Hey there, Ben here. Sam Shankman (@samtravels) is the journalist behind farm hospitality, with over 59,000 followers as of this writing. Back in 2021, Sam started telling her farm's story on Instagram, and that year, her farm in Spain booked out. And one of the key content types she used to grow her own bookings is called Base Camp Content. Sam’s a rockstar who introduced me to farm hospitality years before we started building Baya. So a few weeks ago, she agreed to join me and my Content...
3 days ago • 4 min read
Hey—Ben here Over the last 5 years, our team has scaled a portfolio of unique stays to $50M+ in property value. How? We got extremely clear on how much revenue we were losing by relying on OTAs like Airbnb. And once we calculated that number, we knew we needed to shift to a direct booking strategy. When you do this for your own property, you’ll see: What you’re really paying OTAs in commissions every year (many don’t actually want to know this). Your NOI today vs. what it could be on...
5 days ago • 1 min read
Which pricing strategy should you use? Option A: Manually set your rate and leave it. Option B: Use a dynamic pricing tool to adjust your rates automatically based on the market. Now, this is a bit of a trick question because the right answer I'm looking for is… You should be working towards a Custom Revenue Management System. Why? If you manually set your rate, you’d better hope you can time the market right. Otherwise, you’ll probably end up: Pricing too low and maxing occupancy (with a...
13 days ago • 3 min read
Over the past few weeks, we've begun sitting down with Accelerator members to look back at their first five months with us. Across the board, one lesson keeps coming up: Pricing. More specifically… How to price so that ADR goes up and occupancy goes up with it How to set prices when you don't have a booking history to lean on So today, I want to walk you through one member who figured it out. They opened five cabins in April, in a North Carolina mountain town most travelers haven't heard of,...
17 days ago • 3 min read
Before this week's episode: Slow season gets decided 60 to 120 days out. Most hotels are still solving it 30 days out, cutting rates alongside everyone else. My Baya co-founder Steve, Katarina Glejtkova (our Director of Revenue Management at Oasi) and I are running a free 90-minute workshop on Zoom on how to price early, and stop joining your competitors in a race to the bottom. Join us on October 7 Wednesdsay at 1PM EST. Save your seat here. Hey, Ben here! Edwin, Zach and I kept landing on...
22 days ago • 1 min read
Quick note before we get into it: I'm hosting a live workshop tomorrow, October 1st at 1:00 PM EST on The Slow Season Pricing Playbook: How To Price With AirDNA Adapt. In just 90 minutes, we’ll show you how to build a competitive comp set and price strategically against your closest competitors. Click here to add this workshop to your calendar (and we’ll send you the replay - even if you can’t make it live). Last Thursday, I was catching up with a friend who’s attending VRMA 26 in Nashville...
25 days ago • 3 min read
Hey, Ben here! This week Scott, Edwin, Zach and I spent the whole episode on one question. Who actually owns the guest? We talk about how the top players in hospitality are either fighting to capture more of your guests, or admitting they can't fake it anymore. Airbnb's hotel program just crossed 4,000 properties, growing 3x faster than Airbnb's core home business. Uber's playing the same game from a different angle. It's becoming a new booking layer for Expedia's hotel supply, using 50...
28 days ago • 1 min read
According to Lodging Econometrics, 2,371 new hotels opened in 2025. 2,617 more are expected in 2026. And most of those are going to do one thing right before they open their doors: list themselves on OTAs Which means… You'll be seeing a flood of competitors right next to your property, fighting for the same customers. And some of these hotels have bigger budgets and even institutional capital behind them. But that's not the worst part. It's this: OTAs will keep charging you the same...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Modern Hospitality Playbook: The one-page marketing report that tells you what to fix next (and takes ten minutes a month, not a weekend). A quick promo before we start... FREE WORKSHOP How Glamping Resorts Can Drive Millions Of Ideal Guests To Their Direct Booking Site (Without Spending Hours On Video Shoots & Edits) This Thursday, September 3, Brian Linton and I are running a live workshop on the single-shot Reel, the format we lean on when we need volume without booking a shoot day. You'll...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
FREE WORKSHOP How Glamping Resorts Can Drive Millions Of Ideal Guests To Their Direct Booking Site (Without Spending Hours On Video Shoots & Edits) Thursday, September 3, Brian Linton and I are running a live workshop on the single-shot Reel, which is the format we use when we want to record, edit, and push a new Reel live in minutes.. You'll leave with a hook, a caption and a 7 to 12 second video brief for your next Reel, built with us on the call. 1:00 PM ET, on Zoom, free. Save your seat...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read