Owner Resources · Getting Started
Quick version: be on both. Then add more. Below, we walk through how each platform charges, who actually books on each one, how Tennessee's taxes are handled differently depending on where the guest booked, and why spreading your listing across multiple channels is the highest-leverage distribution move a Smoky Mountain owner can make.
If there's one question new Smoky Mountain owners ask before any other, it's this one: "Do I go with Airbnb or Vrbo?"
Our answer never changes: both. Every single time. And once those two are running well, layer in more channels on top. But before we get to the why, it's worth understanding what actually separates these platforms - they pull different crowds, they handle Tennessee's taxes differently, and knowing the difference sharpens your pricing, your listing strategy, and where you put your effort.
Across Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Sevierville, Wears Valley and Townsend, the large majority of whole-home vacation rental reservations flows through Airbnb and Vrbo. No other channel is in the same league, and we don't expect that to shift anytime soon. Still, each platform attracts its own kind of traveler, and those distinctions have real consequences for your calendar.
Who books: No platform reaches a wider audience than Airbnb. In the Smokies, it leans toward couples and smaller groups - the anniversary trip with a hot tub and a ridge view, the friends coming for a few days of hiking in the park. Airbnb is also where spontaneity lives. A couple in Nashville decides on Tuesday they want a fireplace in the mountains by Friday, and they book it on Airbnb. In the quiet months, when stays book late, that last-minute traffic matters.
Property types: Airbnb carries every category of stay - whole cabins, chalets, condos, treehouses, glamping domes. A bigger pool means more competition, but it also means more traffic. The platform's search algorithm rewards listing quality, fast responses, and strong reviews, which pushes well-run properties toward the top of results.
Strengths: The best host tooling in the industry. A search engine that genuinely favors quality. A polished mobile app. The biggest short-term rental user base in the country. And, for Tennessee owners, one real convenience on taxes, covered below.
Who books: Vrbo, part of Expedia Group, lists whole homes only - no shared spaces, no spare bedrooms. That filters its audience down to families and bigger groups who want room to spread out. In the Smokies, that's not a niche - it's the core of the market. The three-family summer week built around Dollywood, the reunion that needs nine beds and a game room, the holiday trip with the grandparents. Vrbo guests also plan further ahead than Airbnb guests, and the largest cabins book the furthest out of all.
Property types: Entire homes, full stop. If you own a six-bedroom lodge on a Sevierville ridge or a big cabin with a theater room in Wears Valley, Vrbo's audience was practically built for you. In general, bigger properties pull a larger slice of their bookings from Vrbo, while compact cabins and condos lean toward Airbnb.
Strengths: A deep bench of family travelers. Bigger average booking values on larger homes. Guests who book early, which gives you a clearer read on October and the holidays. Plus distribution into the wider Expedia network.
Every channel takes its cut differently, and the structures shift over time. Here's where the major platforms currently stand. These fees come straight out of your booking revenue, so knowing them is essential for setting rates correctly and comparing what you actually keep from each channel.
| Platform | Host Fee | Guest Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airbnb | 15 - 16%Host-only model (standard for PMS-connected hosts) | 0% | Some independent hosts can still use the split-fee model (3% host / ~14% guest) |
| Vrbo | 8%5% commission + 3% payment processing | 6 - 15% | A flat annual subscription (~$499/yr) is offered as an alternative to per-booking fees |
| Booking.com | 15%Average; ranges 10 - 25% by region and property type | 0% | Payment processing adds 1 - 3%; the Preferred Partner program costs ~3% more for extra visibility |
Fee structures as of early 2026. Platforms revise their fee models from time to time - confirm current rates before relying on them. Source: Hostaway OTA Commission Rates.
Two things jump out of that table. Vrbo takes less from the host than Airbnb does (8% versus 15-16%), but it adds a separate service fee on the guest's side. Airbnb's host-only model bundles everything into your side of the ledger, so the price a guest sees is exactly what they pay - nothing extra at checkout. Neither approach is automatically better; what you net depends on how you price each channel.
Different fee structures mean a $300 night on Airbnb and a $300 night on Vrbo put different amounts in your pocket. Your rates should be tuned per channel so your take-home evens out. A good property manager or channel management tool handles this adjustment automatically - if yours doesn't, you're quietly subsidizing one platform over another.
Here's the line that surprises new Smoky Mountain owners. Every Tennessee stay carries 9.75% sales tax (7% state plus 2.75% local) and a local lodging tax - and the lodging tax depends on city limits, not the mailing address:
A Gatlinburg or Sevierville mailing address does not put a cabin inside those cities, and some homes sit inside city limits without the city's name on the mail. Pin down the jurisdiction first; the right tax follows from it.
Now the platform difference:
| Channel | Sales Tax | Lodging Tax | Who Files |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airbnb | Collected by Airbnb | Collected by Airbnb | Airbnb remits both |
| Vrbo | Charged by the manager | Charged by the manager | The manager files |
| Booking.com | Charged by the manager | Charged by the manager | The manager files |
| Direct bookings | Charged by the manager | Charged by the manager | The manager files |
On Vrbo, Booking.com and direct stays, the guest has to be charged the right rate for that home's location, and the returns are due by the 20th of the month after the stay. A wrong rate or a late return falls on the property, not the platform.
