For the Love of Gatlinburg: How Tom Goodwin Uses Storytelling to Preserve a Destination’s Heart and Soul

Alex Husner
Welcome to Alex & Annie: the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex 

Annie Holcombe
and I'm Annie, 

Alex Husner
and we are joined today with Tom Goodwin, who is the CEO and owner of Mountain Laurel Chalets and also the host of the new podcast: For The Love of Gatlinburg. Welcome Tom 

Tom Goodwin
Good afternoon. Nice to see both of you.

Annie Holcombe
It's so exciting to have you with your angelic glow that we, if everybody you need to go to YouTube and look at it. Tom has this angelic glow going on. So it's for the love of God, we've got Tom here today.

Tom Goodwin
Yes, yes, I guess it

Annie Holcombe
is. We're so excited to have you back. It's been a little while, so we have a lot of things to talk about, but why don't you just bring some of our newer listeners up to speed on who Tom is?

Tom Goodwin
Well, great. My name is Tom Goodwin, first and foremost, married to my lovely wife, Susan, for 32 years, and we have five daughters, and I am the second generation owner of mountain laurel chalets in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, family owned vacation rental management company since 1972 so we are going into year 53 and yeah, so it's a it's a fun ride, it's a fun business. And I love hospitality. I love creating life experiences with people, and I love this industry.

Alex Husner
Well, the industry, the industry, seems to love you, because actually, we had you on the show, I think it was back in February or March, and your episode was one of our top two most downloaded episodes of the whole year. So we're hoping to go for a two for here, and hopefully this one makes it right up there as well

Tom Goodwin
daughters to download it on every available

Alex Husner
one of your daughters was so sweet too. She sent us an email like just privately to us, and was just saying how thankful she was that we had her dad on the show and how proud she was of of you, and it was just, it was really sweet. So you've got a great family up there too.

Tom Goodwin
What's important? And when things like that happen, it makes it all worth it. Yeah, absolutely.

Alex Husner
Well, tell us a little bit about for the love of Gatlinburg, we want to talk a little bit about that today. We also want to talk about some updates to some projects that you had in the works with the rental business in the previous episode. But tell us a little bit about the podcast and your decision to do this and what it's all about.

Tom Goodwin
Well, great. It's interesting. You all have a word of the year that you kind of promote. I know, yeah, really into that. I've been thinking

Alex Husner
about mine for next year.

Unknown Speaker
We got to choose next year. My word

Tom Goodwin
that I chose last December for 2024 was finish. And some people might think, oh, no, you're finished. You're doing No, I start so many things, or I have so many ideas, but I really just wanted to, before I started anything new, I wanted to finish. What were visions and what were dreams? And one of these dreams. And a vision was to create an industry or a podcast, not not an industry podcast, but a destination podcast that captures the essence of our community. And so we named it for the love of Gatlinburg, and it's a bit of a play on words and or the phrase for the love of God, and because I think there's deeper, rich stories of heritage and family, and those all tie into a spiritual love or connection to a community, a feeling, a deep, rooted soul expression of a community. And I don't know of many communities that are as unique as Gatlinburg is, and how it creates a sense of mystery and love, and there's a draw to it. So I thought, how are we capturing the essence of Gatlinburg? There's there's tons of promotions, there's tons of Facebook groups on attractions and make money, and, you know, pay to play and get in your podcast or get in your your promotion of your your industry, but how do we just tell the simple, beautiful stories of a community? And I was really spurred on to this because my mother and father in law, who started the business in 1972 they moved to Gatlinburg in the 60s and started their family. And they were pioneers, the third home on the mountain that was built, and they were driving, four wheel drives on gravel roads. And now, you know, Gatlinburg has 1000s and 1000s of cabins. And I thought, hot, we've lost that generation, or we're losing that generation. I would have loved to capture their stories. And I thought, why not start now on this podcast, we invite every type of person you know to come in our first episode, our most downloaded episode so far of our eight that have gone live as the mayor of Gatlinburg, and his story of how he started bailing hay in Gatlinburg and now he you. Know works in City Hall and but we have a wide variety of business owners, of multi generation family members who go back to Great, great great, great great grandparents who settled in the national park, to people that just moved to Gatlinburg 18 months ago and always dreamed of coming to Gatlinburg as a tourist, and then they came and started working here, and we, I wanted to hear their story. I wanted others to hear their story. And so there's a wide variety of people, and we've already recorded 15 episodes. So it's kind of nice to get those done in a batch. They're really evergreen episodes. You can listen to them at any point. They're not time bound, and they last about 35 to 50 minutes. And it is just a conversation, hearing people's hearts and their love for this community, and part of the goal is to help our legacy guests know more the back story of the community. What was it like in the 50s, 60s and 70s. What was it like up here? What? How did your business start? What was the impetus for that, and then also for new potential guests that would be coming to Gatlinburg, that would maybe Google Gatlinburg podcast. They'll see it come up. They'll listen to like, oh, there's a lot more to this community than just the attractions or food or, you know, just the all the bells and whistles, and it's kind of the story behind the story. And so it's been a blast to do. It's been, it's been really a lot of fun, and I'm really glad I I followed my word of 2024 of finish, but now we've just started, so we're excited.

