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STR Demand Rebounds: World Cup Surge, Summer Travel Trends & What Hosts Need to Know

After a slow and uneven start to the year, short-term rental performance is finally showing signs of life. In this episode of The STR Data Lab, Jamie Lane and Bram Gallagher break down the latest data—and what it really means for hosts, property managers, and investors navigating today’s shifting travel landscape. From the first occupancy gains in nearly a year to surprising demand patterns across luxury and budget listings, the signals are getting clearer… but not simpler.

The conversation dives into a nuanced recovery story: modest demand growth paired with improving occupancy, a supply pipeline that may not be expanding as quickly as expected, and a consumer that’s splitting into two very different segments. Add in global forces like rising oil prices, interest rate uncertainty, and major events like the World Cup and the U.S. 250th anniversary, and you get a travel economy full of both opportunity and complexity.

Looking ahead, the data points to a stronger second half of the year—driven by easier comparisons, major event demand, and resilient high-income travelers. But success won’t come from broad assumptions. It will come from understanding where demand is growing, who is traveling, and how to position your property accordingly.

You don’t want to miss this episode.

Key Takeaways

  • Occupancy is finally rising—but demand growth is still modest
    May marked the first occupancy increase in nearly a year, signaling improving fundamentals even as demand grows at a slower pace.
  • Luxury and larger homes continue to outperform
    Higher-income travelers are still spending, driving stronger occupancy gains in premium listings compared to budget properties.
  • Major events are reshaping demand patterns
    The World Cup is already boosting bookings and rates in host cities—and even nearby markets—though supply surges may temporarily impact occupancy.
  • Regional and drive-to destinations are gaining momentum
    Higher travel costs (like gas prices) are pushing more travelers toward closer, outdoor, and regional destinations—especially around holidays like July 4th.
  • A strong second half of the year is taking shape
    Booking pace for summer and even shoulder season is up significantly, suggesting continued momentum—especially compared to weaker comps in late 2025.


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Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jamie_Lane

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bram-gallagher/

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Episode 184

Listen On:

Transcript

Welcome to the STR Data Lab.

Hello and welcome to the STR Data Lab. I'm Jamie Lane, chief economist at AirDNA, and I'm joined again by my good friend and colleague Bram Gallagher. Bram, how you doing?

Well, I'm doing great, Jamie. Um it's always fun to be on the Data Lab, although it's going to be tough following up last week's Adam Sacks. What a titan in the industry. Loved that episode and got a lot of great information from it.

Yeah, uh it's crazy how strong the hotel industry is doing this year. I have to think it's just like it did so bad last year, like it can only go up from here. Uh but I'll I'll say it hurts me a little bit internally when I see demand growth up 2% year-to-date in hotels and only up 1% year-to-date for short-term rentals. Like it it feels like something's wrong.

Well, to your point, you know, they had a very difficult year last year and we had a pretty good first half of of the year last year as well. So, you know, they were working off of a weak comp and we were working off of a pretty strong comp because I guess we we titled What was it? The It was the year-end outlook. We titled it a What a tale of two halves cuz the first half of the year was very, very strong coming out of the gate with, you know, demand growth double digits for most of the months in the first half of the year, and then it really tapered off pretty strongly. So, you know, I'm seeing some recovery here. That's so I'm I'm pretty I'm pretty hopeful that by the time we get to the year end we'll at least be

matching the hotels, if not outpacing them.

Yeah. So, and typically we start with the economy, but maybe we'll flip it a bit um and and talk a little bit about and what's happening on the short-term rental performance side because it and it it is a better month like

[laughter]

uh it I we had our first month of occupancy gains. We saw uh decent ADR growth. Like maybe and we could start with you just running through the numbers of what we saw in the month of May across the US short-term rental industry.

