Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / Has Airbnb Peaked? Jamie Lane on Booking.com, Direct Bookings & 2026 Trends

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Has Airbnb Peaked? Jamie Lane on Booking.com, Direct Bookings & 2026 Trends · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

0:00
Maybe this is the year that we see inbound international to the
0:03
US exceed 2019 levels. As long as Trump doesn't mess it
0:07
up, I think this will be the year of international travel to
0:11
the US and be a big one. Disruptions coming the World
0:14
Cup. It's not going to be as big as a
0:17
lot of US hosts hope it will be, but I think it is going to be
0:22
the biggest travel event happening in short term rentals
0:26
that we've ever seen in the history of our industry.
0:30
Has Airbnb reached its peak? Is booking.com winning the OTA
0:35
battle? Why are the riches in the
0:37
niches? And what are the biggest booking
0:40
and data trends everyone needs to know in 2026?
0:44
Jamie Lane from Air DNA is the special guest on the Host Planet
0:48
podcast, and he'll be answering all these questions and more on
0:51
today's show. Jamie, thank you for joining us
0:59
on the House Planet podcast. Let's get straight into it.
1:02
Has Airbnb peaked? It depends, but I'm going to say
1:09
I'm peak revenue, absolutely not.
1:11
I'm this company's growing and at 10% a year and they're going
1:15
to continue to grow at a pretty substantial rate.
1:19
But we look at their growth rate and they were growing massively
1:22
during COVID and a lot of the markets, their key markets that
1:26
they were growing in are maturing US, most of Western
1:30
Europe are, are very mature markets for Airbnb.
1:35
So we absolutely are seeing the growth rate decline.
1:37
And and we're, I don't see unless some of these new things
1:42
that they're launching like services, experiences, hotels
1:45
really take off that we're going to see in the 15 to 20% growth
1:50
rates that we saw in years past. Do you think any of the things
1:53
that they are launching are going to take off?
1:55
Are they going to move the needle much?
1:58
In their current iterations, I don't think so.
2:01
I think they're so far a bit too limited in their ambitions in
2:07
terms of what they want to launch and services experiences.
2:13
Like everything's got to be special curated.
2:16
Like let me book a ticket to the Louvre.
2:19
Like let me do the things that people are actually booking in
2:21
these markets. Like what do I do in every city
2:25
when I go to it? Like when I'm in Europe, I get a
2:27
walking tour. Like the fact that I can't do
2:29
like a normal walking tour and book it like it's got to be this
2:32
unique experience, like, means that you're never gonna see the
2:37
massive growth, the mass, mass adoption that we see.
2:40
Like if Airbnb did the same thing for their home rentals as
2:45
they're doing for doing for services and experiences, like
2:49
I, I wouldn't be able to book half the rentals that I, I would
2:52
today like. And yeah, like the private room
2:56
in, in San Francisco isn't sexy. But, and why do people book and
3:03
through Airbnb? Because it's, it's cheap, it's
3:08
in the neighborhood they want to be.
3:10
It's it's more mass market and the fact that they go so sort of
3:14
niche for some of these things like, oh, we're going to launch
3:18
hotels, but it's, it's got to be really unique boutique hotels
3:22
that we're going to allow on our platform.
3:24
Like let me book a Holiday Inn if a Holiday Inn wants a list on
3:27
the platform. Yeah, it's not always the
3:30
Billboard PR branded experience that people want or need.
3:35
You know, there's, there's a reason why we have mass market
3:38
stuff and sometimes it's just, it's just what people want.
3:41
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4:59
Let's look at the OTAs, then generally the big three.
5:03
I mean Airbnb, booking.com, VRBO, where do you see that
5:08
they're all standing at the moment?
5:10
How would you compare the three and their trajectories right
5:13
now? Yeah.
5:15
And what's I think really interesting is they're all
5:18
converging in many ways, but they're doing it through
5:23
entirely different paths. So Airbnb started in the major
5:28
cities in the US and in Western Europe with private entire home
5:33
listings. They have pushed really heavily
5:38
into Europe and are dominating the sort of short term rental
5:42
space. And as we talked about, they're
5:44
now moving into hotels, They're growing globally and they're
5:48
figuring out where growth could be and sort of moving into those
5:52
sections. I'm booking started with hotels,
5:55
I'm dominating boutique hotels in Europe.
