The Truth About World Cup Rentals

Welcome to the STR Data Lab.

Hello and welcome to the STR Data Lab. I'm Jamie Lane, chief economist at AirDNA. I I'm joined today by two guests. We have a great topic. It's been a topic that has been top of mind for me for the past like I'm probably a year now. I and I know my two guests had been in deep on we're going to be talking about World Cup today for at least the past six to six to 12 months. So we have today Susan Brown with the Kansas City Short-Term Rental Alliance. She's been on the ground with hosts. She's been working with the major OTAs. She's been working with the city and has really seen how the World Cup has played out in one of the top markets in terms of trends. Kansas City was really ground zero for a lot of the major swings that we saw on both supply, demand, revenue, pricing. I mean Kansas City was the poster child. So really excited to get Susan's comments on what she saw in the market. And then we also have my colleague Linda Rollins.

She's a senior research analyst at AirDNA and she has been the one digging into the numbers, updating our dashboards, talking with the press, feeding them the numbers every week for what the past six months since we launched the blog. So she has been our data guru on everything World Cup and is going to give us a rundown of what we've seen in the data, what were some of the fun trends, what were some of the learnings, and then we'll we'll play through some of the press narratives, what came true, what didn't. But really excited and thank you guys for both joining me to talk uh World Cup and and maybe finally put the World Cup to bed uh and maybe this gives me the closure I've needed uh now that the game's done. We saw an exciting Spain win. I know after watching that game, I was excited that Argentina uh didn't take it again. But, uh interested in you guys' thoughts on the outcome as well.

So, Susan, welcome.

Hi, Jamie. Thanks for having me and um nice to see you, too, Linda.

So, um Susan, I want to start with you uh because you I'm really picked up the effort from the beginning. I'm Kansas City was out in front with um uh host meetups, working with the OTAs, doing training on getting hosts ready to be prepared for the World Cup. Um you were hearing I'm the predictions I'm hundreds of thousands of visitors. You guys were able to get special permits for uh new uh for hundreds of rentals to be added. Like, you just give me a rundown of like what was the pre-World Cup environment in Kansas City? What were your expectations going in? What were the media expectations going in? Uh and then we'll talk a bit later about what actually happened.

Sure. It was I I think we all became a little bit alarmed when we heard that number of 650 people descending 650,000 people descending on Kansas City and we only had 65,000 hotel rooms within a 100-mi radius. And those were the numbers that we were getting from our FIFA committee who I I think they did a fabulous job overall. And I do think those numbers are, you know, came very close. So, we just we just imagined that the streets would be clogged for the entire month, that we were going to be able to pay off our houses with all this income. I think maybe what actually happened was we were able to do some remodeling. That some renovations. So, that's how it actually turned out. But in in the beginning we just thought it would be crazy. We wouldn't be able to drive around Kansas City. People were planning on working from home.

It was just It was just all out. So, we that's And you're right. We were just trying to get prepared for Armageddon.

Yeah. And then and we were tracking the data and like and obviously Kansas City was one of the least lodging supplied cities across all the markets. So, there there was a a worry of could Kansas City accommodate all the visitors that were going to be coming in. And what did you hear from the OTAs? Like what were they telling you in terms of what their number of listings they wanted to bring on, and and new hosts being generated, like cuz it it was a push from everyone to get more people online, right?

It was. We had I think those numbers scared everybody because we had the cities. So, Parkville was the first small suburb that said, "We're waving all of our requirements. Just open up." Then Kansas City said, "We're We're expanding our ordinance." And then we had several All the cities, several dozen of our different municipalities did that. And then air Airbnb came along and they offered the $750 to open up your home. I never did hear any targeted numbers from them. But I did meet with the city yesterday, and what was interesting was they got 400 almost 400 new temper- those temporary permits. And previous to that, this time last year we only had close to 550 total short-term rentals in Kansas City, Missouri proper.