Yeah, so you know, you're right. We did see a lot of a lot of positive numbers. So occupancy was up for the first time and woo, it was a long time actually. What was it? I guess May of last year was the last time we saw a real positive increase in in the occupancy rate. So maybe it's just the charm of May. Um but on the other hand, you know, we do have that you know, that idea that as we're moving towards the latter half of the year, we're going to be against weaker comps. And one other thing of course too is that we predicted at the beginning of the year that you know, investment conditions were just better than they had been in a long long time and they were for a brief moment in time. Uh and and I don't know if it was long enough though because mortgage rates, they dipped below 6%. Now they've gone right around 6 and 1/2% since this war in Iran. We're worried about inflation. So of course long-term interest rates are are going up to accommodate you know, inflation over the long term.

Um maybe even some risk being priced into there as well. So I don't know if the window was long enough to really give that boost to supply like we were hoping. Um so I think that's going to help occupancy, you know, as as time goes on be a little bit better than we predicted. In fact, we're going to be coming out with the media outlet pretty soon and and so far yeah, I've revised occupancy up for most of the location types in the nation as a whole as well.

Is that your way of telling me Bram like yeah, occupancy was up but it still wasn't a super positive demand growth story.

Well, the demand was up I think 1.5% which, you know, is better than negative. We we did see a negative demand in February because all the snow was atrocious this year. Or the I should say the lack of snow. Um so, yeah, the demand is not, you know, it's not flying off the shelves at a at a rate of 1.5% growth, but you know, if I were to go back in time, you know, to that last last uh May, that May of 2025, uh we saw almost 6% growth which is, you know, pretty heavy. And then whether that has to, you know, we've seen a number of Easter shifts uh you know, happen over the last few years. So, there has been a little bit of discombobulation between April and March. And then now, you know, we bleeding into sort of the May month as well. So, it's difficult to say, you know, is that a hard comp?

It's 6.2%. I'm sorry, I misspoke. May of of last year 6.2. So, you know, it was a difficult It was a difficult month to compare against. I think that, you know, demand is going to start looking up though. Those those numbers are going to start getting higher as we we do get into some weaker comps. And of course, you have demand generation going on in July as well with the or June and July with the World Cup. Uh I'm thinking that is going to give us a meaningful boost, especially in the host cities. Um but, you know, it could also bleed out into other places as we know a lot of people are taking longer trips as well. So, that's that's going to help. International travel is, you know, Adam pointed out it's been a headwind this last year or so as with tariffs, but uh I think maybe with the World Cup we might see a reversal.

Yeah. So, Bram, I I'd be willing to make the wager that you've looked more at World Cup data uh maybe more than just about anyone else. And I'll say anyone else cuz I know our colleague Linda has also been uh extensively looking at the World Cup data and like and we talk about occupancy gains and like the only location type that saw an occupancy loss in May was urban in the large cities. So, is that a sort of a trend that we expect sort of continue into June and July or are you seeing that and June and July are going to be and a big positive for and overall demand and occupancy gains with the World Cup coming in or is the media narrative true and and this is going to be a bust in terms of a travel event?

Well, I think you know, it's definitely going to drive a lot of demand. It's going it's already driving a lot of rate growth. Now, the occupancy story is it's kind of a little bit more nuanced, but you know, we are seeing occupancy gains most places. On the other hand we hadn't seen real big supply increases in response to the World Cup in in hardly any of these markets until just the last few months and May's included in there. That's when we really saw a lot of acceleration in some places where we you know, previously had not seen a lot of demand growth. So, I was just speaking with someone from Vancouver and you know, their occupancy is down quite a bit, but they've seen 17% increase in listings over just over the last two and a half months.

Whereas previously they had been negative. So, you know, we're seeing those sort of listing gains across a lot of these cities. So, that might be negatively affecting occupancy in the lead up to the World Cup. We saw something similar in the Paris Olympics actually where you know the demand right before the Olympics kind of emptied out. No one wanted to be in Paris unless they were going to be seeing the Olympics. So, we we definitely saw some of that uh, So, that might have something to do with it. Um, the build-out for the World Cup versus, you know, the the fact that demand hasn't yet arrived. But, I am pretty confident with the numbers that we've got right now that we are going to see demand boost and we are going to see higher occupancies in most of the cities. We might have an exception in, say, Seattle, Vancouver, perhaps. Um, but on the other hand, you know, there's still some time left in June for for bookings.

