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Articles by Sarah E Stahl
The Vacation Rental Email Automation Playbook: Every Email from Booking to Rebooking
Most vacation rental operators send two emails: a confirmation and a door code. Everything after checkout goes quiet, and the guest who loved your place books somewhere else next year because nobody reminded them you exist. I’ve called email the only channel nobody can take from you. Algorithms change, OTAs raise fees and mask contact details, but a guest list you own keeps paying off.
The 70-20-10 Rule for Hospitality Social Media And How to Build a Week of Content Without Guessing
I used to think the fix for a vibrant vacation rental social media strategy was more. Post more, post better, post at the “right” time. I tried all of it over a decade in hospitality marketing before I figured out what was actually broken, and it wasn’t the posting. It was that every post was doing the same job: asking. Book now. Check availability. Link in bio. I was treating a channel built for discovery like it was a billboard, and wondering why a billboard doesn’t convert like a sales call.
What Frustrates Travelers Most About Booking Vacation Rentals Online?
If I had to answer this question with one short answer: hidden fees. In a May 2026 survey of more than 1,000 US travelers, 61% named hidden or unexpected fees as their top booking frustration, far ahead of anything else (Fullstory). Close behind for vacation rentals specifically, is not trusting that the listing matches reality, and not being able to reach anyone when they have a question. What strikes me about this list is that almost none of it is about the property itself.
How to Reduce OTA Dependence: A Property Manager's Playbook
OTAs weren’t a trap. They were a shortcut, and for most property managers, a good one. One listing, instant access to millions of travelers, bookings without a marketing budget. That’s a real value proposition, and it worked. The problem isn’t that we chose to use them. The problem is what happens when a shortcut becomes a dependency. When 70, 80, 90% of your bookings run through a single platform, you’re not running a marketing strategy. You’re running a listing.
Arkansas' Lake Hamilton, Ten Minutes From Everything
Three nights on Lake Hamilton, a thermal soak under stained glass, and why the best lake stays near Hot Springs National Park are the ones tucked just out of town. For a moment, I lost track of time. I was floating on my back in a thermal pool at Quapaw Baths, the warm spring water holding me up, looking at a stained-glass skylight that has been catching light over Bathhouse Row since 1922. No phone. No plan.
Why Guests Abandon Vacation Rental Bookings and How to Win Them Back
Roughly eight out of ten people who start a travel booking online never finish it. For a vacation rental, that means most of the guests who liked your photos enough to pick dates and click “Book” are walking away, and many of them are heading straight back to Airbnb or Vrbo to book someone else. The good news is, most vacation rental booking abandonment isn’t about price. It’s about friction, surprise fees, and missing trust at the exact moment a guest is ready to commit.
Airbnb's 15.5% Host Fee: What It Actually Costs You And How to Take Back Control
If you’ve been hosting on Airbnb for more than a year, you’ve lived through one of the most significant fee restructures in the platform’s history and if you haven’t adjusted your pricing yet, you’re likely losing money on every booking without realizing it. Here’s what changed, what it actually costs you in real dollars, and — more importantly — what to do about it.
Direct vs. OTA Is the Wrong Argument, And These Numbers Prove It
Nobody told me direct booking was supposed to be hard. I didn’t know it was a whole debate with sides and conference panels. I was employee number four at a resort that barely existed yet, and every booking we had belonged to Airbnb. Not us. If they changed an algorithm on a Tuesday, our Wednesday could vanish and there was nothing we could do about it. That’s what bothered me from a businesses perspective before I knew anything about indsutry standards. Not the commission.
AI Search Didn't Change the Rules, It Just Raised the Stakes on the Boring Stuff
AI doesn’t invent recommendations. It assembles them. When ChatGPT or Google’s AI answer tells that family where to stay, it isn’t dreaming up a cabin it’s pulling from listings, reviews, and place data that already exist on platforms it can read. The properties that show up in more answers are the ones present in more of those sources, with cleaner data. That’s the whole mechanism. The AI is not judging your brand voice or your blog cadence.
Five Parts, One Loop: What a Vacation Rental Marketing System Actually Looks Like
I can usually find the broken part within an hour of walking in. Not because I’m clever, but because it’s almost always the same break that I’ve seen every time I’ve audited marketing operations for short term rentals. The operator sits me down and pulls up the dashboards, and every individual thing is working. The website converts. The email list has names on it. A creator posted last week and it resulted in a few positive outcomes. Someone ran ads and the ads ran fine.