So, we really did our job of expanding that supply. Between, like you said, between all of us. Um our hosting crash course, which we developed because we really we've had some issues. Um we are heavily regulated here because of some naughtiness and some, you know, people not knowing what they're doing. So, we really wanted to professionalize this group. We wanted it to be able to help not only for this event, but also for future events. So, that hosting crash course, we did two of those in partnership with the city and it really improved our our relationships with the city of Kansas City and it it I think it really helped bring on a lot of these hosts and they did it in a responsible way. We heard virtually no problems whatsoever.

Oh, that's that's awesome. One that you were able to work with the city, work with the OTAs towards a common goal of like, "Hey, we need more supply. How do we do it?" Then develop the course, launch the course, and get all those companies to help support and doing that. And what did you hear from hosts in the lead-up? Like, was it that and they're excited about hosting, they needed to know and what to do that they'd never thought about it? Like, what was the general and excitement there or concern around getting into the hosting game?

So, first of all, they were enticed by the money they were being told in the media. Whether that was, you know, and that did not turn out to be quite as lucrative as they thought it would have been, but I think that was a lot of their, you know, they wanted to participate. And I think the city also recognized, they got criticized for the NFL draft because it really did not that didn't boost local the local economy just right around where the draft was held. And they wanted to extend the benefits of this event out into the community. And I think it certainly did. You know, there were a lot of people that did just fine. Some people not so fine, but there were a lot you know, it was very uneven. I think that's another headline was that it was just very uneven. But it really helped a lot of people. You know, our crash courses, we just heard again and again that they you know, they kind of wanted to do this but they didn't know what they how to do it right and how to do it properly.

We had city officials there. We had regulators there to tell them how to how to do the application. We had the insurance people there. Uh it was I think it was great.

So, before I get into Linda and sort of talking about the results and what we saw, like how did you get to the point and of leading the alliance um of and running point across all this? Like what what were sort of the events that sort of led you to not only get here but want to want to take on this responsibility?

Okay, so I didn't want to take I didn't want to do this, Jamie. I didn't want to do this. Uh but we were uh facing a ban in the city of Kansas City, Missouri. And so we got involved. We had We were totally politically naive. We had We didn't know what we were doing. We got involved at the very last minute and we were able to get a core group of our homes grandfathered in so we could still have some homes in Kansas City, Missouri that are separate that you don't that's not your primary residence. So you can still get a new license in Kansas City, Missouri if it's your primary residence. So we got grandfathered in and then we just started meeting because we realized that we were going to have to defend ourselves forever just like every industry. The hotels have their association.

Um every every group every industry group has to have a good association so you can defend yourselves, get prepared for this sort of thing. So that's how I got involved out of necessity.

[laughter]

Trying to stay alive.

That's great. And and it's it is and I'm sure and has been a ton of work, but and the I think the media coverage, the and positive view on hosting, of being able to open up a city, of being able to accommodate more people through expanding supply through short-term rentals in a way that just like might not have been able to been done in the same way without the short-term rental industry. I think Kansas City was an awesome example of like how a city can really take on that responsibility and it actually worked out really well in the eyes of the industry, the city, um and and even opening up Kansas City and you guys hosted some incredible games with some top-tier teams that probably brought people to Kansas City that never would have even heard about it before.

You know, Jamie, that Thank you. That just gave me chills because that's exactly what I had I mean, well, I I I just hoped it wouldn't be a disaster.

[laughter]

And it it turned out to be so great for us. We are now part of the conversation. We're partners with the city. We're partners with Visit KC, um with all the OTAs. I mean, it just really went well and I think we really showed that short-term rentals all across the country, we can be great partners. We can help support uh the other accommodations to ramp up for these kind of events and include us. We can help and we can do it responsibly.

That's awesome. So, Linda, I want to turn to you now uh because we are now and through the end of the World Cup. Uh we we talked about pacing for so long. We talked about incremental demand, adding supply, and all the games that were going to come. And we had multiple predictions from different companies on how much incremental demand, what the pricing was going to be. So, excited to get from you what actually happened. So, maybe we'll start with some headline figures you can run us through and then we'll dig a little bit deeper on some of the trends that we saw.