5:59
And now they're trying as quickly as they can to push into
6:02
the and push into the States to make inroads on short term
6:08
rentals there, make inroads on even on hotels there to be a
6:12
relevant player in the sort of biggest travel market in the in
6:16
the world. They're growing, they're and
6:19
growing at a fast rate, but they have a long way to go to have
6:25
the hotel distribution that's Expedia and have the short term
6:29
rental distribution that Airbnb has.
6:30
And then Expedia Verbo like they've got a hold on the
6:36
vacation rental markets in the States.
6:40
They have a hold on and the best distribution of hotels and now
6:48
they're trying to make inroads in Europe on the short term
6:53
rental side. But what's interesting is
6:55
they're not trying to glow globally like Airbnb in booking
7:01
is on the short term rental side.
7:02
They like they like their core markets and they're sort of
7:05
sticking to that. But ultimately and we're moving
7:09
to the OTAs where instead of homes or hotels, it's going to
7:12
be stays and that each of these OTAs is going to have a mix of
7:20
the best hotel and short term rental options for you.
7:24
Who do you feel like is winning out of the Big Three at the
7:29
moment and who should be most worried?
7:31
Yeah, I think Booking is winning right now and they have
7:36
dominated growth in the past like and I think it's four years
7:41
in a row they've had the strongest growth rates and they
7:46
are making inroads in the US though it and it's slow and
7:52
Verbo took a massive hit when they sort of re platformed on
7:58
the Expedia platform. I, I do think they've got some
8:02
of the best momentum right now, like and maybe that and all that
8:06
work they did on re platforming and the ability to bring both
8:10
Expedia inventory onto Verbo and Verbo inventory onto Expedia.
8:15
We'll pay inroads for them and 2026 and 2027 like I'm hopeful
8:21
I'm, but they've got a long ways to go to be able to get there.
8:25
And then Airbnb. They are throwing and spaghetti
8:30
at the wall to try to get something to reaccelerate
8:33
growth, whether it be hotels experiences, but they cannot
8:40
lose sight of their cash cow, which is short term rentals.
8:46
And if they are not continuing to innovate in their core
8:48
product, like they're going to get left behind.
8:51
And all the things that Booking and Verbo are doing of building
8:57
AI into the booking process. And I love Verbo sort of ask a
9:02
question like on their booking pages like and does this
9:05
property except pets does it? And what is the Wi-Fi speed?
9:09
Like all these things that you and use hunt on all these pages
9:14
to be able to find info like just give me a question box and
9:17
allow me to ask ask these questions.
9:19
Like, I think it's actually pretty innovative and is a good
9:22
use of AI for for booking a short term rental when every
9:26
property is unique. So and Airbnb I think is I'm the
9:30
most worried that they're going to actually start getting behind
9:35
because they're so focused on all these other verticals to be
9:39
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for further details. Now one thing Airbnb has done to
11:02
try and get a bit more revenue is to have the jumping
11:06
Commission of course. And I was looking at one of your
11:09
posts on LinkedIn said 445,000 US listings have been affected
11:15
by the jumping Commission from 3% to 15.5%.
11:19
So how have hosts dealt with this increase and what impact is
11:24
it having on the US market? Yeah.
11:26
So this change in fee structure happen for all PMS connected
11:33
hosts in the US and Europe hosts were already on this.
11:37
Like if you were PMS connected you, you already had to do the
11:40
host only fee structure. But I suspect a lot of this came
11:45
from Airbnb does a ton of user research and conversion research
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on their app. And if you've been following
11:55
along on social media, TikTok, Instagram over the past few
11:58
years, like where has an Airbnb sort of come up the most?
12:02
It's on people complaining against about all the additional
12:06
fees. So I've got cleaning fees, I've
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got a service fee, I've got a guest, all these fees.
12:12
And ultimately, it's not the price that people care about or
12:17
that we're complaining about is that they felt like there was 5
12:21
different line items on when they went to check out that
12:25
caused them ultimately not to convert.
12:28
So back in April, they switched to a all inclusive price.
12:35
A lot of that was driven by legislation in the US and where
12:38
they sort of stopped sort of calling out the cleaning fee and
12:44
any other additional fees. But they're still showing the
12:48
and four hosts that had the split fee.
12:53
They would show that service charge and they could see
12:57
because there was and there was a hundred 150,000 hosts that
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were on the host on the fee structure.
13:02
I ensured that those were guests didn't see that additional
13:06
charge, that they were converting at a higher rate.
13:09
So all right, let's start pushing everyone to this all
13:13
inclusive host only fee structure.
13:17
And let's start with just the PMS connected ones because those
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are going to be the professionals.
13:21
Those are the ones we're going to be able to communicate most
13:24
effectively with on why this change is happening.