Alex Husner
Yeah. So what's the word for 25

Tom Goodwin
I don't know. You'll have to hit me on for No, I'll text you.

Unknown Speaker
I keep going a couple of weeks to pick it. How about

Tom Goodwin
Thrive? We'd like to thrive in 2025 so yeah, because we've wanted to survive in 2024 until 2025 happened, and now we want to thrive in 2025 I'm not submitting. That's my word, but that's me.

Annie Holcombe
We won't let the cat out of the bag there. You will let you actually collect that and let us know. So the question for me, you know this where I'm going? You have to know where I'm going with this. I mean, I know technically, she's from Pigeon Forge, but do you have any guys to try to get dolly on. I mean, would that not be the most incredible thing ever? Well,

Tom Goodwin
you know, we say Pigeon Forge, but I will tell you, if you talk to Pigeon Forge cabin owners, they're marketing those cabins as Gatlinburg,

Annie Holcombe
right? It's

Tom Goodwin
all the same county, Pigeon Forge. Where's Valley COVID, all those areas. But people say we're going to going to Gatlinburg. Yeah, it really, truly is about Gatlinburg, and for the love of Gatlinburg. So a lot of our guests don't live in Gatlinburg. They work in Gatlinburg. Their heritage is Gatlinburg. They might live out in Sevier County or Pigeon Forge, but we're specifically talking about about Gatlinburg and the community. So it comes up and the insider wording is above the tunnel or below the tunnel. So that was, if you're below the tunnel, you were inside Gatlinburg, but if you're above the tunnel, you were, you know, you were outside. So

Alex Husner
it was above or below. I've been through that tunnel, but

Annie Holcombe
I never thought about it from that perspective. I thought it was like one side or the other. But yeah,

Alex Husner
love and right, yeah, no. I love the concept. And as you were describing it, it made me think of I remember one time when I stayed in a vacation rental, like a staycation here, went to North Beach and stayed at North Beach Resort, which is this beautiful hotel, looks like Atlanta's, and we had this gorgeous condo, and it was New Year's, and they had this book on the table that it was the history of Myrtle Beach, like, dating back to the early 1800s and how things went on. And I literally, one of the nights I just read that book from start to finish, there's just like, I had no idea. I mean, the history and how fast this destination, as well as Gatlinburg, I'm sure too, has grown. And it's like, you know, 2030 years ago wasn't that long ago. 50 years ago really isn't even that long ago. But when you see the perspective and the black and white photos, I'm just like, Oh my gosh. Like, I remember in the book we I found, this was when I was at condo world. Found condo world's office in the picture, that was right after Hurricane Hazel had come through, and that building stood the test of time, but the street looked totally different. I mean, there was like two buildings on it, and it just looked like just a dirt road, but it's amazing, and people connect with that, so I think you're gonna get a lot of traction, and people that just fall in love with the mission of what you're doing. And

Tom Goodwin
some of the guests we want to have on are kind of our legacy guests that have stayed with us. I've met a gentleman this week who came into our office. He has never missed a Alabama football game, home or away for 411, games and so, oh my god, he stays with us in Gatlinburg, but he has stayed with us over 60 times for Wow. Wow. What are the what are his stories from a tourist, a guest perspective that we would all be blessed by as well. So the the love for Gatlinburg goes far beyond the geographic lines of Gatlinburg or Sevier County, which I think is a great draw. I'm imagining majority of our listeners will be outside of the Gatlinburg community, though, it has proven to be very positive as far as a PR move within our community and with the chamber. And