Yeah. Um it's crazy to kind of meet at the end uh recapping. It was such a long period of just looking and it changing so quickly. But so, the high-level numbers we can start with revenue. So, um I think overall the World Cup really was a um revenue generator for short-term rental hosts and did offer a pretty significant lift. So, across our 16 host cities at about 277 million was generated in additional revenue between June 10th and July 19th compared to the same period last year. And um of that of course the US having so many of the host cities at you have 214 million came from US host cities and then about 30 million uh in Canada as well as Mexico. I think what's really interesting to highlight and it's kind of um maybe follows along with many of the things we've heard from hotels as well is that most of that additional revenue lift came from host being able to charge higher rates. So, rate premiums versus from incremental demand.

So, of that 277 million in additional revenue, 84% came from rate premiums and only 16% came from incremental demand. So, you know, the World Cup very much was a rate event um versus a demand event. Not saying that uh demand wasn't significant or the growth wasn't significant cuz it certainly was in a lot of cities. So, when we think about and we look at all the 16 host cities, which ones ended up coming up at the top in terms of demand, it definitely was those smaller cities, particularly Guadalajara, Monterrey, Kansas City. All three nearly doubled their demands on game days and eves. And then, even outside of game days and eves, these cities were also able to increase demand as well. So, like Guadalajara, Monterrey, you know, on game days and eves, it was up at 90%, but outside of it, they had saw 20% increase. So, guests were also extending their stay stays, kind of increasing the overall demand that that market saw over the World Cup period.

And then, in the US, Kansas City certainly took the lead. Demand was up 43% year over year. On game days and eves, outside of them, it was up 6%. Dallas-Fort Worth was also top contender. Demand was up 19% year over year. And then, up 8% outside of those dates. So, again, you know, it wasn't the rate gains were pretty significant, but demand gains were uh really strong in in most cases as well. But, ultimately, despite strong demands, the World Cup brought a huge surge in supply. We saw essentially almost all the cities saw supply growth. Only one, actually San Francisco, was the only one that didn't see available listings increase year over year. And um, since we're so focused on Kansas City right now, Kansas City the growth was crazy, unlike anything I think I expected. Um, available listings in that city increased 80% year-over-year for the month of June. So, we went from about a little over 3,000 listings last year to almost 6,000 this June.

So, very significant and I had mentioned this you know, they saw 40% uh, demand on game days and eves, but when supply growth is 80% it ends up resulting in occupancy declines, which Kansas City ended up seeing 19% year-over-year decrease in occupancy because so much supply had entered the markets.

I I want to bring Susan in and and get some reaction that and then I want to dig deeper on some of the other trends that we saw in the data. But, I I think that does align with and what we've seen with prior events that they end up being rate events more than I demand events in terms of especially during peak season. Like, if you're going to add more demand, like you got to add more supply and only those markets that added a lot of supply and were actually able to incrementally increase the number of guests that were being accommodated during those peak nights, but and unfortunately, the World Cup wasn't every night and the supply comes on in chunks. People make their listing available during the entirety of the World Cup and then if the majority of demand only comes on during game night and game night eves, that means that and overall market maybe looks a little little bit weaker in terms of overall occupancy and that and you do and and we we did see quite a bit of maybe negative press coming out of like and host that were maybe underwhelmed in terms of the overall demand.

So Susan, I'm interested in how you dealt with that talking about it with Presta and obviously I mean occupancy is a very listing oriented thing of like either I'm sold or I'm not in my listing and if I'm not sold I'm mad, if I am sold like I maybe didn't sell it for as much as I hoped and then I mean we talked a lot about overall accommodated demand in a market which was up like no host cares about overall accommodated demand. They all only care about what's going on in their listing that they maybe spent money to get and up and running to to host for the World Cup. So how did you sort of explain it? How did you sort of think about I mean bookings as they came in and and the performance that happened in Kansas City?

Well, it it really came to a head I would say maybe six weeks out when we started to realize that this was not that this was going to be the occupancy was going to be an issue. And the press did come back around and start asking how is it going? And we we had maintained a Facebook page and I would read through the read through the feed and again it was so uneven. You'd see new people brand new people that were excited they got a great booking and and they were on booked for all four of the group stage matches and then right immediately below that would be someone I've got nothing. What am I doing wrong? Take a look at my listing. What's happening? So it was maddening because you couldn't really tell. I mean I do think that if you were closer to the the location the which for us was Kansas City stadium. If you were closer to the stadium or the fan fest, if you were downtown, I think you did see it was a little bit more even but man it was it was very scary for a little bit there until we just a couple of days ahead.

