World Cup STR Shift, AI Limits & Arizona Rental Bill

On Monday’s Good Morning Hospitality, A Skift Podcast, Wil Slickers, Michael Goldin, Brandreth Canaley, and Jamie Lane break down the latest headlines shaping short-term rentals and travel strategy.

The team starts with how Airbnb is seeing weaker-than-expected FIFA World Cup 2026 – Canada, Mexico and the United States demand in New York City while nearby New Jersey markets are benefiting from stricter STR rules limiting supply in the city.

They then unpack how recent disruptions in the Middle East exposed the limits of AI-powered customer service during major travel crises before turning to a new bill in Arizona that would expand state oversight of short-term rentals.

The episode wraps with AirDNA‘s Jamie Lane sharing February short-term rental market data and early demand signals as operators head into the spring and summer travel season.

Watch This Episode

Good morning, happy Monday.

Best day of the week. How are we doing, you two?

I’m coming down from my skiing high, back into-

Your week off.

Yeah, honestly, Big Sky could not recommend more. We had so, even though the skiing conditions were real East Coast-y this year, the mountain is unbelievable. I, and I’ve like, I was nervous about my back, and I crushed it.

I wasn’t skiing at like 100 percent, but skiing at like 85 percent, which is huge improvement, huge morale.

The little things once you’re over 30, it really makes a difference.

Yeah.

Hello, Jamie Lane, how are we doing? How was the weekend?

It was good. We got rain today. Big storm came through and this was first, but they canceled school because of rain, raining too hard.

Yeah. So it was already supposed to be a half day for teachers to get something done. So they’re going to send the kids home at noon.

We’re like, yeah, you can just keep them the whole day. It’s great.

Yeah, great for us. I love that. How was the offsite last week?

It was awesome.

Had the group in town for five days. Shout out to Placemaker and their Scout living spot that everyone stayed in and found a great office space and boardroom and desks. And it was incredible.

So I’m a big fan of them right now.

Lovely.

Will, how was your weekend?

Oh, just dandy. Just dandy. I got a ticket in my own driveway.

So that was cool. Love getting pulled over. It was a great show for all the neighbors that now think I’m a massive criminal.

So that was my highlight this weekend outside of watching Formula One and kind of resting and relaxing. I’ve been hired a personal trainer a couple of weeks ago. So my body is very sore.

So I did take the weekend off.

What was it? Speeding or meth smuggling? What was the it was the latter?

For sure, the latter.

I don’t want to say it out loud to convict myself even more. Just kidding. No, I didn’t realize my tabs were expired.

So it’s time to get those done. Adult things, giving the government more money. Who would have thought?

But yeah, anyways, it was a good weekend overall. Excited to be back with you guys.

For the listeners and live viewers, FYI, you may realize we’re missing one of our amazing co-hosts, Michael Goldin, who is at the Hunter Hotel Conference, which is where Jamie Lane is also going to be here in the next, what, hour, couple hours, or

No, I’m going to head down, hang out with Michael in a bit.

Aw, FOMO.

I know.

A little sad, actually. We’re all going to be missing out. No fun selfies for the GMH crew.

Anyways, you guys are going to have fun at the Hunter Hotel Conference, but for our live viewers and listeners, tell us where you’re tuning in from. We’re about to jump into some fun topics.

One we’ve covered quite a bit, but it’s going to get as much attention as things continue to change and get closer, obviously, for some of these events here in the United States.

3:54

World Cup Lodging

Jamie Lane, where are we at with the World Cup?

Yeah, so I thought this was an interesting article that we got from Skift, sort of reacting to Nathan Rotman going on local TV in New York, really highlighting the lack of lodging that New York is going to have during the World Cup because of their

short-term rental essentially ban, and how they’ve been pushing really hard to get a temporary reprieve around legislation around short-term rentals specifically for the World Cup. I provided some data to them for the article, but it is clear demand

is through the roof in New Jersey, and we’re seeing occupancy up 125 percent compared to this time last year, already at 36 percent occupancy. Given that we’re 90 days out, something like that, there’s a lot more bookings yet to come.

Ultimately, because of the lack of lodging supply, prices are just going to be through the roof, and there is going to be very little reprieve that typically happens as people are able to charge a lot of money.

That brings in more supply as people want to cash in on that money, and then it limits the premium that everyone gets.

Ultimately, it’s much better for the guests, and we’re going to be hosting a lot of international guests coming in for the World Cup.

And you can see, like Kansas City, that is already up 20% since June in terms of new supply added, and then other markets like New York, where there’s been essentially no supply added because of the severe restriction.

