In 2027,
the Lab goes
on the road.
Hosts & Home Teams is partnering with a limited number of destinations to explore the local realities shaping the modern lodging economy, and to contribute those lessons to a growing national body of work.
Each stop is locally designed, nationally connected, and built around the people who know the destination best. Start with the research. It is free, and it is 41 pages.
Nobody built the room, so we did.
We all host this place.
If you have never been to a Field Lab, or you are still deciding whether the short-term rental conversation is even yours to have, this part is for you. It takes about ninety seconds.
What is the Host Gap?
Short-term rentals became a third of the bed base in a lot of destinations. The people who run them were never brought into the room where destination strategy gets made. So the destination markets visitors into houses owned by residents nobody invited to the meeting. Councils write rules for a supply they cannot measure. Hosts organize into associations because nobody organized with them first. Everyone is working hard, in different directions, on the same street. That is the Host Gap.
What is a Field Lab?
One day. One room. Somewhere between thirty and a hundred people who all touch the same visitor and almost never talk to each other. It is a designed working day, not a programme of speakers: the room reads the same facts, builds in rounds, argues somewhere useful, and leaves with commitments that have names attached.
Who is actually in the room?
The destination organization, obviously. Also the property manager with forty units, the councilmember who wrote the ordinance, the hotel GM who arrived certain this was a waste of a day, and the resident who shows up to public comment. That mix is not a courtesy. It is the product.
What comes out of it?
Shared priorities, practical next moves, and named commitments. Every participant also writes a sealed letter to themselves and opens it ninety days later, which is where about half of what a Lab produces actually shows up. Plus a findings brief you can put in front of a board.
One room was enough to prove the need.
In July 2026, Hosts & Home Teams brought destination leaders, short-term rental professionals and civic voices from across the country into one intentionally designed working room.
The response was immediate. Destinations asked us to bring the Lab home. Industry leaders asked for more research. The conversation continued long after everyone left Portland.
The first Lab did not close the conversation. It opened it.
“I've spent the past week looking for my socks. They blew off at the Hosts & Home Teams Think Lab in Oregon.”
Nate Lee
The Lodging Gap Report
America has two lodging economies. Its destination infrastructure was built for one.
Forty-one pages on the structural gap between destinations and the short-term rental supply inside their borders, across four dimensions: data, funding, policy and alignment.
Built on existing lodging research, market data, fieldwork across destinations, and original sentiment research with DMO leaders and STR operators in 13 states.
Survey respondents represented destinations across 13 states. 77% were CEOs, presidents or senior executives. Volume Two is in production.
Both sides asked for the same thing.
The gap isn't disagreement. It's missing infrastructure.
Inside the report, DMO leaders and short-term rental operators were surveyed separately.
Neither side asked for the other to lose.
They identified the same three missing pieces of infrastructure.
Shared data
One set of numbers both sides trust, instead of two dashboards that disagree in public.
A communication channel
A way to reach each other that does not depend on a complaint, an ordinance hearing or a platform.
An organized relationship
Something with a shape. Named people, a standing reason to talk, and a plan each side helped write.
The room was engineered for trust.
Trust did not come from asking people to be candid. It came from designing the right mix of people, removing the usual power signals and giving disagreement somewhere useful to go.
Trust was not the theme. It was the architecture.
Personalization created ownership
The invitation, materials and experience told participants they were specifically needed, not merely admitted.
Hand-to-brain work deepened processing
Paper, handwriting and physical build tools slowed the room down and moved people from passive consumption into active sense-making.
Shared context reduced defensiveness
Participants received the same facts and language before being asked to interpret the problem from their individual positions.
Build rounds depersonalized conflict
The work was sequenced to move disagreement away from people and positions and toward a shared problem everyone could examine.
The fishbowl redistributed power
Structured turn-taking changed who held the floor, who listened and whose experience became visible.
The 90-day letter created a commitment device
Participants translated insight into a specific promise to their future selves, then put time between intention and accountability.
The method travels. Every Lab is engineered for trust within the destination's own relationships, history, tensions and power dynamics. Portland gave us evidence, not a template.
Kansas City, July 2027.
You do not have to host a Lab to be in one.
July 15 and 16, 2027. Kansas City, Missouri. An interactive working experience rather than a conference, bringing destination leaders, short-term rental professionals, hospitality partners and industry stakeholders into the same facilitated sessions.
On the table: STR and DMO alignment, host engagement, destination stewardship, data, stakeholder relationships and visitor experience.
We put it that week on purpose. Destinations International 2027 is in Kansas City at the same time, so you can do both on one trip and one travel budget.
A Lab built around your lodging economy, not a canned program.
Your destination is invited to host a one-day working Lab bringing destination leadership, professional property managers and selected community and industry partners into the same room. It is built around your actual lodging environment, relationships and priorities, while contributing local learning to the broader national body of work.
Before
- Local stakeholder and relationship mapping
- Confidential discovery conversations
- A curated cross-sector participant room
- Custom behavioral design built around your destination
In the room
- Professionally facilitated, full-day working Lab
- Shared data and lodging-economy context
- Structured exercises designed to reduce friction
- Local priorities, practical next moves and named commitments
After
- Findings and priority brief
- 90-day follow-through framework
- Sponsor-ready photos and Road Show storytelling
- Custom “We Said Yes” and participant social assets
- Connection to the national H&HT learning network
Not just a day in the room. A body of work your destination can use.
Invitation + investment
Fixed. Billed in thirds. Deposit invoiced on confirmation.
- The complete Field Lab framework, built for your destination
- Custom local discovery and behavioral design
- Professional facilitation and documentation
- Road Show sponsor visibility and social assets
- 90-day follow-through framework
- Connection to national H&HT research and learning
Plus agreed-upon local logistics
Venue, food and beverage, team accommodations, and necessary on-site production expenses.
You control every logistics line. Nothing is spent without written approval, and in-kind partner contributions reduce the cash figure directly.
Delivered in full regardless of what the logistics line comes in at.
One of a limited number of 2027 host destination partnerships.
Bring the Lab home.
This is the form for destinations that want to host a Lab of their own. If you would rather just come to Kansas City, the list for that is up there.
Say yes
Confirm your destination as a 2027 Host Destination.
Name the team
Identify a DMO lead and a small local advisory group.
Set the room
Confirm the date, the venue and local logistics.
Begin discovery
We start stakeholder mapping, confidential conversations and custom Lab design.