13:26
It's essentially the same charge, same difference between
13:30
what the guest pays and what the host collects.
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We're just going to put it on your PNL instead of charging an
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extra to the guest. And like, I don't think it was
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the best rollout and all the communication was a little
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fuzzy. I don't think most people
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actually understand why it was happening or how it was
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happening. A lot of people thought it was
13:51
going rolling out for everyone on December 1st because of how
13:55
they sort of warded it. And there was a lot of pushback
14:00
and there was a lot of hosts that thought like, man, Airbnb
14:04
is now charging me an additional 12%.
14:09
Like how am I going to be able to and be competitive now when
14:14
it essentially just had to go in and increase your rates by 18%.
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And the amount the guest is paying is the same, the amount
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you're collecting is the same. And it's just, I'm, I'm slightly
14:24
moving around on the money. But then when we go went in and
14:27
looked at after that change happened, how many people
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actually raised the rates by 18%?
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It's only like for it wasn't a lot.
14:37
It was only like 30% and then a third increased it by like a
14:43
certain amount, like offsetting the expenses a bit.
14:46
But what people were worried about was that everyone else
14:50
wasn't going to raise the rates. And that all of a sudden, and if
14:54
you're thinking about as a professional property manager,
14:57
like it's less like, and what the ultimate rate is, it's how
15:03
the rate is comparable to my competition.
15:05
And if they're not going to raise the rate, then I can't
15:07
raise the rate. I'm going to wait and see what
15:09
everyone else does. And I think fortunately this all
15:13
happened in October when it's like it's shoulder season,
15:17
there's not a lot of bookings that are happening.
15:19
Like I'll maybe raise my rate like 10% and then I'll see what
15:24
my competitors do. And if everyone else raise the
15:26
rates, then maybe I'll start pushing it up.
15:28
So we are starting to see people and over time increase the rates
15:33
to make it where your take home pays the same.
15:36
But it's more of a a wait and see approach for most people.
15:40
With that 70% not putting their rates up, you imagine that their
15:45
rentals then suddenly they're appearing cheaper where Airbnb
15:48
getting more bookings at this point.
15:50
I mean, I, I mean, that's what they want, right?
15:51
You know, they always want things to be a bit cheaper to
15:53
get people to to book more. Yeah.
15:56
And we have seen bookings relatively strong in the fourth
16:01
quarter. Airbnb had warned investors that
16:06
fourth quarter growth rate was going to be relatively weak and
16:11
compared to what we'd seen in the first half of the year, like
16:14
they were guiding people, it was going to be like 5 or 6% when
16:18
the rest of the year it's been about 8 or 9%.
16:21
And so far we've seen the in quarter trending about 7%.
16:27
So and can we and attribute some of that to and weaker prices
16:32
like maybe a little bit but and Ulta Q4 isn't a big booking
16:38
quarter and Q1 is when it's sort of make or break for Airbnb for
16:43
the entire year. Most of the bookings happen in
16:47
Q1 for stays in Q2 and Q3. So I think they're going to
16:53
learn a lot on, on, on what the changes in conversion are.
16:57
I think it's a good natural experiment of like what happens
17:00
when all of a sudden you discount properties by 15%
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because someone didn't change the rates higher?
17:05
Like do they start seeing more bookings or not?
17:08
Like I'm really looking forward to digging into the data and
17:12
saying I'm, I'm do we see any differences in booking activity?
17:18
But so far it's it's a bit too early to really see because of
17:22
I'm and we've had like one month of data so far.
17:25
It's a brilliant, brilliant data set for for you guys who are
17:28
digging deep into this stuff all the time.
17:31
Another of your LinkedIn posts then, which I spotted about
17:35
niche listings and, and we hear this quite often.
17:38
You know that the riches are in the niches in in the STR world
17:42
and you've got some data to back this up.
17:44
So just tell us about the rentals which are set up to to
17:48
host Bachelorette parties in the US.
17:51
We call them hen parties here in the UK and why they earn more.
17:56
Yeah. So this was a fun analysis.
18:02
I sort of tasked my team with of like, we want to think about all
18:07
the avatars that are sort of booking short term rentals and
18:11
like what are going to be some of the avatars that you could
18:14
and avatars I'm describing as like guest personas that go out
18:20
and book. And so we could like different
18:23
groups and it could be families traveling to the beach.
18:25
It could be a girls trip, a girls trip specifically around a
18:30
wedding, like a hen party or a bachelor party.