Yeah, one of the things, I mean, I’m not surprised that they’re running into this hurdle because New York has been so strict and staunch and made such noise about having this ban.

But what has surprised me about the World Cup in general is that so much of this planning and action is happening so close to the event date because when this was announced or even like a year before the games are going to happen, FIFA should have

talked with New York, there should have been some sort of agreement in advance that irons this out, that for these 30 days, there’s going to be this temporary easing. That seems like it should have been part of the contracts and negotiations when

you’re establishing the sites. In Boston, Gillette Stadium is in Foxborough, Massachusetts and Foxborough was not going to give them the permits that they needed because there was a $7 or $8 million security tab that FIFA wanted Foxborough to pay,

but it’s a small town. They’re like, we’re not going to pay that and they weren’t going to give them the permits to do that and they were like right up to the deadline and then finally, someone, I don’t know if it was FIFA, whoever like gave the

money. It’s like, how is this enormous international event not having these discussions with Foxborough, with the city of New York, like where these massive games are being played? And they’re just kind of like, oh, shit, it’s March.

Like, where are we going to put all these people? It just seems crazy to me.

Yeah, everyone’s too busy marketing and doing a lot of marketing promotion to actually work on logistics, it sounds like. But I do have a question to you too.

Do you think cost has anything to factor in with this dip or this like lack of pace for the World Cup bookings?

Like, I know inventory obviously is an important thing, so if there’s people not listing their homes or their apartment or whatever, or hotels are all booked, then obviously I can see that.

But do you think that maybe FIFA or World Cup in general is just getting outpriced with how much it costs for people to come into the country, for flights, for lodging, for food, for the ticket, for you name it?

Yeah, I think that just regular people are not coming anymore. Obviously, I’m not claiming to be in the soccer or football world, but it’s just kind of like the Super Bowl, right?

Only really wealthy people, corporations that have bought blocks of tickets, maybe if someone wins a contest or something. But I feel like this is just kind of like the average fan is not coming to these games. I could be wrong.

You could correct me if I’m wrong. But I just think that now it’s just like a lot of high status sporting events that it’s just a certain group of people from each of these countries.

You better believe that hotel industry broadly does not want new supply being added to lead up to the event, right? That limits the prices that they can charge.

Like this is sort of billed as a really high revenue, really high profit event that is going to be an awesome windfall for most hotel owner, operators, even short-term rental hosts.

Like the ones that are in New York that are, there’s few 3,000 that are actually able to have a permit and run out on a short-term basis. Like this is going to be incredible for them.

The problem is that there’s not going to be able to be more supply being added and more people be able to host around the event because of the restrictions.

In Paris during the Olympics, we saw 45 percent increase in inventory and lead up to the games, and then most of that went away afterwards. But it was a good way to be able to accommodate more people.

What short-term rentals are incredible for around major events, you don’t have to build hotels for peak inventory because supply can expand around these peak demand events.

Yeah, you have flex supply. Well, Jessica Walker, the CEO of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce made a good point.

Not only are regular New Yorkers who might want to rent out their apartment for the event or whatever, losing out on that opportunity, but then the ripple effects of all the business.

She’s made the comment, like if someone is renting a home in New Jersey, they’re not going to be in Astoria getting their coffee. They’re going to be getting their coffee down the street in New Jersey.

So I think that that’s, and that kind of echoes the sentiment from, I think earlier in the year where the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and some of these other like the outer boroughs were saying like, this is having an impact on getting tourists into

our boroughs and seeing the rest of New York and helping our businesses here. So this is just like an even bigger event that highlights that lack of activity.

Yeah, really good points, really good points. And we have some great comments coming in the live chat or the live stream on LinkedIn with Demetri and Paul.

Paul’s comment, logistically, the US alone would be so different than most, sorry, host countries in Europe or in South America. The sheer size of the country adds way more complexity. So for sure.

Yeah.

I mean, getting from, I don’t know if I said this on the show previously, but when my parents were back in the 90s when the World Cup was here, they talked to some German fans and they’re like, oh yeah, we’re taking the train from here to here to

here. And my parents were like, you’re not doing that. You’re not going to see the games. They’re like, you’re going to see the first game and the last game.

And they’re like, what do you mean? They’re like, it will take you days to get that far. I think that’s just like the, when people, I love when you see the maps, like when they superimpose countries on top of maps of the United States.

It’s like, this is how big it is. Like, just think of it, you’re not driving there. If you’re not flying, you’re not getting there fast.

Yeah.

Yeah, 100%, 100%, I could have said it better myself.