And I'm betting that, you know, uh, at least in the Vancouver case, we've got a lot of domestic Canadians who might want to go see those games.

Yeah. No, it it's it's hard to sort of discount and strong expectations versus and the reality that we're seeing. I mean, overall bookings up are up for game days, game eves, um, as of this week for the World Cup matches up and I think 16% uh, year-over-year. So, and that's relatively strong uh, demand and the smaller markets and have been and continuing to see, um, the strongest demand growth. We're still seeing over double the amount of demand in Monterrey and Guadalajara, uh, almost 40% increase in Kansas City and Mexico City. And then in some of the Texas market, I mean, Dallas-Fort Worth, we're seeing 30% growth in demand. Miami, 28%. Houston, 21%. Um, even Atlanta where at uh, up 14% year-over-year. And then and you mentioned on the supply side, I mean, Vancouver up 17% and that seems strong. Only three markets stronger than Vancouver.

Guadalajara at 18%, Monterrey 26% and Kansas City are perennial uh, growth leader and 56% growth in listings. Like, you plot overall supply and it's like I mean it's it's going vertical in terms of overall inventory, a lot of interest. Brian, if I gave you a quiz right now, could you name the Fox, NBC, and ABC affiliates for Kansas City?

[laughter]

Well, Jenny, why would you do such a thing?

Only because I know you've been talking with I feel like with all of them on a on a regular basis.

I can't remember their their station the station identifiers unfortunately off the top of my head, but you know, I have definitely been talking with a lot it's it's almost kind of they're swimming together almost, but Kansas City, you know, some of the one of the things that I pulled out of that is blowing me away is the third most expensive city in terms of booked rate, you know, it's after Miami and Boston, two notoriously expensive cities, then you got Kansas City towering above places like Seattle, Philadelphia, Dallas-Fort Worth, Los Angeles, San Francisco right now the booked rate is quite a bit lower than in Kansas City, which is just blowing my mind. But the transformation, I guess, in the short-term rental inventory there has just been incredible to see and and a lot of people are interested in it.

Um and I can see why.

Yeah. On the World Cup, are you I know you're in Atlanta, are you going to try to make it to any of the games?

Well, you know what? I'm going to catch them on TV, I think, cuz they are they are very they're pricey tickets. They're expensive, and you know, parking downtown Atlanta is that's that's really what will get you. But was it happy to see, you know, that we've seen that 14% demand increase. I know, you know, when we had the Club World Cup in, it was something of a flop in Atlanta because the maybe the location of the stadium versus short-term rentals. So, and we were trailing for a long period of time, so we really did see that surge in sort of last-minute bookings or later-stage bookings, I should say.

Yeah, I as you imagine I can imagine created a daily scraper for rates. So, tracking them across the major ticket resale sites to get a sense of if they might come affordable. But, right now for the Spain games in Atlanta, we're still looking at like at minimum like six or seven hundred dollars a ticket. And then even for like Congo versus Uzbekistan, it's like two hundred fifty dollars a ticket. So,

Okay, well, now you've got me interested. I could see Congo Uzbekistan.

Yeah. You're a big Congo fan?

Uh you know, not historically, but you know, for two hundred fifty bucks for a ticket, I might become one.

[laughter]

My new favorite I'm cheering for.

Yeah. We did get tickets for the free FIFA Fan Fest down at Centennial Park. Uh it's a free thing. You just have to get tickets. And so, we're going to take the kids down there and uh maybe hopefully get some tickets to a game as well.

Yeah, that's you'll remember that. That's wonderful. You know, it really is a once-in-a-lifetime event for for a lot of people. And and you know, even if the World Cup comes back to the US, it's going to take some time, but they'll have those memories.

Yeah. So, the other sort of big wild card and I I did talk about this with Adam a bit last week. And we've got high oil prices. Uh we've got its potential and impact on consumer spending. Uh but, so far I'm I mean, it doesn't look to have slowed down the economy. So, uh can you give me a sense of what you're seeing in the uh, economic data for the past month?