18:33
It could be I'm friends wine weekend, like all these
18:37
different personas. And what are, are, are there any
18:44
listings out there specifically designing and amenitizing their
18:49
properties for those avatars? And then if they do that, what
18:55
is the additional earnings that they're getting compared to like
19:00
an average listing similar size location in that same market?
19:06
So what we found was that for properties like in Austin or
19:12
Nashville or Scottsdale, where there's a lot of Bachelorette
19:15
parties going to those properties that paint their
19:20
walls pink, add and make up stations, do these things.
19:26
And most of it isn't like significant expense to actually
19:31
make your property like attractive to this group.
19:34
Like what is their difference in earnings?
19:36
And like for these properties, we're seeing 2030% and more
19:41
revenue coming in if they're making these properties
19:45
attractive to those groups. And what's crazy too is like the
19:49
changing booking patterns. Like I interviewed this one host
19:54
that has gone all in on making her properties sort of bookable
19:59
for these events. Her lead time is on average is
20:04
more than 365 days in advance. Like like this is you think when
20:13
someone's planning this type of party and like getting their
20:17
friends together, they want to find the perfect property.
20:20
They're booking it really far in advance because to get your
20:23
wedding venue it might be two years in advance like and
20:26
they're. Yeah, that they're booking.
20:29
So we're, this is going to be part of a series that we look
20:32
into different niches and how people are amenitizing,
20:39
designing their properties or even like setting up and the
20:44
settings around the properties, making their property available.
20:48
And then what is the changing in earnings that they can do?
20:51
Like not every market, not every property is going to be
20:55
unsuitable for going after these niches, but there might be some
21:01
niche in your market, there may be some investment strategy that
21:04
you could come up with to really differentiate yourself and earn
21:09
additional revenue there. I love it.
21:11
Yeah. I mean, the lead time of 365
21:13
days, that's that's phenomenal. And yeah, it just boils down to
21:18
knowing what your guests want and delivering it.
21:21
And like you say, you know, those things don't have to be
21:23
expensive things. Painting the wall of certain
21:25
color, having the the makeup station.
21:28
It reminds me, actually, we, I was on an STR retreat not so
21:32
long ago and we were asked a group of us to come up with an
21:35
idea for an STR related business.
21:38
And a few of us said if we were to set up a business tomorrow,
21:41
property management business, we'd want properties that are
21:43
themed and aimed at a very, very specific niche audience.
21:48
And the one we came up with, we called this make believe company
21:51
team stay. And the idea was that we, you
21:53
know, the rental would be near a stadium of a major sports team.
21:57
I imagine an NFL team, let's say in the in the US, I've just come
22:00
back from Kansas City. So let's say the Kansas City
22:02
Chiefs and you have this rental and it's completely decked out.
22:05
It's themed. It's, you know, everything is
22:08
NFL, everything is Chief related.
22:09
And you know, you know, Travis Kelchi and and Taylor Swift and
22:13
all that kind of stuff. Maybe Taylor meets you at the
22:16
rental and takes you to the game or something like that.
22:18
But yeah, you know, something like that, which is a a genuine
22:21
experience. We go back to what Airbnb were
22:23
saying. But yeah, yeah.
22:25
As an idea for a business there for for all of you, all of you
22:27
out there listening. And it actually goes in the
22:29
theme that we see happening across the hotel sector.
22:32
So I spent 10 years in hotels prior to coming into short term
22:36
rentals and lifestyle boutique hotels are and what people are
22:41
designing for and the type of brands that are being built.
22:45
And if you think in a market, someone building a hotel that
22:49
sort of themed to attract a certain type of traveller and
22:52
they've got 200 rooms like there might be, if you think about the
22:57
market that you're in, like can I do 10/15/30 themed properties
23:03
and they're actually be enough to demand to support those type
23:07
of listings, I absolutely. But it is understanding your
23:10
market, it's understanding why people are going there, what
23:14
they're wanting to do there, what are the types of properties
23:16
that they would book? And could you then make that
23:22
property and directly designed to go after that group?
23:31
And then if you do it like I'm the outsize earnings that you
23:34
get from it, like and I love people that are thinking really
23:38
hard about those type of design and guest groups. 100%, yeah.
23:46
I mean, you, you can see it working with something like, I
23:48
don't know, you know, the the Masters at Augusta, for example,
23:52
if you've got a property around there which is set up for people
23:54
who are visiting, they're attending that tournament, they
23:57
probably want to play golf as well.
23:59
If everything's set up around that, that theme, everybody gets
24:02
a get a green jacket on arrival. That, that, that I'd love a
24:06
green jacket, by the way. But that, that would, that would
24:08
really, really work. So, yeah.