Then it did seem like we got kind of a flurry of those last minute bookings for group stage and for and for the later matches. But the other thing I will tell you that was interesting about some of the new people, they would say "Oh, I got somebody that's just here not related to" I mean, they were amazed that they were getting normal travelers here. And I also think there's a difference between the professional property managers, those of us that have and I'm not a property manager, I'm an owner, but I've been doing this for 7 or 8 years. And you know, between those and the and the new people, you know, you know as a business owner, business is all about pivoting. It never almost never turns out like you think it's going to turn out. I don't care what business you're in. There's always something you're pivoting around. So, I think we sort of just took it like, "Okay, this is what it is. Let's How are we going to price so we can get someone?" We're not obviously not going to get that super super high price.

You're just blocking your calendar at that point. So, where is that price that would that we can at least get bookings? And I think we did a lot of us the professionals did settle on some good prices.

Which reflects in your data.

Yeah. And Linda, that really feeds into a lot of the trends I feel like you were analyzing throughout of like what was the booking curve? How does that compare? Like how much bookings really happen far out in advance? And how many bookings happen last minute? And expectations between how that was going to play out in the group stage where we knew which teams were playing versus the later stages where it was more up to chance on how the teams were going to finish and then how they were going to perform and through the round of 32, round of 16. So, what trends did you see play out and sort of high level? And if you want to get into some specifics throughout the booking curve and as we the games actually start playing out.

Yeah, I think the anticipation and the talk around the group stage because, you know, the wait was such a long period of time up to the World Cup. The talk was I felt like every other week I was looking at the booking curve and I mean everyone was saying was were the last minute bookings going to come in? Are they going to come in? And I mean ultimately they did, right? Across the board like we ended up seeing demand up and, you know, those last couple weeks were really when those bookings came in. I think for me what was really interesting to analyze was essentially how bookings came in for the group stage versus the later stages of the game. Because the group stage, you know, we knew what those matches were going to be and, you know, people who were going to book booked and essentially it was so when you compare the group stage matches had significantly different booking curves than those of later matches.

The matches that people knew were going to happen, they booked very very early and so like in my last kind of Airbnb recap of how the World Cup ended up being, I highlighted a couple markets where we really did see a pretty big contrast between how the group stage booked versus later stages. So a good example of this was in Dallas. We the Austria versus Argentina game, that was a group stage game. It saw, you know, some of the strongest performance among all the matches in Dallas. And, you know, 90 days out there were 6,000 nights booked for that game, which made up about a third of bookings for that match. And 6,000 nights was like 150% year-over-year increase in nights booked more than 90 days out. So, this was, you know, Messi fans, Argentina fans that were super excited. They booked early.

And, you know, we saw those bookings very early on. And then, as and when you look at like last-minute bookings, it wasn't really that significant. There were like 2% of all bookings happened within the last week. Because, again, people knew what the match was, they wanted to see it, they booked early. But then, when you compare that to, let's say, the France versus Spain semi-final game, that game, you didn't see very early bookings because we didn't know what the match was going to be. And so, you know, in terms of bookings made 90 days out, it was like half the amount. Instead of 6,000, it was like 3,000. And, you know, that is still pretty significant, you know, early bookings. But, ultimately, the majority of the bookings ended up happening closer to the match.

And in the last 2 weeks, it was like 20 it was like a 25% increase in last-minute bookings. And so, ultimately, the demand around the semi-final game, even though you thought it was going to be potentially stronger because it's, you know, this huge match-up, a highly anticipated game, it didn't end up being as high. The growth was like 14% year-over-year versus 32% for that Argentina versus Austria game. So, in short, the group stage bookings, they ultimately, in most cases, outperformed the later stages because people were willing to book and book early for the games that were further out. And usually when games are when you book further out, you're also paying higher prices. So, a lot of hosts were able to also command higher premiums.