Alex Husner
I was saying that same thing, yeah, not a good word about Gatlinburg. Yeah, absolutely. And in your area, the chambers there, I mean, it's, you know, or the impression I got when I went up there, is that it's, they've got a lot of hotels that are part of it, right? And it's the, I think it was the Gatlinburg chamber that we met with. There was nobody from the vacation rental side that was currently serving on the board. But what's changed? Yeah, that was over a year ago.

Tom Goodwin
I was just elected to a three year term.

Alex Husner
That's great. That's great. I love it. I love it. Well, that's awesome. So let's start a little bit when you came on the show last time you had talked about there was a company that you either were acquiring or just acquired, and we said we wanted to have you on for an update, to share how that has has gone, but give us a little backstory, and then maybe an update on what's going on there.

Tom Goodwin
Great through a connection, I was referred to a company in Pigeon Forge that was family owned, and the owner just got to the point of just saying, I'm kind of tired of doing this and it's a challenging, difficult job. Why for doing laundry and cleaning houses and doing all of the back office things. And they were well beyond retirement years, and they were wanting to have a transition. And the hard thing was, is that they had gone from like 80 properties to 21 so they had 21 properties. Wow, you know, it's probably a little bit later to to break ranks. You know, they may maybe should have done that earlier, but they were looking for someone just to keep the legacy going. So I came in and had several conversations with him, and he wanted to transition more quickly than I was ready for. But we we transitioned and took over the contracts of 21 properties, knowing that in the first quarter we would kind of have to spend the time to evaluate the sustainability of these properties. And do we these properties under their former brand, or do we merge them into the mountain laurel chalets brand? So it was a bit of an experiment to figure out, Where are we going. And anyone in our market would know that first and second quarter, we dipped significantly on travel and tourism. So not only transitioning owners of homes to a new company, but doing it during a difficult occupancy, low occupancy time that was that was really challenging. So when you acquire a new home, you do it one at a time, and you can talk to that owner to make sure they're a good fit and their home is a good fit. But overnight, I acquired 21 homes, and I had to determine which ones of these are going to be really viable within the Mount Laurel chalets brand, or do we do a separate value vacation brand in those three months? We realized that when you buy a company, you're buying much more than just the contracts. You are buying the historical equity of their experience with the former company which you have no control over, sure. So it's a difficult industry, it's a difficult job, and people were not happy with the performance of their homes. And so when we came in and said, these are the things that we're servicing, most of the conversations were greeted with skepticism and doubt, and are you really going to do this? So we we had to. We were behind the ball, behind already when we started. So we had to earn their trust, but also those owners had to earn our trust, and that they would be a part of a of our brand and our culture. And so it ended up going into a three month process of going from 21 homes to nine homes that we maintained on the program, because it's better to have nine homes that are fully aligned and owners that are aligned than 21 that are could be rogue or have different objectives and just don't line up with what Your objectives are. So we were able to get those, those homeowners, they chose other brands and other companies to represent them, which was fine, and it was discouraging at some points. I know I lost another one, but I thought, No, we're getting closer to who we are. Not launch a separate brand. We kept our same level of. Brand now Mount Laurel, Charles is has some luxury homes. It has, it's part of the 100 collection. But even when the 100 collection asked us to be a part and we went into the vetting process, I said, Hey, we're Gatlinburg. We're not Hawaii, not oceanfront, we're not, you know, the Rick homes of the rich and the famous. He goes, Well, we're looking just for that particular market, a brand that delivers quality service and has exceptional homes as well. So some of ours definitely qualified. So all that to say, not all of these homes are our company has, doesn't have all of our homes. There's 100 collection level by any means. We have a wide variety. We our goal is that we want anyone to be able to vacation with us regardless. No, they're going to get a clean home, well respected management company that are going to address their problems and are going to provide a smooth, smooth vacation for them. And so we ended up with nine homes that were kind of in agreement with this is what we want to do. We want to be a part of the mountain laurel brand, and we want to increase our our ratings, our rentals, but they also had to make improvements to their homes. Leverage that as the opportunity. Hey, we need to see some of these things improve. So we also have a contracting business where we build homes and we do major renovations. So several of these homes, we were able to got their kitchens, got their bathrooms, increased, their views, all the amenities that only help us as a company, but help them as an owner as well. So that nine has grown into about 15 in the Pigeon Forge Sevier County area, we have 90 properties that we manage. We grew by 18 this last year. So it's slow growth, steady growth. We're small. We're family owned. I want to make a sustainable so we're not looking to go to 500 properties, and 20 to 150 would be ideal, but we realize we want to steadily move towards that, as opposed to just acquiring new businesses and so forth. My biggest thing I learned is, wow, when you buy a company, you are buying the whole thing, you know, and the history that the people have. And in some of the conversations, I said, Wait, wait, wait, I'm, I'm brand new here. I want to earn. And I then I had to realize I need to earn your trust, and I need to, we need to have a mutuality in our relationship. Yeah, it's worked out really well with those nine those these owners are thrilled, and then we've been able to acquire some other homes because we have a auxiliary office location we have, we're able to service more homes in that area. It's, you know, 15 to 30 minutes from our our main office and technology, and mostly technology, allows us to expand beyond what we have historically been, which is in three miles of our office for all of our homes. There's not many companies that have that type of proximity. Yeah. No, that's nice.