24:10
But what brilliant ideas we're giving to to SDR professionals
24:14
here, right, a little bit more generally then.
24:17
So 2026, what are the big booking and demand trends that
24:23
you're seeing? How can you help house and
24:26
property managers prepare for the year ahead?
24:29
Yeah. Maybe I'll start with just
24:32
what's happening on the supply side because this is something
24:37
we've been analyzing a lot because I think it's going to
24:40
drive a lot of the booking trends of you look at most of
24:46
Europe, we're actually seeing supply falling in many countries
24:53
because of new regulation being introduced.
24:57
So you look at Spain, Italy, Croatia, some of these sort of
25:02
key short term rental markets like there are fewer listings
25:07
today than there were last year. What does that mean in terms of
25:13
booking trends? And it's going to be like what
25:16
we saw happened during COVID of the biggest driver of the
25:21
increase occupancies that we saw in many markets wasn't because
25:26
there's more people traveling, just because there's fewer
25:29
listings available to be booked, which pushed occupancies to the
25:33
record highs that we saw. So I'm actually pretty bullish
25:38
for a lot of markets across the world that we're going to see
25:43
rising occupancies because there's fewer listings to be
25:48
booked and that that's concentrating booking activity
25:51
into fewer number of properties, which is for existing operators
25:57
right there. If you're able to navigate
25:58
through the regulation, it's going to be good for occupancy
26:01
and that's going to be good for your ability to increase rates
26:05
and and maybe offset some of the rising expenses that you're
26:08
seeing in the US. I'm not as bullish.
26:14
I actually think that supply is going to be re accelerating some
26:20
as home values have been coming down, interest rates have been
26:24
coming down and it's actually becoming a much more investor
26:27
friendly market where it hasn't been like the past two years
26:31
have been terrible times to invest in short term rentals
26:34
like finding cash flowing investments has been very hasn't
26:37
been impossible, but it's been much more difficult than it has
26:40
been in years past. And now we're starting to see
26:43
the tide change. We're going to see more supply
26:47
being added in. And we're at a time where the
26:51
economy's on a bit of like shaky footing.
26:55
We're seeing GDP growth decelerate.
26:59
We're not seeing it fall. We're not in a recession, but we
27:04
are seeing consumer confidence sort of pull back.
27:07
And for the vast majority of consumers, those in the sort of
27:12
bottom 80% of the income spectrum, we're seeing them pull
27:17
back on spending and that is impacting a lot of travel.
27:22
We're seeing hotel demand falling right now.
27:26
We're seeing occupancies drop for most budget economy, mid
27:30
scale short term rentals, which is is putting some pressure on
27:36
occupancy there. And we expect that to continue
27:39
into the year. And where we see things looking
27:45
really good is for those upscale and luxury properties.
27:48
So those are typically the ones that have done a great job of
27:51
amenitizing a great job at design as where short term
27:56
rentals or hotels are different. Like in hotels, a luxury
28:01
property is something, it's one where there's like 15 people in
28:05
the lobby that are going to take care of every need you might
28:09
have, right? Then you get to the room, like
28:12
room at a luxury hotel and mid scale hotel don't look too
28:18
different, right? But for a short term rental,
28:20
like what's going to cause you to get that outline really high
28:24
rate? It's not that there's a Butler
28:26
in the property. And I haven't been to many short
28:28
term rentals that have on site butlers.
28:31
Maybe there's some in the UK, but it's those properties that
28:37
have and really great amenities, very well designed.
28:41
They've got a pool, maybe they've got a great view, their
28:45
properties, they're going above and beyond and to make it be a
28:49
great stay. They're the ones that are
28:51
consistently cleaned. They've got great review scores.
28:55
Those are the properties people are willing and able to pay more
28:57
for. And those on the higher end in
29:00
the income spectrum are continue to and their incomes are
29:04
outpacing inflation. The stock markets are record
29:07
high. Their home is worth more than
29:11
ever. They feel rich, they are rich
29:14
and they're traveling more than ever.
29:18
And what happens when we go into recessions is like everyone sort
29:22
of pulls back, but it's like people still take their trips.
29:26
They maybe go for a little bit shorter, they maybe instead of a
29:29
luxury home, stay in a mid scale home.
29:32
And that's not what we're seeing right now.
29:34
Like we're just seeing those on the lower end of the income
29:38
spectrum pull back and those on the upper end spend more.
29:42
So it's this weird dichotomy of the well off or feeling better
29:49
and those that aren't as well off or feeling worse.