What 8 Vacation Rental Marketing Audits Reveal About Winning (and Losing) in Today’s Market
Let’s call it what it is… The short-term rental and glamping markets are in the middle of a seismic shift, and most owners are feeling it whether they admit it or not. Travelers have leveled up. They’re not just “savvy” they’re surgical, using tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, and Perplexity to slice through the noise and find exactly what they want. Meanwhile, the old playbook of “just list it everywhere and hope for the best” is doing more harm than good.
Why Your Creator Marketing Keeps Breaking Down And How to Fix the Part Nobody Talks About
I talk to vacation rental operators every week, and almost every one who has tried creator marketing tells me some version of the same story. They found a creator. The creator had a good following, the right aesthetic, an audience that looked like their guest. They offered a free stay. The creator came — or sometimes didn’t come at all — and either way, the content was never delivered. One host I spoke with recently put it better than I’ve heard anyone put it: “I can find creators.
The Market Is Sharpening, Yet Operators Are Still Playing the Old Game
By Sarah Stahl “Zero percent. That's how many vacation rental property managers expect competition to decline in 2026.” And it’s exactly how Dom Trovato opened this years Host Report titled: 2026 Travel Trends: Property Managers Focus on Efficiency While Travelers Seek Experiences Not one operator in a Key Data survey of 244 professional property managers seems to believe that the competitive pressure they're feeling right now is going to ease.
Creator Marketing for Vacation Rentals: Why Campaigns Fail and Programs Compound
On creator marketing, borrowed trust, and why brand safety is asking the wrong question. Sarah Stahl spoke at The Uprising on micro-creators and the future of trust-based marketing as a result working with 500+ creators in travel, hospitality & local lifestyle. From what I’ve experienced, many vacation rental operators approach creator marketing the same way. They identify a travel influencer with a large following. They offer a complimentary stay in exchange for a few posts.
Lake.com Reveals America’s Cleanest and Dirtiest Lakes for 2026 on World Lake Day
Washington’s Lake Chelan takes the top spot for cleanest Lake in 2026 America’s cleanest and dirtiest lakes, ranked Washington’s Lake Chelan takes the top spot for cleanliness, while Utah’s Great Salt Lake ranks as the dirtiest Lakes have always been places where people swim, boat, fish, explore and spend meaningful time together, and World Lake Day gives us a way to celebrate them while also paying attention to their health” — David Ciccarelli, founder and CEO of Lake.com NEW YORK, NY,...
Hotel Booking Abandonment: Reasons, Solutions & Fixes
If you ask most operators why guests abandon their bookings, the answer comes quickly: price. It’s a comforting explanation because it implies a simple fix — just drop the rate. But industry data tells a different story. Over 81.7% of travel bookings never reach completion, and the research is consistent: travelers aren’t leaving because your rates are too high. They’re leaving because the experience of booking is too hard, too slow, or too uncertain. Think about your own habits as a consumer.
How to Calculate Marketing ROI for Your Vacation Rental Property
Most vacation rental operators know their occupancy rate. Most know their average nightly rate. Very few can tell you whether the marketing spend behind those numbers is actually paying off — or where it’s quietly leaking. And not knowing how to calculate marketing ROI for vacation rentals can be expensive. Marketing without ROI tracking means you’re making decisions based on what feels like it’s working rather than what is working.
You're Writing Thank-You Notes. Your Competitors Are Writing Copy.
By Sarah Stahl There is a moment that happens in almost every STR operator's week that nobody is talking about strategically. A guest leaves a review — glowing, lukewarm, occasionally brutal, and the operator types something back. Thank you for staying. We're sorry about the noise. We hope to see you again. And then they move on. What just happened was not a courtesy exchange. It was a marketing decision. And most operators are making it blindly.
The Experience Economy is Eating the Amenity Arms Race and Most Operators Haven't Noticed
By Sarah Stahl Somewhere in the last five years, the vacation rental industry convinced itself that the path to higher ADR and better reviews ran through the kitchen. Not the kitchen experience. The kitchen appliances. The Vitamix. The Nespresso machine. The sous vide circulator. The KitchenAid in a color that photographs well.