11:50

AI Crisis Response

Well, this one was a fun article to get last minute last week while we were kind of planning for this episode. I have a lot of opinions and thoughts on this, but I’ll open this up. I know it’s gonna, here we go listeners, buckle up.

The article is from Adriana Lee, who’s one of our new tech reporters at Skift and the title is In a Crisis Travel Companies Count on Humans, Not AI. Sorry, my camera is in the way of this, of my screen. But yeah, I’ll read that again.

In a crisis travel companies count on humans, not AI.

Basically, with the Middle East war happening right now, travel companies have been promoting since COVID the immense use of AI for solving problems like rebooking flights and canceling and refunds, and all these things that should be done easily.

But no, during the Middle East conflict and the war, people, I think there was over 78,000 rescheduled flights or canceled flights.

That triggered obviously a huge bog into the system from these airlines where people were trying to obviously rebook, trying to get a refund, trying to figure out anything, any type of information.

And the chat bots were saying like, oh, we’ll get back to you soon. And then they would disconnect the chat after hours and hours. They would never respond.

If they did, it was inaccurate. And people just bypass the AI agents to get to human help. And so I’ve been saying this for a while, and I still believe this today in some regard.

I think from a consumer standpoint, AI is super overhyped and far behind to what the big corporations want. Like if you are a, why do I always forget Mark Benioff’s company?

Oracle? Salesforce?

Salesforce, yeah. So like Salesforce is huge. They’ve done a bunch of examples on how AI is helping them.

Great for them. They’re a big corporation. They built it.

Good for you. But as a consumer, I think AI is way overhyped. I’m not impressed by anything.

I still use it. Yes, we use it for show notes and clips and all these other things.

But at the end of the day, I think this was a great article that Adriana wrote up highlighting that as much hype as has gotten, still people are still going to human solutions. So, all right, come at me.

And I’ll just start with, and this is obviously a major crisis management problem for all the airlines. Like when you get 70,000 flights canceled, you get drones flying into airports, you get every airport shut down in the entire region.

Like there is a massive problem that you can’t just reschedule people. Like the flights don’t exist. Like you get and you talk to a human like, sorry, there is nothing I can help you with right now.

We are trying to figure out how to get flights back on. Like there’s no right answer that either a human or an AI can give. Like, I mean, it’s a crisis, right?

We dealt with this during COVID, except COVID was sort of spread out over a particularly long period of time as the cancellations came in and some flights were still going. But I wouldn’t say this is an AI problem.

Like this is a, we are in the middle of a war in the Middle East problem, and you just cannot get these people out.

So like the article ended with saying like, and people were going around the chatbots, they weren’t going just around the chatbots, they’re going around the airlines entirely, having to charter their own flights because there are no flights leaving

out of the Middle East right now. So a huge geopolitical crisis with rapidly shifting airspace closures, like it is a massive problem, but I wouldn’t say this is an AI problem. This was a crisis.

Also pretty lackluster planning and support from any government agencies of getting people out, truly I think absolutely unacceptable response.

It’s like, yes, the airlines are, and their communications are all scrambled, but there was another level of people out there that should have been coordinating how to evacuate all these people. Each country’s own citizens out of the region.

So that to me, the blame first and foremost is there. There’s another article that Sarah Coppett wrote, I think either yesterday or this morning, just about in general, a lot of the travel disruptions that are happening.

One thing I saw that was even crazier is just that some of the airlines are canceling people’s flights, but the flights are still on. They’re just up charging, they’re just raising the cost. I think that that is truly despicable.

Like this is a war. Obviously, if flights are canceled and they’re canceled, and you can’t get people out, that’s one thing. But then raising the price is 400 percent to try to make a profit on people fleeing is so messed up.

I think the AI, at this point, I mean, we have people who feel very feisty about AI.

But I think that it’s not the core of the problem, but it is not helping because now you’re getting people that are, if there was no AI bot and they were just on hold for three hours listening to elevator music, they would also be furious.

But now that because they got connected to a bot, and then they were waiting for the bot, and then the bot’s saying, I’m going to help you.

And then it’s not like it’s this adding this additional layer of frustration to like towards this technology that has been billed as like this, the solve all for these problems.

And then it’s not at this point because this is a huge international crisis that Claude isn’t up to handle right now.

Well, I’ll say this. You guys are both 100% correct.

I like, I get both of your points, but I will say to like what you were just saying Brandi, this is one of the problems, like not maybe a crisis in general, but or a war in general, but this is what everyone has been promoting AI can help solve and

it can do. And it’s like get rid of this friction and here it is. And it’s still even worse. Like, yes, people had to go to group chats to evacuate themselves because there were no flights 100%.