Yeah, well, one of the things is that energy prices take a little bit of time to translate into more general inflation because they are used as a production input. So, you know, that that can take a couple couple months and the most recent reading that we've had on inflation it was pretty ugly. The PCE growing at about 3.8% a year. So, almost double what the what the target is. So, you know, inflation is a concern. Um, I've looked at gas prices and what the sort of additional incremental cost might be and I think it's going to be encouraging some more regional travel. But, you know, there is also this notion of the sort of K-shaped economy. We do know that higher-income people have been seeing, you know, bigger tax returns.

Um, they're seeing a lot of wealth growth from, you know, really great stock market performance that we've seen over the last year. And moreover, you know, if we compare this to energy shocks that we've seen in you know, decades past, just the share of their budget or their expenditure on on energy is is smaller now. And if you're looking at, you know, an expensive trip if certainly a World Cup trip, you know, you you would be looking at, well, gas prices are up, but what is that as a total proportion of of my, you know, travel spend when I take into account the entertainment, the, uh, lodging, the food and drink, um, all of those sorts of things. You know, it's just a smaller part of the puzzle.

But, you know, as time goes on, um, that does it does translate into higher prices more generally through the economy. We're going to get the CPI report tomorrow. Um, so I'm very interested to see what that that looks like. The other thing is that as far as interest rates go, you know, the the high inflation right now, not necessarily incredibly problematic. We have had we have never seen big drawdowns in, you know, world, uh oil stockpiles, which are helping support low prices. So, hopefully we get all this stuff, you know, uh figured out. I know that Trump has made some some more definite statements than he has in the past, but of course we've seen statements about the end of hostilities before.

It's such a mind-blowing phenomenon to see, you know, it's like, well, oil prices are down on on Middle East peace hopes, but also Iran downed a helicopter and Israel may have done a flyover on Iran. We don't know. Uh so, if if this persists to say beyond say mid-July, I'm thinking we could we could see another jump up in oil prices as those stockpiles do, you know, become diminished. So, that that's a that's a threat um to the economy there that, you know, I'm really paying attention to and the interest rates, you know, we've got Warsh in here. People were worried that he might start cutting rates cuz, you know, Trump loves low rates. He's an old real estate developer, always is going to love a lower interest rate or rate cut to stimulate the economy, but it looks like it's going to be more difficult to justify any kind of cut to the interest rate. The markets are pricing in hikes. Oxford Economics is still saying, well, no, it's going to hold steady for a little longer and then we'll cut at the end of the year.

I'm going to say that, yeah, we're going to probably defer doing anything to the interest rates as long as possible because there is so much uncertainty right now and there is that tension between, you know, maybe what Warsh wants to do as far as the balance sheet and what the other Federal Reserve governors are thinking and when they're looking at the economy. Moreover, the the other justification for cutting interest rates would be to stimulate the labor market and we had a great labor uh market report this last month also.

Yeah, it it feels difficult to be talking about interest or interest rate cuts when there's above 3% inflation and you get a jobs number that is 170,000 jobs added for the month. It does not feel like there's the the argument for why we should be cutting rates in that sort of healthy growth environment.

Right. When the inflation it look it was in spitting distance of overtaking the unemployment rate, you know, it it the it's very difficult. Um, I think. You know, it's what is it? 4.3 is unemployment, 3.8 is PCE inflation. We'll see what CPI is, but so that's, you know, rattling people that were counting on maybe sort of easier money to help uh things like the housing market. Um, you know, or other sort of large investments that, you know, require borrowing. But also the fiscal situation with the US as well. The amount that we're having to pay in interest and as far as the budget deficit and deficit spending goes, how that might constrain fiscal stimulus in the years ahead as well.