29:52
And we're seeing the economy move in that sort of direction.
29:55
The rich get richer, right? What does the data tell us about
30:00
guest behavior right now? Yeah, guest behavior is moving
30:07
towards like, like looking across the OTAs.
30:13
So we've every OTA has added badges in the past year or two,
30:19
like and you go to Airbnb and you see these top badges, top
30:24
1%, top 5%, top 10%. We've got guest favorites now in
30:29
addition to super host, we've got Verbo launching their top
30:33
properties. So guest loved or premier host
30:39
is now gone to a property level as opposed to a host level,
30:43
which still doesn't make sense to me.
30:44
How can you be a premier host at a listing level?
30:48
So guests are now I'm taking that signal of, oh, I should
30:55
only be booking these guest favorites.
30:59
I should only be booking these top properties.
31:02
And it's causing this dichotomy within the listings of those
31:07
that are sort of optimized to get these top badges are doing
31:14
better. We're still seeing guest book
31:20
and the gamut of different location types.
31:23
Like if we would have talked four years ago and you'd be
31:25
like, Jamie, everyone's going to these rural areas, they're going
31:29
to the mountains. They're they're not traveling to
31:31
the cities. And would you expect that to
31:34
change? I would have said absolutely,
31:36
James, like people are start traveling to the cities again,
31:39
they're going to stop going to the countryside.
31:41
And we haven't seen that like international travel to the
31:47
states still hasn't come back. Europeans are not traveling to
31:53
the states. We've now seen Canadians pull
31:56
back on travel to the States because of sort of perceived and
32:03
maybe how much they like our current administration or not to
32:08
put it. Very, very diplomatic.
32:13
And that is really impacted sort of performance in a lot of
32:18
markets. So if you're in the Adirondacks,
32:20
right on the Canadian border and we're used to a whole bunch of
32:24
Canadians coming down to the summer, like you didn't see
32:27
that. Now we're heading into winter
32:30
and Canadians typically head down to Florida, head down to
32:34
Southern California, go to Hawaii.
32:36
Like we're not going to see that this year.
32:38
And that's a a big portion of overall demand that is
32:42
essentially, and it's not that they're not making trips like
32:46
they're going to be going to the Caribbean, they're going to be
32:48
going to the Azores, They're going to be finding other great
32:52
warm destinations to go to. It's just not going to be
32:55
Southern Southern California or or South Florida this year.
32:59
It's interesting. Yeah.
33:00
I was having a conversation actually in in the gym yesterday
33:03
about the States because I've, I've just come back from Kansas
33:05
City and one thing I found, and it's something that a lot of
33:08
people from the UK have said to me about the States is that it
33:11
is really, really expensive right now.
33:14
And part of that is to do with the the currency, you know, the
33:18
the pound is not as strong as it was.
33:20
I can remember going not so long ago and it was 2 lbs to a dollar
33:28
and I think I got a pair of Levi's for 14 lbs, which felt
33:32
like an amazing deal. And now it felt like everything
33:36
was expensive. You know, I was going for a
33:38
coffee and I think it was a coffee and a bagel or something
33:41
that it was over $20.00. So it felt really, and I know a
33:45
lot of people have said this about Las Vegas as well, so it
33:47
seems like the hotel prices have just gone crazy there and not as
33:50
many people are going. So yeah, I think, you know, you
33:52
throw in like you say, concerns about the administration, the
33:56
cost it it, it feels like a really expensive place to travel
33:59
to at the moment, the States and.
34:02
And then the opposite is true too.
34:03
As an American, the Europe feels like it's on sale.
34:07
Like going to Europe. It's like man, like 1020 years
34:11
ago things felt so expensive. Now it feels I'm I'm not cheap
34:17
to go to London, but like I know a beer doesn't seem like it
34:22
costs us much now. And you see like travel from the
34:27
states to Europe is like 45% above pre pandemic levels.
34:33
And like you look at the demand trends across the UK, France,
34:37
Germany, Italy, Spain, like Americans are driving more
34:43
demand than ever. Like the top inbound country is,
34:46
is Americans. Like even in this year where he
34:49
expected some of that perceived like, oh, like, do I want to go
34:53
to Spain and get and have people squirt and do squirt guns at me
34:58
because I'm I'm part of the over tourism problem.
35:01
Like people didn't pull back. Like people are traveling.
35:05
Americans are traveling to Europe more than ever.