Vacation Rental Visibility: Why You're Getting Traffic But Not Bookings
“I’m getting traffic. I’m just not getting bookings.“ It’s the most common thing I hear when a property manager describes a marketing problem, which is often disguised as a conversion problem — something wrong with the website, the booking engine, the rates, the trust signals. Usually it isn’t. Usually it’s a visibility problem wearing a conversion problem’s clothes. The issue isn’t how much traffic you’re getting. It’s the kind.
Top 10 Best Lakes for Dog-Friendly Travel
Best Lakes for Dog-Friendly Travel Lake.com ranks 362 U.S. lake destinations to reveal the top 10 for dog-friendly access, amenities, city proximity and water-safety planning. We visited seven of the top 10 within the last two years during our travels.
The Booking Window Is Collapsing
By Sarah Stahl Here is the number that should change how you think about your calendar right now. In 2025, 41.7% of top-performing vacation rental hosts' bookings were made within seven days of check-in. Up from 35.8% in 2024. In other words, today almost one in two bookings takes place close to the arrival date, and it's not slowing down. The average US vacation rental booking window has compressed 11% year-over-year, dropping to an average of 60 days.
Chickamauga Lake Named America's Best Drive-To Lake Getaway
Americas Best Drive to Destination Report New Lake.com research finds 72% of major U.S. metros sit within a two-hour drive of a great family lake getaway—with zero guest fees to plan around.
How to Build a Vacation Rental Marketing Tech Stack That Actually Works Together
Most vacation rental operators don’t have a technology problem. They often have a systems connectivity problem. The tools usually exist. A PMS to manage reservations. A channel manager to push rates and availability. A CRM or email platform to communicate with guests. A booking engine on the direct booking website. A dynamic pricing tool. Maybe a WiFi capture solution, a smart lock system, a cleaning operations platform, and a noise monitoring app. On paper, the stack looks complete.
The OTA Model Is Broken. One Platform Is Building Something Different.
By Sarah Stahl I want to say something that most people in my position don't say out loud. The platform I work for is designed to help you need platforms less. That's not a typo, and it’s certainly not a brand line written by a committee. It's the actual thesis behind how Lake.com is building its product — and I think it's worth explaining clearly, because the alternative model the rest of the industry has settled into deserves to be named for what it is.
What Is a Vacation Rental Marketing Consultant and Do You Need One?
At some point, most serious vacation rental operators ask the same question. “Do I need to bring in outside help — and if I do, what exactly would that person do?” It’s a reasonable question. The short-term rental and hospitality marketing industry is crowded with options: marketing agencies, listing optimization services, revenue management software, social media managers, SEO firms, and consultants of every description.
Dog-Friendly Property Policies Don't Fail Because of Dogs
By Sarah Stahl Eight at night in Frankfort, Michigan. No reservation, because that was the whole point of the trip. Chris and Heather Yeloushan along with their dogs, Willy and Jax, were driving Tampa to Michigan for America 250 with no itinerary, booking as they went, testing whether the country is actually as pet-friendly as it says it is. The sign at the property was blunt. No dogs. No support dogs. The easy story is that the property is the villain. Chris did something better.
What the World Cup Just Taught Hospitality About Certainty, Pricing, and the Guests Who Actually Book
By Sarah Stahl Over the weekend, Spain and Argentina played the 2026 FIFA World Cup title at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. At eighty-two thousand five hundred seats, it was the largest sporting event ever held on American soil, by economic projection. Yet somewhere in that stadium's shadow, a vacation rental operator is sitting on an empty unit they priced at $800 a night, and can't figure out why nobody booked it. The 2026 World Cup gave hospitality a masterclass.
The 12-Month Vacation Rental Marketing Strategy Most Property Managers Never Build
A quarter-by-quarter vacation rental marketing strategy from the marketer who turned a $30,000 budget into nearly $2 million in direct booking revenue. Most vacation rental marketing doesn’t fail in July. It fails in January in the quiet moment when nobody sits down and builds the plan. I know because I ran it that way first. My first year owning a revenue number, marketing was a series of reactions. A soft week triggered a discount. A slow month triggered a boost budget.
Repeat Direct Bookings on The Channel You've Already Paid For
It costs five to seven times more to acquire a new guest than to bring back one who already stayed, in a repeat direct booking scenario. Every property manager has heard some version of that number. Almost none of them run their marketing like they believe it.