And then for the games that, you know, were the qualifying rounds, even though they are maybe higher stakes, they didn't end up seeing as much demand, as much of a rate uptick because people waited and and honestly, it probably is a lot harder to, you know, book a book something last minute, just pick up and go after hearing what the matchup is is and like be there in 3 days. And I think that ultimately, for me, that was super interesting and maybe an insight that we can definitely take away for future games or tournaments like this.

Um and Susan, how did you see it like on the ground? Like with how bookings were playing out differently between the openers and then the later rounds? Like did you feel like people were sort of getting a sense of like booking behavior or was it really just like a free-for-all of like and some people getting booked, others not? Like I'm just feeling around for that rate cuz and then pricing is is hard and the randomness of bookings around events is hard. Like did you feel like it got easier, harder like as things played out? Like how did you see it on the ground?

I I do think that people sort of acclimated to the fact that that we were going to have to continue to bring our prices down. It's just basic economics, supply and demand. And I do also remember during our hosting crash course, I don't remember which vendor it was, but one of them gave us a playbook and it said, you know, if you're not booked by this date, you need to bring your prices down this much and then bring your prices down. I mean, they actually told us that this might happen. So, this isn't unprecedented. It's just what happens in business, you know, it's just trying to find that balance between that supply and demand. And to me, at it as a long game. I think it was really fabulous that our guests could stay here, could come see Kansas City and stay for an affordable price, didn't feel like they were being price gouged and maybe they'll come again. Maybe they'll locate their business here.

Maybe they will visit maybe they'll live here. So, I think for us in the long term, it's really good and the way Kansas City showed up on the world stage, it was just amazing. So.

Yeah. So, Susan, what do you think happens to the all those listings that got added during the World Cup now? Do you think some number of them stay and obviously some of the permits were were temporary and I'm sure you have met many people that have got the hosting bug of like, I this was great. I want to keep doing it. Like it was so much fun to meet all these people from all over the world and show my city to them. So, how do you think it's going to play out in terms of I know all the supply that got added going forward.

I think it will equalize. I obviously you've got those 397 that will be required to shut down and then as the others realize that this is a harder business than they thought and that there's not the demand that can support this many. I think they'll they'll be natural attrition. I think the city is ramping up their efforts to make sure that everyone is that is signed up is legal, you know, that they are shutting down those temporary ones. And I I have heard from several though that that do have the ability that got the annual permits that are excited that were introduced that were introduced to short-term renting in their properties and and sharing their homes with visitors for the first time and they love it. They're all in. They're coming to our meetings. So, it's all over the board.

That's great. So, Linda, is there anything else you wanted to add in terms of the trends before I move into some of the the press narratives?

I think it's just cuz we were talking about listings super interesting in Kansas City is just how many Right. Like how many that were actually just World Cup only properties. Um I think ultimately I'd say it was probably around 15% um but it was it's interesting looking at the data seeing a lot of that listing growth and how it like accelerated in the months leading up to June. Um and actually, you know, we saw an acceleration in active listings, just listings that are listed on the platforms, but in terms of available listings, which we mean like you're listed, but you have availability, that really didn't see that uptick until the that June until June came along when it was like, "Oh my gosh, we're activating all of these listings now. They're available for the World Cup. Please book." And so, that that was really very interesting for sure.

Well, I I I found that really interesting too and that was some fun research. So, I do want to go through some of the press narratives with you guys and get your thoughts on what they got wrong, what they maybe got right, and maybe starting with just like and using occupancy as a scoreboard cuz it is so easy to get anecdotes of like one person that's booked, one person that's not booked, and I think we generally te- kept to like overall and increases in occupant and demand and revenue. But why do you think press latches so much on to this occupancy figure?

You know, in my experience with the press in Kansas City, they do an amazing job for the limited amount of time they have and all the different topics they have to learn about. And I think they're always I do think they many times they come with an agenda. Something that they think that they they're trying to get eyeballs just like we all are. And what is that hook going to be? And I think they decided that their hook was going to be that this was oversold, that they got the numbers wrong, we're not having this many people, there was a little bit of politics that creeped in, are we scaring people from coming to the United States? I got a lot of questions about that. And they were looking to validate their their viewpoint. So they think that people to watch their shows and make money and that's what we all do, right?