35:08
And like it's, it's not good and it's great for European short
35:14
term rail performance. I'm very bullish actually on
35:18
European demand going forward. It's not great for US short term
35:22
rentals because you don't see the Europeans coming and you
35:27
have the Americans going overseas for their trip.
35:29
So They're US is sort of getting the double whammy of a lack of
35:34
travel. We are.
35:35
We're delighted to take all the US guests.
35:37
We're delighted to take, take that strong dollar.
35:39
But it it, it used to be the opposite for us.
35:41
We'd go to the States and we'd spend a lot of time in your
35:44
malls and all your high streets because buying clothes over
35:47
there was really cheap. Now it isn't.
35:49
But. But yeah, I think these things
35:52
that they turn around eventually, don't they?
35:54
So I'm sure we'll see lots of travel to the States in the
35:56
future. We did touch a bit on regulation
35:59
before. So I'm going to skip through to
36:01
direct bookings, which continue to grow.
36:06
From your vantage point, what role do you think direct
36:09
channels will play over the next few years, especially when we
36:13
factor in Airbnb fee changes? Yeah, I think we would all like
36:23
more direct bookings. The problem is, is that the OTAs
36:31
are getting better at better at driving demand to their
36:35
properties. And looking at our data, like we
36:40
actually see the direct, direct bookings are still going up, but
36:44
their share of overall bookings is actually coming down, which
36:50
isn't a good like with all this sort of push to book direct,
36:54
like OTAs are still taking a greater and greater share of the
36:58
pie of overall bookings. We see Airbnb growing, we see
37:04
booking growing, we see Verbo giving a little bit back.
37:08
But overall, like the OTAs are spending more and more money.
37:14
I'm very worried about what AI is going to do to direct
37:20
bookings. And if I go and search and on
37:25
Google and there's a good chance that a direct booking site, it
37:30
might not be the number one, but it might be 345 in terms of that
37:37
comes up. But now if I do it through and
37:40
Chachi BT or Gemini like it might only give me one or two
37:44
choices and the OTA OTAs booking Verbo have partnerships with
37:51
chat TBT that are bringing up that carousel and app of like,
37:55
oh, here's 3 great short term rentals to book through
37:57
booking.com. Like I might not even see an
38:00
option now for a direct booking site.
38:04
So that really worries me in terms of their ability or guests
38:09
ability to find these direct booking sites if they the OTA if
38:18
direct booking sites do not sort of talk well with the OTAs make
38:22
it easily bookable through like that could be a problem.
38:26
So it's something we're watching in terms of are there are the
38:33
models going to be able to figure out how to bring direct
38:37
booking sites forward? And if they can't do it with
38:40
hotels, if they can't do it with marriott.com and hilton.com,
38:44
Like the, a chance for my site to get picked up is, is very
38:50
low. But I do love like my ability to
38:54
code a direct booking website. Now I'm with and and how Jim and
38:59
I can give me all the prompts that can go and and make my site
39:03
look better. More ability to sort of do it on
39:06
my own and more ability for and all the great booking site
39:10
providers out there to get better and make my property more
39:14
optimized to get show up on traditional SGL and and is
39:18
definitely accelerating. Yeah, you can create a great
39:22
website. It's the old problem, isn't it?
39:24
You can create a great website, you got to get people to it.
39:26
So that's going to continue to be the challenge.
39:30
So for the next year ahead then for 2026, what are the
39:33
predictions that you can share about the STR landscape?
39:37
Any any surprises or disruptions come in do you think?
39:41
Yeah. I think on the disruptions
39:46
coming, we haven't talked about it, but the World Cup is going.
39:50
I think it's going. It's not going to be as big as a
39:57
lot of US hosts hope it will be, but I think it is going to be
40:03
the biggest travel event happening in short term rentals
40:06
that we've ever seen in the history of our industry.
40:11
There's going to be more people traveling in short term rentals
40:14
around this event than ever before.
40:18
I think what's going to happen though, is we're going to see so
40:23
much new supply added, like, and there so many people that are
40:29
going to be first time hosts specifically for this event.
40:33
And any sort of thoughts you had or that host had of like, oh, I
40:38
typically charge $100 a night. I'm going to get 500 or $1000 a
40:42
night because of this event. Like I, I think there's a lot of
40:47
people hoping and you're going to keep hoping.
40:50
And so that's going to be a major disruption.
40:56
There's going to be all these different routes that people are
40:59
going to take of, yeah, you're going to go down to Miami to
41:02
watch Brazil, but you're also going to stop in Orlando.
41:07
You're also maybe they're going to go to New York.
41:09
People are going to take these big trips.