Annie Holcombe
Yeah. I, when I was in property management, there was a couple companies I worked for. We would buy same thing, like buy small businesses and buy small companies. And I think that people don't take into consideration that, you know, if you look at the real estate, and some of the people who have bought these places at towns that maybe they grew up vacationing in, and then they bought something because they wanted to ultimately retire there or bring their grandchildren there, whatever. There's a lot of emotion attached to it, and that emotion gets attached to the management company or the management contact. And so I found it really funny that when I left one company and started another company, a lot of those owners came with me because they had a relationship with me. It wasn't so much with a company. They had a relationship with me. That was who they talk to all the time. And then when I got out of property management, when things started to go awry, there are still owners that will message me to go, like, hey, the company I'm working with, they, they have a relationship with me, and so they become attached to the manager, or, again, the contact of that manager. And there's so much emotion involved in that that you almost you, you find yourself being in like, the, like, the psychiatrist Chair of like, you know, dealing with them. Like, you know, if they have a day they have damage, or they they think they might need to sell their, you know, they're, they're coming to you with all of that emotional baggage. So I imagine, when you pick up another company, you're picking up that baggage times 100 because you have no idea what you're getting into. You've never worked with these people before. Yeah, it's gotta be, gotta be arduous.

Tom Goodwin
And they've never worked with us, so I can understand, in a difficult, down economy, there's stress that comes with that. Am I gonna make my mortgage payment? Am I gonna make my expenses and and I don't know you. How can I trust you? So it's been a good learning, learning experience.

Alex Husner
Did you have any staff that came over from their team? Actually, we didn't

Tom Goodwin
need staff from their team, and they were down to two employees other than owners left, and so it was just the two employees, but one of them I was not able to keep, but I referred her to Auntie bellums, and they hired her in these. Okay, Annie bellums and Rohit, we texted to follow up on her on some tax things that we got at our office, and she told our Director of Operations, she goes, I can't. Thank you. Enough. Oh, wonderful. Completely changed since working for Auntie bellums. I have an apartment I have, so she's much more settled driving.

Alex Husner
We're hired, yeah, driving.

Tom Goodwin
And I knew that it could be a great opportunity for her. It was a lot closer to her. She instead of coming all the way into Gatlinburg, and I called Lauren in the beginning, I said, Hey, are you looking to hire anyone? So I got someone refer to you. They interviewed her and they hired her, and she's been a great fit.