Yeah, so when I saw the jobs report, I got excited, and especially because of the sort of growth in and leisure and hospitality. So, 172,000 jobs added of that 70,000 uh jobs added for the month in leisure and hospitality. And like seeing like the alignment of like, all right, strong short-term rental numbers, strong hotel RevPARs, like this has to be sort of showing up in terms of lodging industry employment. Um and and you've heard me say in the past like, I feel like hiring is one of the clearest signals of expected future growth. But then like, pulled the data and like the seasonal adjusted data did show growth for accommodation sector. Uh but then looked at the unseasonally adjusted, the raw data and saw that we were actually 1% below last year's level.

Uh and when you actually look at the build up that we typically see throughout the year so from June to May we usually add about 120,000 jobs and so far this year we've only added 109,000 jobs. So like we typically see revisions. This is just and the first preliminary report of May jobs but did not get

[laughter]

the sort of warm and fuzzies that I was hoping for when I looked at the underlying jobs data for the accommodation sector. Did you have like a takeaway there like or maybe an explanation of why the jobs numbers were so strong or maybe it's just some some noise on on on how strong this number actually was.

Well yeah, the gap between that 120 and 109 is not you know, it's not a vast ocean it's I think well within the correction but I had the same you know, the exact same response is that all right, leisure and hospitality we know that hotels are up. Sure it is. You can see it in the job numbers finally but no, it's mostly the you know, food service and and leisure is where we really saw a lot of the you know, sort of attractions and that that sort of thing. Um and that maybe bodes well for travel in general whether it's you know, maybe short-term rentals taking share from or maybe you know, the first the first you know, industry that to really see giant productivity gains might be the hotel industry, right? I don't know how they're doing it but how are they selling more rooms and not hiring not hiring anyone to to clean them.

Um so there may be some lags there. There may be some data. You know, we definitely know that that hiring is up at least in restaurants which I think says you know, good things about consumption and, you know, where that that's headed, especially experiential consumption. Um but it is a bit of a mystery about the about hiring in the hotel uh industry or accommodations, I guess, more generally, which could include uh you know, cleaning services for short-term rentals as well.

How are you feeling about the consumer side? So, and we've typically sort of relate uh income and employment growth with the uh expectations of changes in consumer spending and specifically I mean, lodging spend. Um and we talked about employment and income. And is it growing I mean, in terms of real growth? Like, are we outpacing I mean, what we see in terms of inflation or are we seeing some uh uh weakness there at all?

We are we are seeing weakness in the wage growth. It it did dip below inflation this this past month. So, we we saw, I guess, real losses to to wages. On the other hand, you know, we we've seen uh home values have increased a lot over the last decade and they they haven't gone down. A little bit more than I think half of US households do have some, you know, uh uh equities in the stock market because of the way that retirement plans are are structured these days. So, you may see, you know, on on the one hand, wages declining somewhat, but wealth increasing uh for a lot of people. The other thing, too, is, of course, the saving rate is is gone down. So, we are seeing some borrowing, which is a little concerning. It's a little bit different than when we saw the revenge spending after the pandemic, where we also saw a great low savings rate as people went out and and spent the money that they couldn't in the years previous, um you know, now it's it's we're we're not necessarily drawing down on a a big accumulated hunk of savings, but but but rather uh borrowing, I guess, for expenses, which is, you know, not great, but we do know that you know, this experiential travel it is, as Adam said, indexed heavily towards sort of higher wealth households.

And they're still seeing their wealth grow. The stock market is still is still increasing. Well, it had a wild ride today, but you know, it the trend is definitely still up. Um and you know, I think wealth positions are are are doing pretty good. Mortgage payments still pretty well because so many people took advantage of low interest rates, so you know, sentiment is really down, but it hasn't affected the spending a whole lot. So, once again, we're getting lots of ambiguous and signals here, telling us sort of two different things. So, it's going to be tearing the consumers, especially on the lower end. I think, you know, it's going to be putting a lot of pressure on them. You know, higher gas prices are going to disproportionately affect the lower income households. They're not seeing the benefits of the wealth effect cuz they may be renting and they don't necessarily own a lot of stocks.