One more line no platform collects for you: Pigeon Forge (1%) and Gatlinburg (1.25%) levy a gross receipts tax that the owner pays. The sales and lodging taxes, by contrast, are charged to guests on top of the nightly rate, but they do inflate the total price travelers compare across listings, so keep them in mind when you study your competition.
Listing only on Airbnb to avoid tax filings means turning away everyone who books on Vrbo, Booking.com or your own site. Marova charges and files the sales and lodging tax on every non-Airbnb stay as part of one flat management fee. Rates change, so confirm current figures with the state, county or city.
Here's the part many new owners never consider: travelers are loyal to their platform, and almost none of them comparison-shop across sites.
The couple planning an October getaway in Gatlinburg opens Airbnb, searches, books, done. The Ohio family that's been renting a Pigeon Forge cabin every summer has used Vrbo since it was called HomeAway - they're not switching. A traveler who books every hotel on Booking.com starts there for the mountains too. And the family that loved your cabin last Thanksgiving would rather book you again directly.
List on only one platform and you simply don't exist for everyone who uses the others. That's not just a few lost reservations - it shrinks the total audience that ever lays eyes on your home. Less exposure means weaker demand, and weaker demand shows up as lower occupancy, softer rates, or both.
The Smokies make this dynamic even sharper because the guest base is so varied. Atlanta couples chasing a hot tub and a view. Midwest families building a week around Dollywood and the park. Reunions filling a big lodge on a Sevierville ridge. Friends from Charlotte splitting a Gatlinburg chalet for a hiking weekend. Each of those groups starts their search in a different place, and capturing all of them means showing up everywhere they look.
For owners launching from scratch, this is the order we'd follow:
1. Launch on Airbnb first. It has the deepest U.S. audience, the strongest listing tools, it's often where a new listing lands its first reservation quickest, and it collects and remits Tennessee's sales and lodging tax on its own stays. Nail the fundamentals here before anything else: professional photos, a description that answers questions, pricing that matches the market.
2. Add Vrbo right behind it. Same week if you can manage it. Vrbo's guests overlap surprisingly little with Airbnb's - a big share of the families who'll find you there would never have scrolled past you on Airbnb. Make sure your calendars sync in real time, and have tax collection set up before the first Vrbo guest arrives.
3. Then widen the net. With both majors humming, bring on Booking.com for travelers who search the way they'd book a hotel, and a direct booking site so returning guests can come straight to you. Every additional channel layers on incremental visibility and incremental bookings.
The instant your property lives on two platforms, real-time calendar synchronization stops being optional. A double booking - two families holding the same October weekend on different sites - costs you money, tanks your reviews, and puts you on bad terms with the platforms themselves. Let a channel manager or PMS handle the syncing automatically. Juggling multiple calendars by hand is a mistake you only make once.
Direct bookings - guests reserving through your own website instead of an OTA - deserve a mention, though they're a different conversation than picking platforms.
The pitch writes itself: no platform commission, you own the guest relationship, and you can build a list of repeat visitors over time. In the Smokies that matters more than most places, because families come back to the same cabin every fall or every Christmas.
But getting there takes genuine investment. You need a professional site with booking functionality, a plan for actually driving visitors to it, and the back-office machinery to process payments, manage rental agreements, handle guest messaging, and charge and file Tennessee's sales and lodging tax without a platform doing any of it for you.
For most individual owners, the math doesn't work - at least not at the start. Marketing spend and operational overhead chew through whatever you save on commissions, and you generally need some economies of scale - several units, a real repeat-guest list - before direct booking pays for itself. That's the advantage of a manager with a direct booking site already running: your home gets the channel without you building it.
Some patterns worth knowing in this market:
Compact properties lean on Airbnb. Couples' cabins, Gatlinburg chalets and condos draw the hot-tub-and-a-view crowd that Airbnb serves best. Vrbo still adds bookings on top.
Big homes are the heart of this market, and Vrbo feeds them. Large cabins with game rooms, theater rooms and several king suites pull a noticeably bigger share of their reservations through Vrbo. Family reunions and multi-family trips, often booked months ahead for summer, October and the holidays, are precisely what its audience is hunting for.
Your tax workload depends on your channel mix. Airbnb stays come with sales and lodging tax handled. Every Vrbo, Booking.com and direct stay needs the right rate charged and a return filed by the 20th. That's work to plan for, not a reason to skip the channels.
Demand spikes reward broad distribution. October color, the Winterfest season and the holiday weeks all send rates climbing. When a surge hits, every open door is another shot at a premium booking.
The bottom line: each platform you add is one more entrance to your property. In a market where a crowded field of cabins is chasing the same Friday-night arrivals from Atlanta, Nashville and the Midwest, you want every entrance wide open.
For more on pricing across channels and seasons, read The Two-Season Squeeze: Revenue Management for Smoky Mountain Vacation Rentals. New to all of this? Our Crash Course for New Smoky Mountain Vacation Rental Owners walks through everything from the Sevier County permit to listing launch.
← Back to all postsEvery home we manage gets listed on Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and our own direct booking site, with each listing tuned individually and the tax handled on every non-Airbnb stay. It all comes under one flat management fee, with platform fees itemized on your statement.
Get a Free Revenue Estimate