HomeMy WebLinkAbout100526 QEC_JC STR LTAC PresentationLODGING TAX ADVISORY COMMITTEE · TOURISM COORDINATING COUNCILShort-Term Rentals in Jefferson County
A decade of visitor-lodging demand —how big the market is, where it is, and how it's changed.
Prepared by
Quimper Events Collective
Presented to
LTAC & Tourism Coordinating Council
Data
AirDNA · 2015–2026
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 2
WHY WE BUILT THISA shared baseline on an open question
Built to fill a data gap
County-specific STR data has been
missing from the conversation.
Source: AirDNA, 2015–2026
Market estimates drawn from Airbnb
and VRBO activity.
ABOUT THE DATACustom market segments, built for the county
Our three county segments
With our account team, we built segments that let us see the county
county properly:
•Jefferson County Whole —the entire county, including the West
End
•East Jefferson —the east side, including Port Townsend
•Port Townsend —the county's incorporated area, on its own
Comparison markets
Coastal, seasonal, drive-to destinations that behave like ours —picked as
real yardsticks, not arbitrary neighbors:
•Astoria, OR —our closest Port Townsend comp: a small, historic coastal
port
•Peninsula & Salish Sea neighbors —Clallam, Kitsap, Mason, Island,
Skagit
•Washington & Oregon coast —Grays Harbor, Pacific, Clatsop, Tillamook
•Washington State —the statewide benchmark
How AirDNA builds it:crawls public Airbnb & Vrbo listings —capturing price, room type, host, reviews and each listing’s calendar —then supplements with property-
manager and host partner data, de-duplicates units listed on more than one site, and reports 95–99% accuracy (self-reported).
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 3
WHERE WE ARE
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 4
HOW BIG IT HAS BECOMETen years, roughly 17 × the revenue
$12.4M
STR revenue in 2025 —a record
17 ×
larger than 2015
~337
active listings countywide
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 5
WHERE IT HAPPENSMost of it is outside Port Townsend
74% East Jefferson
unincorporated east Jefferson County
15% Port Townsend
the incorporated city
11% West End
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 6
WHEN IT HAPPENSA summer economy
About 31% of annual revenue lands in July–August, and just over half from June through September. The shoulder and winter months are
where there is room to grow.
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 7
HOW THE MARKET WORKS NOWRate is doing the work, not fuller calendars
Occupancy peaked near 72% in 2021 and settled into the mid-50s as supply grew; average nightly rate has climbed steadily to about $211.
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 8
WHAT IS LISTED · 2026 YEAR-TO-DATEOverwhelmingly whole homes
92%
of active listings are
entire homes
A hotel lens:nearly half of all listings are studios or one-bedrooms —the units that compete directly with hotel and motel rooms —while the
larger homes serve groups that hotels can't.
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 9
TWO MARKETS, TWO RULEBOOKSSupply is now capped —by two different rules
Port Townsend's 2017 owner-occupied code kept the city small and full; the unincorporated county's whole-home boom is now capped
now capped at 4% of each zip code by Ordinance No. 03
at 4% of
-0407-25.
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 10
THE OUTLOOKA plateau, not a downturn
2026 revenue is essentially flat through July, but the coming season is pacing at or above last year —October about 6% ahead, December
about 46% ahead —with room still to fill.
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 11
1
Festival weekend: Sept 11–13, 2026 vs. Sept 5–7, 2025 · AirDNA event window 12
EVENT SPOTLIGHT · WOODEN BOAT FESTIVALThe festival weekend fills the town
The lift came from volume, not price —nightly rates rose only 3–6%.
Festival-weekend occupancy ran about 12–14 percentage points above the surrounding
days.
Port Townsend
90% occupied —up from 82%
Revenue +10% ·RevPAR +6%
East Jefferson County
81% occupied —up from 74%
Revenue +15% ·RevPAR +13%
STR VS. HOTELS · LODGING-TAX REVENUEA fast -growing share of the lodging tax
From about 2% of the county's lodging-tax base in 2015 to roughly 27% in 2025 —the rest is traditional lodging (hotels, B&Bs) and
campgrounds. Nearly all the growth in the tax base has come from short-term rentals.
Unincorporated county (excludes Port Townsend) · STR portion = 2% of AirDNA STR revenue, a conservative floor · Lodging tax: WA Dept. of Revenue 13
WHAT IT MEANS FOR PLANNINGA mature, capped, seasonal market
Plan for a flat-to-
modest base
Supply is capped, so growth
comes from rate and
occupancy, not new units.
Collections stay
summer-heavy
A short peak drives the year
—program around the
shoulders.
A mature market, not
expanding
Treat it as steady-state, not a
growth curve to extrapolate.
Mostly outside the city
Activity concentrates in the
the unincorporated county.
county.
A useful next step: line this up against the county’s actual permitted-STR counts to see how close each ZIP is to its cap.
Quimper Events Collective · Jefferson County STR Market 14
WHAT’S NEXT
Thank you
Potential future reports will review where we stand relative to our neighboring counties —
and will take up the questions interested tourism partners most want answered.
Have a suggestion for a future report? We'd love to hear it. ·info@quimpereventscollective.com