And then the other side of the equation, we're going to be seeing, you know, wealthier households doing better, seeing more tax returns, uh spending less of their money on gasoline anyway, seeing big returns to the stock market and their their home values, and they can draw on that. Um you know, this is also including the the retired uh set. You know, they're taking advantage of their golden years to travel, potentially. Uh so, you know, those people are depending heavily on on those wealth effects. Um and just, you know, higher income people in general, uh or higher wealth households, I should say, are still enjoying that. So, it does introduce a risk, though, uh if something should affect these sort of higher income consumers, whether it be a you know, a correction, as it were, um that's stimulated baby by higher interest rates or long higher energy prices for longer.

Yeah, how how how have you seen that play out? Like I know and in terms of and short-term rental industries cuz and we had been watching sort of the K-shaped impact on occupancy. Is that still continued? Like are we still seeing pullback in and economy and and sort of lower price listings? Are we still seeing strength in luxury and upper-tier properties? Like how is that and played out?

Well, we did in May. Uh so this this hasn't necessarily been uh consistent, but we've definitely seen we've definitely seen evidence of that in May. As the luxury segment increased their occupancy by about 2.3%, whereas budget on the far other end of the the spectrum to decrease their occupancy by about 2/10 of a percent. And this isn't necessarily always consistent from month to month, but you know, this is a trend that we see coming back. Um that these these luxury properties are are doing better um generally speaking. On the flip side, you know, when we're looking at the World Cup uh bookings, those seem to be favoring sort of lower-income thing lower-income listings. Now, that's a subset, of course, of the the the broader market.

And it may be a result of just the World Cup itself being quite expensive. Um you know, sort of offsetting that cost. Um but generally speaking across the US, uh we're still seeing that that sort of evidence. The other thing is that larger properties still also continue to outperform as well.

That's great. So, and luxury playing well, larger homes playing well. Um and maybe and portends and maybe urban because of World Cup will maybe see a a surge in budget bookings of looking to save money, but that's probably not and expectations for the rest of the industry in terms of how the summer might play out.

Right, yeah, exactly. So, you know, that's within the very specific markets. If you look outside of that and what people are doing just for their summer vacation, I think we're going to see more more interest in that kind of upper upper segment. There's going to be more tailwinds that are giving those those folks reason to to travel.

Cool. Well, anything else you wanted to share? Anything else you wanted to dug into and think is important for listeners to know about the industry today?

Well, we've come we're coming up on the 250th anniversary of the country, the July 4th. So, I've definitely been looking at some of the pacing there and pleasantly surprised by two of the trends I've seen. One is that yeah, DC, you know, whether or not the concert goes on, they're still seeing a 35% year-over-year bump for their July 4th weekend. So, whether it's people visiting the Smithsonian, whether it's, you know, folks seeing all the monuments there and engaging in the all the history, we're definitely seeing some I think strong interest in going to see the nation's capital for for the 4th of July. And then two of the top performers are also World Cup cities. But, you know, the games have not been announced yet for, you know, July 3rd and 4th. But, Miami and Philadelphia both seeing really big July 4th weekend increases, 68% in Miami, higher demand pacing right now, and then 59% in Philadelphia.

We know very patriotic city and a lot of our nation's history there. So, those are some That was some interesting stuff that I saw. Maybe benefiting from curiosity from international visitors, maybe also, you know, just celebrating the 250th in some of these larger metros. Uh and then the other way that I looked at it is not just year-over-year growth, but I wanted to see, you know, which markets are seeing the largest increase compared to the the weekend before and after. So, which markets are seeing exceptional performance for the 4th of July regardless of what they did last year. And what I'm seeing here is a lot of, you know, exactly what I was expecting at the beginning of the year with these with these higher energy prices is we've got sort of regional uh drive to sort of leisure destinations and a lot of a lot of interest there.

So, the number one, Big Bear, which is seeing more than double the demand for the 4th of July weekend compared to the weeks before and after. But, some other ones as well, Lake Havasu, Grand Lake of the Cherokees, Pinetop. Again, all these sort of, you know, outdoorsy kind of leisure markets that that serve sort of the regions that they're in are seeing, you know, a really nice performance for the 4th of July.