So we I tried to connect them with different hosts. They would typically they would typically call me about interviews and I would and they would ask do you have a host here or do you have a host here? And I would give them a variety of different hosts. I feel like Kansas City's coverage is pretty good because they got to see some hosts that were successful, some not so successful. Overall, I think they did a good job. But boy, they did latch on to that. You know, I think they were trying to really blame FIFA and our committee for saying, you know, projecting too much. And I just don't know that that actually turned out to be true. You know, I heard we had just we had about that many people in Kansas City.

Yeah. Linda, I want to ask you too about like it feels like some of the confusion there was like mixing up supply versus demand of like occupancy fell, but overall like it's because inventory was growing faster, not because fans stayed home. So, like, how did you try to separate that like when talking to the press?

I think yeah, very much just saying, "Hey, I remember not actually right when we wrapped up I talked to someone in I believe it was Dallas, but the idea that like no, it demand held up. Demand delivered. It's not that demand didn't deliver. Let's you know, let's just talk about that first." Um and if there wasn't this supply influx, I mean, hosts really would have seen really great occupancy growth. They saw great great growth. That's still a positive. That's still a win for them. But, you know, the reality is when you have an event like this, people you know, they jump on the bandwagon. They want an opportunity and you can't blame them and it doesn't mean demand didn't deliver. I think a lot of times the press wanted to talk about demand not delivering.

Bingo. I totally I totally agree with that, Linda. It was I struggled with how to explain that, you know, I do think people are coming. You can see it in the demand numbers. There's just such an increase in supply.

Yeah, and even I was looking at like match day and Eve occupancy in Kansas City. It was over 70% across the games. Like clearly there was a need for these short-term rentals and they were occupied when people needed them.

I think our occupancy during those game days, I think it was only down by three per something like 3% on those it wasn't bad. So,

Yeah, I mean, what about the other anecdotes? Cuz like it felt like the pricing anecdotes too got and crazy of like, "Oh, there's this one host that's charging $17,000 a night. Like they're gouging hosts. Like Airbnb hosts are terrible versus like the overall data is like, "Yeah, rates are up, but like this is a huge event and like it's like they're up double, they're not up quadruple or average listing is not over and 17,000 and like most listings and and I know Airbnb talked about this a lot were less than $500 a night." Really trying to push that narrative, but yeah, Susan, how did you sort of think about those pricing anecdotes and responding to them? Yeah, I I did not get that that question. It was all It was more about are they coming?

[laughter]

That was the main question because and I do think because our hosts did start reducing their pricing. Um, and I also had, you know, on our Facebook page and people that would personally call me and ask questions, they would say, "We had quite a few that had booked at the higher prices, but then those got canceled." And they went with the lower pricing. So, I don't know that we had a lot of hosts here that had I'm sure we did one or two, but I I I don't We didn't hear about it and the press didn't make a big deal about that here. Maybe in other cities.

Cool. Linda, how about you cuz there is this I know I know this narrative that played out and interested me if and how you sort of saw the data of like overall available rates of what people were charging and then what was actually getting booked at. And at the beginning there was a huge disconnect between them of like people booking the lower priced units and a lot of the listings that were coming out really high priced were were still available, they weren't getting booked. And I know we expected those to sort of converge as more and more demand get booked, there's going to be some notion of hosts adjusting the rates, some of and people just and willing to book at a higher rate because it's coming in last minute. And but did we see those converge? Did you see like the really high priced ones just not get booked or and what what what did you see happen there?

I think ultimately, I mean, we know that occupancy was down in a lot of markets and I do think that a lot of hosts did have to lower their rates over time. I mean, and one of the most the probably one of my favorite charts that I made over the World Cup period was that difference between book rate and available rate. And in the beginning, yeah, there was quite a difference and you know, we and then we saw that properties that were priced maybe correctly or reasonably ended up getting booked and they did especially get booked in those smaller markets where there was just less supply to choose from. And so, in those markets, rates actually did increase quite a bit, Kansas City being one of them. But in markets where there's more supply, more hotels, more short-term rentals, we didn't see as much of a rate bump. Um overall, everyone generally saw somewhere in that 20% range, which is still pretty good.

