things for, um, I guess booking from different countries, from different states, different cities. Like I am a big proponent of making sure you’re multi-channel and that that’s one of the ways to insulate yourself against trends that are impacting on different sorts of travelers around the world.

Gil: Yeah, so just, just kind of summarize it. One, diversify your channel mix and that you’re talking not just about the OTAs and, and, but also direct and vice versa as well too. Really diversify across all of them. And I think depending on the type of state, you might emphasize OTAs more or direct more, but this is something that you have to think about.

Gil: Two is as the industry has become more fragmented, the competition has actually gotten stronger, and leveraging the technology is really important for you to kind of keep up with things. And then three, just stay on top of all the trends. Don’t lift your hands off the wheels and assume that even though you have dynamic pricing, that it’s just gonna take care of everything for you.

Gil: That’s, that’s like for me, that was like the big three takeaways from today’s conversation.

Jamie: Absolutely. Those are, those are great takeaways and, and things that, and. Are important during any parts of the cycle. Like those are things I would’ve suggested 10 years ago, but one, it’s so much easier today and as the industry has really professionalized, it’s so much more important.

Gil: Yeah. Yeah, it’s, you’re definitely gonna left behind if you don’t start using a PMS and starting to be across multiple channels. You’re not leveraging, you’re not leveraging your data, you’re not doing dynamic pricing. Like those are critical things that you need to be doing today, if not a couple years back even.

Jamie: Yeah, and it’s like so much so that like we bought A PMS and we’re including it like in an air, DNA subscription. Like, we see you need to do this, like you should be doing it. We’re gonna try to make it as easy as possible for all new hosts to start doing that.

Gil: Yeah, it almost, it’s the status quo now.

Jamie: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Gil: Yeah. Awesome. Jamie, I usually end the show with three questions. Um, first question, what’s one piece of mindset advice that you would give to someone that’s starting something completely new? And I know you talked to a lot of new investors, so you have a lot of experience in this one.

Jamie: Yeah, I, I came into the short term rental industry, sort of new from hotels in 2020. Um, I thought I knew something about the industry. I, I didn’t, um, and I, I had to learn it from the beginning. Uh, how I started is I listened to, I think, 20 different podcasts every week. Like I, and so the advice there would be like, like, have some humility.

Jamie: Don’t feel like you know everything, and, and try to learn from those that are out there and doing. And so many people now are willing to share that advice. It’s free, uh, you can do it passively. Like don’t be afraid to just go all in.

Gil: Yeah, and that’s actually really, really good advice. And I think it’s even almost special to our industry because what I’ve found, and I’ve mentioned it many times on the show, is that we’re in an industry that. We don’t gatekeep what we know we like to share and we don’t see each other as like direct competition.

Gil: Like I know a lot of my neighbors in many of the markets in the ransom market. I know five of my neighbors on my block and but yet we still talk about like we share our calendars, we share our available, we share what our rates are because I think we’re just trying to help each other out. And if you are someone that is getting into this, specifically this industry, don’t think that you need to tackle this on your own.

Gil: There’s a lot of resources and a lot of resources are good resources and they don’t have to be from big mastermind groups or whatever, but just generally, a lot of folks are, they’re learning it for the first time themselves and they wanna share it.

Jamie: Yep. Absolutely.

Gil: Awesome. Second question, what’s a, what’s a good book recommendation that you would have for me?

Gil: I’m a big reader nowadays. I’m constantly figuring out like, what do I need to learn? Um, so do you have any good book recommendations?

Jamie: Um hmm. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll tell you a recent book, um, I read that I really enjoyed, um, and it was his first book that sort of, I. I loved, and I’m talking about, uh, I’m not sure if you follow Nate Silver, uh, but his, his first book was, uh, called The Signal and the Noise. Um, and it speaks to me like in terms of being a data analyst of like, and you just think about and daily rates and how they vary.

Jamie: And then you sort of put a trend line through it and there’s the sort of signal that’s the trend and there’s the noise that’s sort of the day-to-day movements. Uh, and he just did a second book, uh, called On the Edge and sort of how to think about risk. Uh, and I just think it’s a great sort of way to think about your mindset and like how you sort of internalized risk, how you sort of set your priors, sort of what you think, and then how you adjust to new information.