That's great. So, I mean, at least uh in terms of July 4th, and the World Cup markets were doing well. Do you think that's going to play out uh for the rest of the summer as well? Like, what are you seeing in August? What are you seeing in um and the rest of June? Like, how is how is that looking?

Yeah, the pacing right now looks looks incredible. I don't know if that's because people are booking early. Um but, you know, June is definitely up, July up around 10%, but then August also up 10%. So, maybe some folks are staying a little bit longer, maybe uh uh or if you wanted to go visit one of these World Cup cities this summer, you know, you might put it off till August so you can avoid sort of the international soccer crowds. Um but, we're seeing 10.2% in August. And then after that, I'm seeing a lot of interest in the the season. Now, it's still early yet, but, you know, September up around 25% year-on-year. Um which is a very strong signal to me that, you know, that there is some interest in the shoulder season. Maybe it's because it's real hot. Maybe it's because the summer was was too expensive with World Cup coming in to to a lot of these destinations.

Or maybe it's just some folks are are exploring the shoulder season to save a little bit of money on their trip with higher inflation and gas prices. But, um it looks like we're going to be finishing out the year, too. November and December also both pacing well above 15% on a year-over-year basis. So, it looks like, yeah, we've got powerful demand drivers coming in over the next few months, and it looks like that momentum is going to to continue forward. We've got those easier comps from the last half of uh 2025. We've got these a lot of demand momentum. So, I think performance over the next 6 months looks pretty strong.

No, that's great. Um and and excited to hear about the strong pacing. I I do suspect you're right. Like, if I had a bet like 25% growth, like, if I think about where we were at last year, and we had we were a month past tariffs. We were still uh tariffs being announced. We still thought Trump was going to backtrack. He was doubling down. Like, the stock market was way down. Consumer sentiment was crashing. So, this might end as we were looking at sort of forward summer pacing then. I think September was looking pretty weak. Um so, like, I I suspect that this is just a an uh easy comp sort of story, and not that we're actually going to see uh But, that does portray well for as people think about how they're pricing into next year.

And we're definitely sitting at a or into the back half of this year sitting at a position of strength given that I mean how weak the back half of 2025 was. The tale of two stories two are two halves of the year. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, and I think yeah, that's a great way of of of of saying it or describing it. You know, if we compare the facing if we compare how we were feeling in May 2025 versus how we're feeling May 2026, I think it's you know, that's unambiguous. We're definitely feeling like we're in a better place right now. I'm not worried about recessions. I'm not worried about you know, the the consumer overly much. There are some there's some difficulties, but you know, the the economy seems incredibly resilient. So far the labor market is still doing really well and we don't we don't have doom and gloom hanging overheads. Rather, we've got World Cup parties, 250th anniversary celebrations and and just the the rest of the year to enjoy.

Awesome. Well, Bram, I feel like that's a great sort of way to wrap it up. How are you feeling? Any fun plans for the summer?

Fun plans for the summer? Well, we're going to be watching soccer on the TV. But yeah, yeah, you know what? We'll we'll see. We're going to we're going to be going to TTRA next or at the end of the month and you know, we decided to make we decided to make a trip out of it. We're going to go up to Asheville and you know, investigate. We went to Asheville just a few months back and it's beautiful to see you know, the the reconstruction that is going on and the recovery that they're making. It really is it's exceptional to see. So, we're really looking forward to spending some time in the mountains.

Awesome. Well, a programming note, we've got quite a few good podcasts lined up for you over the next 3 weeks. All of them be taking the month of July off. So, I think our June update that comes out in July is going to be Bram and my our fearless leader Rohit leading the way. So, excited to hear the two of you guys update the industry on what's happening for the month we're in today.

I'm looking forward to I probably won't have to do a whole lot of talking cuz Rohit has got so many ideas. He's got He's got [laughter] one.

Well, you might you you're going to you're going to need to know the data Pat Bram, which you always do.

That much I'm not worried about. As long as we stick to the data, we'll be okay.

Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for listening and we'll catch you on the next one.

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