But I can see this even being at a point like, okay, imagine a World Cup situation where the city is just busy, right? Like, it’s not a crisis, it’s not a war, there’s no deaths, there’s no missiles, there’s no drones.

It’s just a busy city and Uber connects you to their chat bot and your Uber driver is stuck in traffic and he won’t respond because it’s a freaking chat bot. And then all of a sudden you have all these things that are just adding up, right?

I just think it’s very incompatible for what we’re promised. Oh, AI is going to solve all this, but yet it can’t even handle a simple overload of the system and usage or requests or anything. So it’s like, okay, what’s the point?

It’s just adding a created layer of friction and disappointment. So that’s…

Yeah, and even when you’re doing with this humans, you do not staff up for a crisis like that.

So this would have happened in the same magnitude if it was humans doing it versus in this mix of humans and AI, there is just not enough people that you could have on standby ready to deal with a crisis like this.

Well, and I think one of the interesting things, and it’s not in this AI article, but in Sarah’s article about the travel and about people who have booked on OTAs, and it’s like a little tangent, but it just made reading it like Expedia is like, oh,

I can’t help you because your ticket is non-refundable, or then the airlines like, I can’t help you because you booked through a third party. I’m like, I don’t know if I would ever book a flight on an OTA again.

I haven’t booked a flight on an OTA in a very long time, but I was just like, if I was in this position, I mean, and then they did say that some of the OTAs are working on issuing refunds and stuff like that, but it just seems like it’s like this

A connected trip.

Yeah.

When something goes wrong, it’s like that Spider-Man meme where everyone’s pointing guns at each other.

In a situation like this, the emotions and the tensions are so high, obviously, and to get someone who’s at booking.com or Expedia, just be like, sorry, your flight’s not refundable.

You’re like, well, I’m trapped in a war zone, so maybe make an exception.

When you were talking about that article that Sarah wrote, it reminded me of the Palisade fires where hotels or Airbnb hosts were just canceling people and then re-increasing their prices and then taking people in because they knew they’re going to

get insurance money or something like that. And yeah, it is crazy to see that in a time of crisis, what brands or what independent individual people do in a moment like that. So it is kind of crazy to see.

Yeah, when people do that for like an event like Super Bowl or a concert, I don’t really feel like meh, whatever.

But when it’s like when there’s like life threatening things happening, I’m like, wow, like that really shows like what kind of person you are.

For sure. For sure. So shame on you.

We’re going to put you on blast if we see it.

We’ll get to test your theory in a couple of months about overloading in a positive way when the World Cup comes and I’m just not going to be in Boston.

Yeah. Yeah.

Peace out.

I would say let’s go to the mountains for a weekend or so.

That’s literally what my plan is. Yeah.

It’ll be fun.

22:09

Arizona STR Law

All right. Next article. Who wants to take this one?

It’s going to be…

I can.

All right. There we go.

So this is a short-term rental regulation being passed in Arizona giving cities more insight over short-term rentals. So this is only passed the Arizona House. It hasn’t passed the Arizona Senate, so it’s still in process.

But reading through this, and I don’t know what your opinions are, we’ll get to that, but it is not nearly as restrictive as things we’ve seen in Colorado, for example. So it’s offering…

It’s having limitations per bedroom of how many people, I think it’s four, like two or number of beds plus two plus kids, you know, targeting repeat bad actors, like getting fined or having a license suspended.

So yeah, it says like licenses could be suspended for a single violation if there’s like a public safety, modifying your building without a building permit, not fixing unsanitary conditions. So it does not…

And it’s giving the towns more control, which we’ve seen positive and negative, like if your town is chill, then it’s not really… Well, chill for us, that it’s not really a problem. But if your town is super strict and you…

Like I think Breckenridge, like kind of seeing that in my current role more up close, like how nonsensical the regulation is, you know, it could go either way.

So, but I, you know, as far as legislation goes, this does not seem to be as crazy and restrictive as it could be.

So, I don’t know if any of our listeners are from Arizona, what their feelings are about this, but comparatively, this doesn’t seem as terrible to me, but I’ll see what your opinions are.

Yeah, so, and Arizona is one of those great states that has had state preemption for a decade now. It was passed in 2016, essentially limited local governments from banning SDRs.

And then since then, we’ve sort of seen amendments being passed on that state preemption, giving them a little bit more control.

So like in 2022, they allowed local authorities to set up licensing and permitting and that you could get banned with repeated violations. And then, so they sort of set it up for three years, like it was a three year then ban on new legislation.

