Holiday Bookings - Busy or Bust?

Question

How is everyone seeing the holiday bookings this year as compared to last year?  Are people holding on to their money or are they feeling good about the future?  We keep seeing conflicting views but my personal experience with buyers indicates that the outlook is positive.

John Underwood · Answer

We have over 20k in bookings on our Pigeon Forge Cabin for December so far.

Collin Hays · Answer

Our December is about the same as last December, which is actually a RELIEF for me. I see things steadying...

Garrett Brown · Answer

Our STRs are all booked for the holidays majority wise but the one week that is slow across the board is the week post-Thanksgiving. In general, the booking lead time has been the lowest in years though (used to average around 40-45 days now its about 25-30 days) but our occpuancy rates are still as high as ever.

JD Martin · Answer

I'm in your market (4 Corners) and we've got Thanksgiving & the Christmas/New Years weeks booked but a big gap in between them, whereas we're usually filled up from the beginning of November on. So still very slow. I have had a few 2025s come in so far, which is a little better and earlier than last year, so we'll see how it goes from here.

V.G Jason · Answer

Slightly less bookings, way less lead times, prices have dropped.

January 2025 is promising relative to how 2024 has played out. Have some bookings out as far as Valentine's day, but we usually don't show past 14-15 weeks to re adjust for pricing. So not sure if we'd get booked further.

Andrew Steffens · Answer

We are just about sold out for Thanksgiving, 75% sold out for Christmas and NYE in Tampa area.  It was slow pre-election but now the bookings have poured in.  Definitely more last minute this year than last.  I think pricing is especially important.

Michael Baum · Answer

Hey @Danae Pitcher, so we have had a 7 day stay for early Thanksgiving, but nothing for actual Thanksgiving week. Christmas is still open as well.

We don't get a ton of bookings in the winter other than the holidays and even then not every year.

There isn't much to do at the lake house in the winter. Snow is coming down, the lake is freezing over etc.

Danae Pitcher · Answer

@Andrew Steffens sounds like it’s going great so far but I do agree that pricing is key this year.

Michael Baum · Answer

Haha @Danae Pitcher! Yeah we have talked about it but so far we haven't really tried to make that work.

I would much rather do a ski cabin here in Idaho or Montana. :)

Trent Reeve · Answer

its very slow in Panama City beach. very slow

Holiday Bookings - Busy or Bust?

Most Popular Reply