Alex Husner
That's

Annie Holcombe
always good when you can use this connections to benefit an employee, not just some, you know, not not short term rather than long term. And that's, that's a real great thing,

Alex Husner
yeah, well, and one thing I've noticed about you for sure. I mean, there's no better proof of it. You're doing a podcast called for the love of Gatlinburg, but you love the community. You've made those relationships with your competitors, with the local businesses, with the associations. So you know that story just rings so true and makes complete sense with the Tom brand. I love it, but I wanted to touch on one thing that you said earlier about you know, when you made the decision not to separate the brands, and that you feel that it's best to have one brand that has something for everybody at all budgets. I agree with this completely, and but I get asked that a lot of companies that they might be in a market and their most of their inventory is like luxury, or they want to just be like, known as like the luxury leaders, and they get opportunities to bring on condos or things that maybe not don't fall quite in that bucket. And they always ask me, like, Should I do a separate print? And I'm like, you know, maybe, but you have to understand, if you do that, I mean, you're you're doing double expenses on marketing, essentially, and really, at the end of the day, it's about the service that you provide, no matter if it's a con, a two bedroom condo or a 10 bedroom home, that that's your brand, that's your brand, and the people that are coming in, they're looking for the 10 bedroom home, they're just going to bypass the two bedroom condo, but they're not going to think less of you as a company for having that on your rental program. I think it's about setting expectations properly when guests arrive on your site and getting them down the right funnel to pick the house that's going to be appropriate for them. But I think I just, I agree with your perspective on that a lot, and I think there's a lot of companies that are just really kind of not sure which direction to go.

Tom Goodwin
Yeah, I think there's ways to accomplish the uniformity of the brand and not to compromise, and that's on the operational side, cleanliness, updated technology, no box TVs. You have all smart TVs, yeah, standards. But as far and cleanliness of the home, operational function of all elements within the home, repairs that need to be made, but it doesn't have to be granite waterfall countertops everywhere, right, right? My wife and I, when we really in 2012 when we kind of took over the operations of the business, to be honest, we had family homes that her parents had gifted the kids that we wouldn't want our friends to stay in. They were born neglected, and they they weren't as brand on brand and wanted. And so it took about two years to do major renovations on our own properties. But that didn't mean that they were out priced from any one of our friends, whatever their social economic status was, but it did mean they were going into a house with nice, clean, fresh beds, not old furniture, and that they could enjoy. We had the, probably the best rates in the country. I wish they were higher. I wish we could charge more premium prices, but you can get a nice two bedroom house for $120 a night at the rent rate, yeah, yeah. Season, which is a bargain. It's a sta mean, it should be a crappy house. It doesn't hurt your vice infested or bad. Mattresses are neglected. So our goal in with our own homes is we want any one of our friends, regardless of how much money they make or where they travel, to feel comfortable in the home, warm and welcoming. And the same thing would be true. They'd feel comfortable with our company. They'd be welcomed by our front desk, by our phone calls, by our how they're experiencing hospitality. And you don't need to put a luxury price tag on that. That should just be a bare minimum and represents our brand. And I maybe some other people say, hey, we can take on some, you know, lower level accommodations, as long as you know, what are the key components that make them distinct as a part of your brand? Mm, hmm. Yeah,

Annie Holcombe
go ahead. I was gonna say, I think it's, I think it's telling about your character and the character of your company that you wouldn't look at. I always think of it as like a land grab. It's not about the amassing the inventory. It's about getting the right inventory and taking care of it, and not straying from your principles for the sake of growing. And I think that some companies have done that and really kind of stepped away from who they started their core was. And sometimes when you step too far off that path, it's really hard to get back to it. So it's good to be methodical, and it's good to be focused, and it also helps your team feel like everybody's on the same mission. You know, you've never you never stray from that. And so it's, it's great to see. And I think it just, it speaks to the hospitality that you want to ensure that your guests and your team and and the community has for your you know, for your company. So kudos to you letting units walk away knowing it was okay to Yeah,

Tom Goodwin
and even letting really good houses walk away because the owners aren't a match, equal as the home condition. Maybe even a higher value to us is the relationship level of trust that we can have with the owners and how much they'll trust us as well. Yeah.