Vacation Rental Email Marketing: The Only Channel Nobody Can Take From You
Every marketing channel you use is rented. Airbnb can bury your listing tomorrow. Instagram can throttle your reach without telling you why. Google can redraw the results page overnight and take your traffic with it. You don’t control the rules on any of them, and the rules change whenever it suits the landlord. Vacation rental email marketing is the exception.
The Direct Booking Strategy That Took a Property to 93% Direct
Take your last twelve months of OTA revenue and multiply it by 0.15. Look at that number. For most operators it’s the largest marketing expense they have — and the only one that buys them nothing they keep. No guest contact. No relationship. No asset. Just a booking, rented. I’ve sat with that math as the person who owned the revenue number, and it’s what turned me into a direct booking evangelist with receipts: the system I built took a property to a 93 percent direct booking rate.
AI for Short-Term Rentals: If ChatGPT Doesn't Know Your Property, Guests Won't Either
Somewhere this week, a guest typed “where should we stay for our anniversary near the Smokies — a cabin, something unusual, dog-friendly, under $400 a night” into an AI assistant. They got back three properties and a short paragraph about each. They booked one. They never opened Airbnb, never scrolled a results page, never saw your listing because the AI never mentioned you.
An Airline Wore Its Rival's Logo for a Day. That's Audacious Marketing.
By Sarah Stahl During the World Cup, Norwegian Air and British Airways made a public bet. Days before Norway faced England in the quarterfinal, Norwegian tagged British Airways on Instagram with a challenge: if Norway lost, it would switch its profile picture to the British Airways logo for a day. If England lost, British Airways would do the same. British Airways answered with one line: “Don't make bets you can't win.” England won 2-1. Norwegian lost.
I Used Claude to Audit My Own Website. What We Found Was Embarrassing, But Fixable.
I used Claude to audit sarahstahl.com after 18 months of weekly posts and almost zero search traffic. Here’s every broken SEO problem and exactly how we fixed it. I want to tell you something that most marketing consultants don’t say publicly: my own website was broken for eighteen months and I had no idea. Not technically broken — pages loaded, links worked, nothing threw a 404. I was publishing every single week. I had a consistent posting schedule, a clear niche, and years of content behind me.
AI in Hospitality Marketing Isn't a Tool Problem. It's a Judgment Problem.
Ford rehired 350 veteran engineers after AI fell short. What that means for AI in hospitality marketing, your data, and the judgment that built your business. In June, Ford made an admission you almost never see from a company that size and it made it in payroll, not a press release. The automaker rehired 350 veteran engineers, the ones insiders call the “gray beards,” after the AI systems meant to manage vehicle quality fell short.
Technology Won't Fix Hospitality. Connected Guest Data Will.
By Sarah Stahl A reservation came across my screen a few years ago, and I recognized the last name before a single one of our systems did. These guests had stayed with us before. They'd booked one of our cabins for their anniversary, and before the trip they emailed asking where to buy flowers nearby. One question turned into a real conversation.
The Book Direct Toolkit for Property Managers: Everything You Need to Build a Direct Booking System
The complete book direct toolkit for property managers and boutique resort owners — checklists, frameworks, and tools to reduce OTA dependence and build a measurable direct booking system. Most property managers know they need a book direct strategy. What they don’t have is a place to start that isn’t a 40-page PDF or a generic checklist built for a solo host with three Airbnb listings. That’s why I compiled this book direct toolkit.
You Don't Have a Marketing Problem. You Have a Visibility Problem You've Been Solving the Wrong Way.
By Sarah Stahl I have watched the same marketing scenario play out across dozens of properties for over five years. A host commits. They post every single day — reels, carousels, stories, captions they actually spent time on. Months go by. Their awareness does not move. Their website traffic stays flat. Their bookings do not budge. Then, they conclude they are bad at social media. They are not bad at social media. They are missing the second half of the system.
You don't have a marketing problem. You have a visibility problem you've been solving the wrong way.
I have watched the same marketing scenario play out across dozens of properties for over five years. A host commits. They post every single day — reels, carousels, stories, captions they actually spent time on. Months go by. Their awareness does not move. Their website traffic stays flat. Their bookings do not budge. Then, they conclude they are bad at social media. They are not bad at social media. They are missing the second half of the system.