41:13
And maybe this is the year that we see inbound international to
41:16
the US exceed 2019 levels. So as long as Trump doesn't mess
41:22
it up, I think this will be the year of international travel to
41:30
the US and and be a big one, but maybe not the premium that
41:37
people would have expected because of all the new supply
41:41
that's going to come in. I think that makes a lot of
41:44
sense. And yeah, I mean, it's this 48
41:47
teams in this World Cup. It's the biggest World Cup ever,
41:50
previously was 32 teams. Regular listeners will know that
41:54
I worked on the Qatar 2022 World Cup.
41:56
And it's interesting what you say there about not getting the
41:59
boom that you might expect, because I remember we had
42:04
property owners in Qatar who basically waited and wanted to
42:09
charge a premium rate because they expected this massive,
42:12
massive influx of fans. And they were left with empty
42:15
properties at at the end of the day because it didn't quite
42:18
materialize. So very interesting what you say
42:20
there. And and of course, you've got
42:21
your eyes right on the data. So you'll, you'll see, you'll
42:24
see exactly what's going on. OK then, Jim, we've got a few
42:28
questions to finish then, which we ask everybody.
42:32
Your favorite brand in the STR industry, Apart from Air DNA of
42:37
course. My favorite brand.
42:48
This is a cop out, but I'll I'll explain why the Airbnb brand
42:53
like for the space like and I'll I'll compare it to the verbo and
42:58
booking brands. They're the only brand that I
43:02
see doing sort of industry marketing of presenting why a
43:09
short term rental is better than a hotel, why you should like
43:16
because I see it not only like that type of advertising not
43:21
only helps them, it helps direct bookers, it helps Verbo and
43:27
booking. Like it is presenting our
43:29
product as short term rentals and a new light for guests that
43:33
I think raises or expands the pie rather than just trying to
43:39
take a greater share of the overall pie.
43:43
So like I love that type of brand marketing and it's like,
43:47
yes, it presents their brand, but I think it presents the
43:50
industry brand in a different light.
43:53
Yeah, completely agree. It helps, of course, when most
43:57
people in the world refer to a short term rental as an Airbnb.
44:00
Well, yes, there, there. There's a reason for that,
44:03
right? Yeah.
44:03
So they put a, they put a lot of effort into that brand.
44:07
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, well said.
44:10
Individual shout out then. Who in the STR industry would
44:12
you like to give a shout out to and why?
44:14
A. Shout out, I'll give a shout out
44:22
to my Co host on Good Morning Hospitality, Brandy.
44:26
She just started a new role at Stay Terra.
44:31
So Stay Terra and private equity roll up on growing sort of new
44:40
brand and she's coming in there in the operations role.
44:45
And I'm a shout out to all the operators out there of you guys
44:49
are the ones like actually getting these properties turned
44:52
over, dealing with guests like it's those are the hardest roles
44:58
in the industry working in the tech space like and we're
45:01
working with ones and zeros. We don't actually have to clean
45:04
any toilets. Like, it's an easy one, yeah.
45:09
Shout out to Brandy and all the operators and everybody who's
45:12
cleaned the toilet, myself included.
45:15
And finally then if you could give hosts one data backed
45:20
strategy to improve occupancy in rates in 2026, what would it be?
45:27
It would be. I'm going to throw in the plug
45:31
for Air DNA here. Go into Air DNA, go to your
45:33
market, filter to your bedrooms, key amenities like go to then
45:41
the top listings in your market. And I want you to go through
45:46
each of those top ten listings and understand why are guests
45:51
booking those listings? And like it's going to take you
45:55
about an hour because you're going to have to click through
45:57
each of those. You're going to look through the
45:59
photos, but it's going to be very clear for your market, like
46:03
what is driving guests to these properties?
46:07
And then you look at your list, like look at what the
46:10
commonalities are across those top ten properties.
46:13
And that's what you need to do to drive more bookings to your
46:16
property. Fantastic advice and we will put
46:20
a link to Air DNA in the show notes so people can go through
46:24
and do that bit of research and work out what the competition
46:28
are doing to deliver success. Jamie, it's been a real
46:31
pleasure. Thank you for joining us on the
46:33
Host Planet podcast. Awesome.
46:35
Thanks, Jeff. Great to chat to Jamie Lane
46:37
there from Air DNA. Make sure you check out your
46:40
competitors to get ahead in 2026.
46:44
That's just about it for today's episode.
46:45
Remember, this podcast is brought to you in collaboration
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46:51
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47:27
Until next time, happy hosting.