Um but yeah, I don't think that the people that had charged ridiculous wanted to earn with maybe very high rates actually ended up earning them. Uh just because of the fact that, you know, we did see a lot of supply growth.

Yeah. So, Susan, the other one was maybe just judging the event too early. Like and if we're going to go back and do this again, which I'm not saying we ever will, hopefully. May may maybe if you moved LA and you join us in talking to the media about the Olympics in 2028.

[laughter]

But when do you think I was it not until the end that was really fair to judge what was going to happen? Like when do you think is like and the bust coverage was like all over like and everyone loves a good bust to talk about especially and you can't pick I feel like a better groups to hate Airbnb and FIFA and marry those together like uh

[laughter]

it's like a a media storm. So like when do you think is the right time to judge whether this was a a bust or a a boom for the market?

Boy, that that reminds me of several interviews and I was just thinking and I even said to them because they kept trying to get me to say, "Can you tell, you know, are you able to tell if we're getting all these people or not?" And I said, "You're not going to be able to tell if we got all the people until we get all the people." What our bookings are not predictive of what's happening. Plus, here in Kansas City and I don't know if this happened in other cities, we had a huge block of hotel rooms let go by FIFA very late in the game. I mean, they just flooded the market with hotel rooms that they were that they were not using. There was quite a bit of controversy about that, too. So, yeah, you can't tell until the end.

Yeah. So, Linda, what do you what do you think the press got right? There was and this notion of like and that supply was going to grow and that new hosts were going to come in and the tournament spread across 16 countries. There's and and all this and that's spreading out demand. There's also like all this worry about inbound demand, international demand giving tariffs and just negative press towards the US. Do you have any What's your sense of like what actually played out versus and what was just and maybe media scare tactics?

I don't know. I I'll be honest. I don't know how much bad press I personally had to deal with throughout uh the World Cup. I was, you know, the the the guru behind the data. Uh but I will say that I maybe honestly I expected to hear more of the negativity. I think there was they were res- uh from what I could see get just seemed receptive after you kind of changed the way they thought about it, right? Um so everyone was upset about the booking curve, but explaining the booking curve to them and saying, "Hey, like demand does come in last minute. Let's just wait." I felt like people were receptive to that and I you know, I I did the Paris Olympics coverage as well back however two or something years ago and I I think one of my favorite maybe press narratives was 50% of uh short-term rentals in the market are unoccupied instead of saying 50% occupied, of course.

And so I didn't hear I I felt like we didn't hear as much of that, I think. And and truthfully like I liked reading when the press were excited about different matchups and um you know, the demand around that. And I think we did see that in coverage as well where, you know, it it was it unlike the Olympics where maybe you don't track the sports as closely, here like you really do track the matches and um hearing press talk about like you know, the the Scotland game is seeing incredible demand surge um was really cool cuz it truly was like something that we were seeing in the data um and honestly that we saw in real life when they did arrive here, so.

Yeah. That's great. So, Susan, I want to turn it back to you and sort of thinking about the playbook for the next one. I mean, let's say we've got the LA short-term rental alliance sort of listening in. Can you give me a sense of like what your playbook would be to them of like what to think about and who are the best partners to sort of start working with and what would what should they be thinking about now sort of 2 years out for a hosting a big event or even if it's I know another small city or smaller city like Kansas City and you get picked to host this big event, like what and maybe they don't have an alliance or I mean, aren't as organized and what should they be thinking about?