What the Hostfully Tech Stack Report Actually Tells You About Vacation Rental Marketing
By Sarah Stahl Hostfully just published what they are calling the largest study of vacation rental tech stacks ever produced. 2,248 active operators. 31,474 individual integration records. Ranking eight tool categories, I read it the way I read most industry research: looking for what the data is actually saying, and beyond what the headline focuses on. Some of it confirmed what I have seen firsthand. Some of it should change how you think about your marketing budget.
Vacation Rental Marketing Hostfully Tech Stack Report
Hostfully just published what they are calling the largest study of vacation rental tech stacks ever produced. 2,248 active operators. 31,474 individual integration records. Ranking eight tool categories, I read it the way I read most industry research: looking for what the data is actually saying, and beyond what the headline focuses on. Some of it confirmed what I have seen firsthand. Some of it should change how you think about your marketing budget.
Why PR Is the Smartest Investment You Can Make for AI Search Visibility
By Sarah Stahl About a year ago, I published a piece predicting that PR pros were becoming the unsung heroes of AI search. The industry was shifting, search results were changing in ways most marketers hadn’t named yet and I was drawing a line that felt risky to draw publicly. AI search visibility wasn’t something people were building strategies around. It was something they were watching, speculating about, waiting to see if it would matter. Today, I am no longer speculating.
Why PR Is the Smartest Investment You Can Make for AI Search Visibility
About a year ago I published a piece predicting that PR pros were becoming the unsung heroes of AI search. The industry was shifting, search results were changing in ways most marketers hadn’t named yet and I was drawing a line that felt risky to draw publicly. AI search visibility wasn’t something people were building strategies around. It was something they were watching, speculating about, waiting to see if it would matter. Today, I am no longer speculating.
Your Content Strategy Isn't the Problem. Your Audience Insight Is.
By Sarah Stahl I've watched property managers spend serious money on content creation and walk away with almost nothing to show for it. Not because the content was bad. Because it was made for everyone — which means it actually reached no one. When I was building the creator program at our treehouse resort, we had a $30,000 annual budget. Not monthly. Annual. That's not a content budget. That's a constraint.
A Creator Program for Vacation Rentals Only Works If You Treat It as a Trust Problem. Lake.com Did.
By Sarah Stahl Vacation rental creator marketing is no longer a trend. It’s becoming one of the most effective ways for travelers to discover, evaluate, and book accommodations. Lake.com’s new Creator Program for vacation rentals connects trusted storytellers with lakefront properties, helping hosts build visibility, credibility, and booking demand through authentic content that travelers trust. Lake.com is a vacation rental marketplace built exclusively for stays that get you closer to the water.
A Creator Program for Vacation Rentals Only Works If You Treat It as a Trust Problem. Lake.com Did.
Vacation rental creator marketing is no longer a trend. It’s becoming one of the most effective ways for travelers to discover, evaluate, and book accommodations. Lake.com’s new Creator Program for vacation rentals connects trusted storytellers with lakefront properties, helping hosts build visibility, credibility, and booking demand through authentic content that travelers trust. Lake.com is a vacation rental marketplace built exclusively for stays that get you closer to the water.
Lake.com Launches Lake Creator Program, Inviting Authentic Storytellers to Shape the Future of Outdoor Travel Discovery
Lake.com launches the Lake Creator Program, inviting authentic storytellers to showcase lakeside stays and shape the future of outdoor travel discovery. We’re not looking for content creators. We’re looking for storytellers who love the lake. There’s a real difference.
TikTok Go Just Did What Every Creator Program Has Been Building Toward
By Sarah Stahl Good Morning Hospitality, a Skift podcast, announced a major travel industry development with the launch of TikTok Go, a new program that brings travel booking opportunities directly into TikTok. The announcement highlights how social platforms are continuing to move deeper into travel discovery and conversion, creating new ways for hospitality brands, destinations, and operators to reach travelers where inspiration already happens.
TikTok Go Just Did What Every Creator Program Has Been Building Toward
Good Morning Hospitality, a Skift podcast, announced a major travel industry development with the launch of TikTok Go, a new program that brings travel booking opportunities directly into TikTok. The announcement highlights how social platforms are continuing to move deeper into travel discovery and conversion, creating new ways for hospitality brands, destinations, and operators to reach travelers where inspiration already happens.
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