I've spent a good part of this year writing about this market in pieces: why parts of it are cooling while I'm not worried about ours, why construction and pricing are normalizing rather than collapsing, why quality and location are starting to matter more than blanket sentiment. New data out of Guesty's flagship industry conference, GuestyVal, held in Madrid, Spain this September, puts hard numbers behind all of it, passed along by Ari Eryorulmaz, founder of Extenteam, who was there. I wanted to share it because it says plainly what I've been detailing all along.
The Headline: The Middle Fell. The Top Barely Moved.
AirDNA walked the room through five years of revenue data for Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge cabins specifically, broken out by how a listing actually performs rather than just where it sits. The typical full-time cabin lost 15% of its revenue from the 2021 peak through 2026 — $71,000 down to $60,000, a seventh of its earnings gone, before inflation. The top 10% of cabins? Down just 4% over that same five years — $106,000 to $102,000. Same market, same guests, same wave of new competition. Completely different outcome depending on which cabin you owned.
The Full Picture, Year by Year
From 2018 to the 2021 peak, the typical cabin and the bottom quarter actually grew revenue faster than the top 10% — 68% versus 53%. Everybody rode the boom together. But since that peak, the story flipped entirely: the top 10% has held essentially flat, down only 4%. The typical cabin and the bottom quarter are both down 15%, before inflation.
That's not a market falling apart. That's a market where the gap between well-run and average has never mattered more — and it's not just a conference slide. AirDNA's own public dashboard for Gatlinburg shows the same shape through June: revenue per listing down 2.7%, occupancy down 2.8%, but average daily rate actually up 1.7%. Pricing power hasn't left this market. It's concentrated in the properties doing it right. For broader context, AirDNA's separate national 2026 outlook shows the same pattern playing out at scale across the country — this year's growth is coming almost entirely from rate, not occupancy, and the operators clearing that bar are pulling away from the ones who aren't.
Why I Wanted to Put This in Writing
I didn't need this data to believe what I've been saying, but I'll admit it's satisfying to see it laid out this precisely by a source with no reason to make our argument for us. Everything in that presentation lines up with what I've written about this market all year: construction cooling from a real 2023 peak, revenue holding a plateau rather than declining, and now — the clearest version yet — proof that the split in this market runs through quality and management, not through the market as a whole.
It's also exactly why we build the way we do. Real locations, professional management through Casago, a team that actually lives here — that's not marketing language, it's the specific set of things this data says separates the top 10% from everyone else.
If you want to talk through where a specific property fits into that picture, my team is happy to walk you through it.
— Austin Williams, CEO, Compass
Sources:
1. Five-year cabin revenue data for Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge by performance tier (top 10% vs. typical vs. bottom quarter): AirDNA presentation, GuestyVal 2026, Guesty's flagship industry conference, Madrid, Spain, September 16–18, 2026; relayed by Ari Eryorulmaz, Founder, Extenteam.
2. Gatlinburg short-term rental performance through June 2026 (revenue, occupancy, ADR trends): AirDNA — [airdna.co/vacation-rental-data/app/us/tennessee/gatlinburg/overview](https://www.airdna.co/vacation-rental-data/app/us/tennessee/gatlinburg/overview)
3. AirDNA's 2026 Midyear Outlook (national ADR-led growth trend, slower new supply): PR Newswire, "Steady Demand and Slower New Supply Define U.S. Short-Term Rentals in 2026, AirDNA Finds" — [prnewswire.com/news-releases/steady-demand-and-slower-new-supply-define-us-short-term-rentals-in-2026-airdna-finds-302820776.html](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/steady-demand-and-slower-new-supply-define-us-short-term-rentals-in-2026-airdna-finds-302820776.html)
4. AirDNA naming Gatlinburg/the Smoky Mountains as an outperforming, ADR-led mountain destination in its 2026–2027 outlook: Staylah, "2026 Short-Term Rental Market Outlook" — [staylah.com/blog/2026-short-term-rental-market-outlook](https://www.staylah.com/blog/2026-short-term-rental-market-outlook)