Alex Husner
And I think on the guest perspective too, one thing that people sometimes don't think about and if they're trying to make that decision of if I am just luxury, or I'm just economy, or I'm just in the middle, or whatever is, I mean somebody who comes that stays in a 10 bedroom home, if they come back the next year, just with their spouse or with a smaller group, like they're gonna be looking that's not the type of accommodations that they're gonna be needing. So I think having the right blend of inventory is important. And even from of course, I'm thinking marketing and all this. But like from the marketing perspective, somebody that goes to Google and types in Gatlinburg cabin rental, you don't know if they're looking for a luxury rental, a 10 bedroom, a 12 bedroom, a two bedroom or one bedroom, unless they put that in their search. So the more good quality inventory, you can have that you can service appropriately and still offer your brand standards. Those companies that operate that way, you're gonna, you're gonna win on the direct bookings, because you've got you can have more traffic come to the site and have a higher likelihood that they're going to convert and turn into a guest. So I've had to add my two cents on the marketing side of that, because it's, it's an important part of that decision. And I think companies get too siloed in well, but we have to be luxury. We have to be this. And that's not exactly what it is. It's about your brand.

Unknown Speaker
I'm not frozen. I just that silence.

Alex Husner
Okay, okay.

Tom Goodwin
I definitely think that the brand is more than just the properties. It is the experience that the guest has. Yeah, the challenge, I think, that we faced in 2024 is that guest expectations have only increased, and the for us, our costs couldn't increase to stay competitive. So we have added some pretty unique guest experience items just to maintain and to create that repeat guest. We're fortunate that 86% of our bookings are direct bookings. I would like to see that go down by increasing our partnerships with Airbnb and VRBO and booking.com and Smoky mountains.com but our challenge then is to make sure that over 50% of their repeat guests are continuing to come back. Yeah, increase that. So we do welcome bags. We do departure bags, we do special events, you know, anniversaries, birthdays, customizing anytime that we can say yes. We want to be able to say yes. We don't want no, we don't do that, to be our first response. But how can we make that happen? We do coloring books for the kids. We do a scavenger hunt for them. Because of Lauren's great idea of a music playlist, we created a music playlist as well, and just using some more of those touch points. But the challenging thing is creating those guest experience, things that will that are sustainable, and yeah, keep doing because like, Oh no, we ran out of inventory. Playing cards, branded, playing Oh yeah. We ordered 1500 we've run out of them. Now we gotta order more. And then you have to determine, are those really working? Are they? Are they being effective? One thing that has worked really well for us, we just invite our guests to stop by the office on the way out for going away. Gift and so it's branded water bottles for the drive home. Conversation cards. Branded conversation cards, they talk about their trip. What are things that stood out to them? Oh, cool, hard if you. Book within the next 30 days by calling us, we'll give you 10% off your next booking. I love that we're sold out for Thanksgiving next year on all of our larger homes already, and even for summer, our calendar for next year is filling in simply because we captured the guests as they were leaving with a good experience, good experience. So, and then, you know, you encourage them to book again at the 10% off, so that that has proven to be definitely helpful, especially with our Airbnb guests who don't even know that mount North Charles is managing or running, right? Yeah, but just to get them to convert to being a direct Booker well,

Alex Husner
and just, I mean, if you have a real estate office that are you have, you have real estate you have an office like you obviously do. I mean, to be able to utilize that in the new world of everybody just checks in digitally and they never see you. And but making it optional, I mean, not forcing them to go to the office even though that they don't need to. I think that's a really nice way of doing it, and I love that it's done at checkout to come pick up your gift. I think that makes a lot of sense. How much of your business is repeat? Would you say? 50% okay, and I have this conversation with people a lot too, that if they're just trying to start focusing on direct bookings, you know, it's it's a lot easier to also become a direct booking brand when you're in a market that has a lot of repeat guests. Makes sense, but it's really a challenge. And some of these markets that are more urban or just not a place that you would bring the family back year after year. Gatlinburg is certainly one of those that falls in that bucket. So is Myrtle Beach, so is Panama City, but there's a lot of people that they don't have that, that luxury, right? So it's like, how do they get guests back? It's, it's a different, more difficult journey, I think, than what companies in our area is neck of the woods. So to say, experience

Tom Goodwin
great benefit, because our office, like I said, within 68 of our properties, is, is on the way out. Yeah, our office. So there's that's historically, that's what people have always stopped by. So we certainly don't want people to feel like they have to stop at our office for check in or check out. But because we have 50% repeat and because most of them, many of them are multi generation parents or their grandparents, yeah, the office, and they have relationships with the people in the office. They pick all of our family first members, or 2500 families have stayed with us five or more times. This is unique. 52 year old, 25

Alex Husner
it's 2500 families. Families have stayed with you five or more times.