Jamie: Um, and he sort of puts it in sort of the in framework of gambling. Uh, but it’s, and I’m not a gambler, but it, and it really resonated with me on how I think about i my life, the risks we take. And the risks I take in the business. ’cause ultimately, like revenue management is all about like, what is your risk tolerance?

Jamie: Uh, and those that have high risk tolerance, a lot of that, that’s what you need to drive sort of incremental and revenue gains. And if you don’t have it, like, it’s not like you’re gonna have a non-profitable business, but I, it, it, it may not be as profitable as it as, as it could be.

Gil: Yeah, I love that. Which one of the two books would you recommend, uh, to read first?

Jamie: Uh, I would start with signal and noise and it’s a bit dated. It’s probably 10 or 15 years now. So some of the examples might not be as relevant, but then I am then use that as the preface of reading the second.

Gil: Yeah, I actually like some of the older books, uh, more nowadays where I find like there’s some good classics out there that I can read over and over again, and it’s been published a good 10 plus years back and it still holds very, very true.

Jamie: No, it, the, the learnings all hold true, uh, from, from both. But the examples of like, talk about presidential elections from like, of like Obama and you’re like, oh, we’re, we’re way past Obama right now in terms of controversial elections. Yeah,

Gil: That Yes. That, that is, that is an area where a lot of old examples no longer hold true. And there’s new paradigms for sure. Um, all right, Jimmy, last question. Um, what’s, we talked a lot about direct bookings and different channels and such. What’s one piece of tactical advice that you want our listeners to walk away with that are either looking to amplify their direct bookings or even just get started in the first place?

Jamie: yeah. So, and I’ll, I’ll skip the, an obvious advice of like, start with a PMS, um, and go with the sort of secondary one of like, if. Um, and we give away a lot of free data at Air DNA. Um, and, and one of the ones I’d sort of start with, uh, is understanding the channel mix in the market that you’re looking to invest in.

Jamie: Of like, there are a lot of markets, like we’re, maybe you don’t need to be in multiple channels, maybe you just need like, Airbnb direct, like, but like start with an understanding of like, what is everyone else sort of listing on and what, what are sort of guest booking through. Um, and then like use that to drive your strategy.

Jamie: Because like I see too many people start with like, I need to be on everything. I need to be on Google. I need to be on Marriott. I need to be on booking, I need to be on vrbo. Like, and they’re like. They’re so worried about being on all the channels to begin with because they’ve listened to you or me talk about, like this great sort of advice on sort of on channel diversification.

Jamie: Like depending on where you’re investing in, you might only need to be on two or three. Uh, you might only need to focus on one to begin with. And then, and as you sort of, and start on one, get your direct booking site, then maybe add a second one to diversify, but that there’s not sort of meaningful traffic coming through these others.

Jamie: So it’s really like, start with just understanding what is the profile of your market, what are other people doing, um, and starting there and not try to boil the ocean from the beginning.

Gil: Yeah, and I, I see this a lot, even with the PMSs, where maybe three, four years back, there were a lot of like small micro OTAs that were popping up. And you, you see this PMS like updating the channels that they’re at. And we weren’t, we didn’t know where things were gonna go, but a

Gil: lot of them end up now retiring a bunch of different channels that are just not getting adopted.

Gil: Um. I completely agree with you, you might end up spending a whole bunch of effort on figuring out how do you do payment processing across different channels and and so on, which may not be worth it.

Jamie: Yep.

Gil: Awesome. Jamie, this was a huge pleasure to be able to talk to you and, and kind of geek out about data, um, and learn really just what’s happening in the market, given kinda the nature you wouldn’t, don’t be surprised if I asked you to come back to the show in, in a little bit and tell us what we were wrong on, what we were right on, uh, in 2025 and how it’s, how it’s like now.

Gil: Um, so

Jamie: No, I’d love to come back. Yeah.

Gil: And I, I’ll definitely see you at some of the other conferences later this year. Um, but until next time, it was good to have you on.

Jamie: Awesome. Thanks Hill.

Gil: Bye.