Now, we’ve come up to 2025 and it was like this big question of what was the next fight going to be. In the initial legislation, they actually came in with caps that cities were going to be allowed to set caps.

And when you can set caps on the number of permits, like that is a really big deal. But then immediately, there was like pushback from the local realtor association, from Airbnb, Verbo, from the major OTAs, the local alliances.

And it really shows the, and Arizona is one of those states that has, and John Hillebrand, that is very vocal with local policy makers where they were immediately, they were already together.

They already had a big response sort of ready if something came out that they weren’t comfortable with and were able to get it changed.

That when new legislation did get passed, it was something that was reasonable that they could live with, that ultimately two adults plus two, excluding children, isn’t that big of a sort of legislation or restriction on it.

And then the three violations within 24 months. The law was within 12 months. And like it essentially took six months to get a violation.

So essentially like the law didn’t mean anything.

So yeah, I think overall it was like a great response from Arizona and a pretty decent outcome for them that they were able to push back on the really restrictive legislation and get something more reasonable around.

Yeah, because I think we obviously we are biased, I think obviously on our side of things. 100%. But it’s like this seems something like this is going to give the opposition something.

They’re like, okay, we’re going to there’s going to be some more control over what’s going on in our neighborhoods, which I also understand people wanting.

And then it’s not going to totally, you know, screw over the operators and everything like that.

The one thing I was thinking of, though, that just came to mind with like the two plus two plus kids is when you have these enormous houses and you have like four queen beds in a room. Definitely have never done that. It’s just a big room.

But you know, you can get crafty with how that looks on your site. But yeah, it’s like, okay, then you get bogged down like, okay, per square footage. I have four sets of queen bunk beds, so eight beds in one room.

Somebody’s house is in Arizona really big, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. You make do with what you have.

100 percent. My opinion is that less government involvement, the better. Don’t let them tell you what to do.

This government is too involved in our lives. There you go. That’s my opinion on this article.

So anyways, good episode. I think it’s always interesting when we don’t have one of our other co-hosts on the show, but I’m sure he’s excited to get back and to debate and contrarian view talks on the next episode.

Are words hard this morning, Wil?

Words are hard. I had one cup of coffee, so that’s about it.

28:05

Upcoming Engagements

But yeah, what you guys got going on this week?

Not much. I’m actually, I’m like here for like a little bit, for like two weeks. I’m going to be at home, which I’m pretty pumped about.

So that’s nice.

Love that for you.

Love that for you.

Jamie?

I’ll be on the main stage at Hunter tomorrow afternoon. So very excited about that with some of our friends, John Freytag with STR, Cindy S. Green from Calibri.

So looking forward to that. And then we’ve got an Atlanta host meetup on Thursday night over on the west side of the city. So I’ll be speaking at that and giving update on World Cup trends for Atlanta.

So I’m excited.

You had a busy week, Jamie.

Get out and talk to people. Yeah. And I was gone all evenings last week.

So I can tell you, my wife is really excited about all these events this week too. I bet.

What are you speaking on at the Hunter conference?

Short-term rental data. Yeah.

Okay. Well, what’s the topic of your session?

Short-term rental trends in the US. I’ve got like 10 minutes. It is a-

It’s a hotel conference.

Yeah.

True, true.

It’s a 60-minute session with five presenters, each getting 10 minutes to do a quick dive.

Got you. I’ll be running through high-level what happened last year and the differentiation we’re seeing in the sector and then going into some World Cup trends. A good juxtaposition of Atlanta and the World Cup to Super Bowl in 2019.

There was a 145 percent increase in supply during the Super Bowl. Four months before the World Cup, there was a 36 percent increase in supply already.

Right now, four months before the World Cup, we’re looking at a 4 percent increase in supply in Atlanta. So very different trend.

I’ve seen a lot of memes out there of people like, we’ve gotten so excited about these big events over the year, like Olympics in Atlanta, Super Bowl in Atlanta, and there’s World Cup and everyone’s like, what’s another big event?

So funny. Well, very exciting week. Very exciting week for both of you.

I love it. Thanks for you.

What do you have going on, Wil? Anything?

Just more video and audio content on Skift. We have a lot of new things that we’ve been playing with and experimenting and launching and doing. So head down, just back at it, back at the corporate grind.

Yeah, it’s very different, but it’s good. All good stuff. Yeah, for the live viewers and listeners, thank you for tuning in.

As always, you can check out our hotel crew on Wednesdays, Steve Cherk and Sarah Dan. Does she take it away every week? And then of course, we’ll be back on Monday where we dive into all things, short-term rentals, hospitality, tech, you name it.

So thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you guys all again next week.