So, it's most important for us that we continue to be responsible neighbors because nothing gets you shut down faster than that. So, that was our priority was how do we make this the best for the neighborhoods and that those hosting crash courses were critical in training, partnering with the cities, not just Kansas City, but also the suburbs. We met with a ton of different city officials talking about it, letting them know what we were doing to make sure that the hosts were responsible, they knew what they were doing, the guests would be safe. Um, partnering with the OTAs. We had um, obviously Airbnb, but also Booking did some webinars for us. Uh, VRBO is there. They are all willing to come and talk to your people and your potential people, um, short-term rental hosts and just take advantage of all that, but get involved also politically, talk to not only, um, staff at those city those cities, but also the political leaders because, uh, I I that was just the key to our success, Just getting out and talking to everybody, partnering with everybody, and then of course um for us it was Visit KC Visit KC, those uh DMOs that are in your area as well.

Linda, when you think about maybe um pricing for hosts, and I know you've been digging in now more and more on on pricing strategy, pricing trends, like what would you suggest to a host sort of pricing out 90 days in advance first the last 30? Like thinking through of like what we saw play out, what we've seen play out in other major events, like and I and I know you're a host, like you're you're pricing your unit on every given day, like seeing this play out, would this materially change your strategy going into a big event like this?

Yeah, um definitely. I think the the question I think a lot of it will be knowing your market, understanding you you know, if I'm in Kansas City, I understand that there's maybe more limited supply, and so I might be able to hold rates a little bit longer, but ultimately like I also have to be paying attention to if there's a lot of supply growth coming in, and um if there you know, if and kind of pay and as we get closer and and I think it's hard to know like when close is, like when is that period in time in which I need to lower my rates. And I will say looking at the booking curves, especially of later stage matches, it very much was like, you know, demand didn't come in till the very last minute. It very much was, you know, for that final game, um and those semi-final games, once those matches got determined, that's when those bookings happened, and it can be hard to, you know, I guess you're 3 days out from the match.

Am I supposed to hold rate or not? And I mean, my advice to you is use a pricing tool. That's really, you know, all I've got. At least to get at least understand what percentage is your market booked at because if it's 80% hold that price, but if it's 20% you definitely got to think about it and maybe lower that rate. So, I don't know. I know that if

there was a World Cup coming into my town, I probably will be would be looking at those booking curves very, very, very closely.

And I I want to leave the final question to you, Susan, of like you're and you got to advise a lot of hosts pre-event. You got to talk with a lot of hosts during the event. What what would your advice be to maybe now a future host finding this podcast thinking about hosting during during a major event? Like what to think about? What are the pros? What are the cons? What are the things you might get into that you might not have otherwise thought of I'm now with hindsight.

I I would just advise them to be conservative on how much they spend on renovations to their homes. I do feel like I heard from some people that may have spent a little bit too much and didn't quite make their investment back. I heard others that that did fine. But I would be very conservative in what you're doing. Um I would think about your own lifestyle. Do you really want to pick up? I I think the people that had the hardest time were the ones that that left their home, went somewhere else to rent out their own home. And boy, if that didn't work out for you, that was a lot of disruption. So, you might want to think twice about doing that. But if you have a an area in your home where you can continue to live there and maybe rent out the basement or something or the bottom floor level, something like that. Uh but I think the number one thing is just to maybe be a little bit more conservative about about what you're putting into it.

Yeah. No, I think that's great advice. I know when we were out at the host tours and Linda, you were out in Kansas City and we had our calculator on what people could earn. I think one of the biggest feedbacks we got was like, that's it? Like

[laughter]

I remember I remember one specific guy in the audience at the host crash course that was like, what? And I think he left.

[laughter]

Which is good. I mean, the data that we were given was really good at that crash course and that was you know, 6 months out and it turned out to be pretty true, pretty solid.

Yeah, that if you're coming in thinking you're going to get I mean, $15,000 a night for hosting during a major event, like if that comes true, there's going to be so much supply that I mean, it's going to erode those earnings anyway and coming in with reasonable expectations, like it's not business as usual. Like yes, you're going to get some great premiums, but it's not going to be a home run of like you're going to pay for your home for the entire year just cuz a big event's coming into town.

Right.

Awesome. Well, Susan, Linda, thank you guys so much for coming wrapping up this event with me. I feel like it was it was cathartic for me to talk through it and I really enjoyed the conversation.

Thanks, Barry. Ditto.

Thanks

[laughter]

Thanks for all your help during the during the event picking up those press calls we were getting here. We appreciate it.