Annie Holcombe
That's incredible. Wow, wow.

Tom Goodwin
Yeah, so that's Gatlinburg, and that's 52 years, and you can't repeat that in Nashville necessarily. People are, yeah, bridesmaids get away or a bachelor party, and it's a once and done, and they're not remembering that brand that they went and the hard thing with repeat guests and with our Airbnb, our first time people is like, we want them to associate mountain laurel chalets with their experience, but not being too obnoxious, and not branding the entire house everything that they touch. But so it's we are very fortunate, and so we're it's very challenging. Our challenge in our market is there's over 130 professional or organized vacation rental management companies. There's like 25,000 plus units, houses, condos, things that are listed that's really hard to compete on Google AdWords? Yeah, absolutely possible. It's really hard, yeah. So we have to do our organic searches, our our blog posts and our and pour our money into our repeat guests and make sure that they feel known, they feel loved, they feel like they're a part of what we call the Mount Laurel chalets family. They they use those terms. They use that word, we feel like we're part of the family, and that began with my in laws, and just having that sense of hospitality and and familiarity with their guests. And you know, when you're coming on vacation to a place like Gatlinburg, you are creating memories that really indeed last a lifetime. And whether they're anniversaries or birthdays or family reunions, those all work to our benefit, because you're creating this sense of emotional draw and tie to the area. And frankly, you know, there's 12 to 14 million people that come to Gatlinburg every year. We have 5000 bookings a year, around 5000 for 90 homes, there's a lot of people out there still that we could capture. Yeah, that's why we're doing things like, for the love of Gatlinburg podcast, yeah, yeah, we're missing that. Don't know our story or the story of Gatlinburg. And we were just in the Gatlinburg Fantasy of Lights Parade. We participate in the it's the third. Most like parade in the country, behind Macy's and another one, they rank three this year. It's broadcast all over the country. So we have a mountain laurel chalets float. And my wife asked me this morning she goes, Well, how many bookings do we get from being in the float? I would like to

Annie Holcombe
know that I love the way she's thinking, though. Oh

Alex Husner
yeah, but, I mean, he told me a task.

Tom Goodwin
But what we did do on the truck that was carrying the float this year, we did a QR code and another a magnet, and right next to it win a free two night stay. So they would scan the QR code and enter in. We'd get their contact information, they would and send them the links. So we're thinking of ways. How do we reach out to more people that just don't know about us? We're small, small company that, frankly, can't compete with the large, big box brands on Google searches for people that, yeah, don't know anything about Gatlinburg. So how do we tell our story and tell it really well, especially to our repeat guests?

Annie Holcombe
Yeah, it's a community that when people actually get to it, there's nothing that's going to prevent them from falling in love to it, because the people are friendly, the the you know you get in the mountains, it's absolutely beautiful. No matter where you are. There's just so many great vistas to look at. The wildlife is amazing. There's really not a bad time of year to be there. And now that you're being able to tell the stories that make people like you're if you can draw heart strings in, you make that connection. And once you make that connection, then people want to be part of it. It's like you're doing all the right things to combat the big box brand. And if you can attach to the emotion, I mean, that's what people want, is they want to feel something when they go to a vacation destination.

Tom Goodwin
And Alex, I was thinking on the marketing side, this is something that we could really replicate in other markets that have this same sense of feel. I presented this at we had 100 collection retreat, and I just shared the vision of it. And the team in Myrtle Beach said we should do for the love of Myrtle Beach and tell the story, yeah, for the love of Branson, So Diane, you could start a podcast, and we would help. You know, start that, because it would, it creates a sense of being a thought leader and a expert, a voice for the community. And I will, it's yet to be determined on how many clicks or how many reservations we're going to have as a result of that, or how many people will click the New York parade. But I think it's compounding those opportunities of always being able to present our story and our brand. Absolutely

Alex Husner
it's, I mean, it's compounding awareness, and it's having your your own media strategy. You can have your paid media strategy, your earned media strategy, but your own media strategy, and those are the assets that you control. You own podcast is 100% one of those. So I think black friends

Tom Goodwin
can't do this story like we can tell,

Alex Husner
yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, like you said, it's so much more than just the property that why people are coming. They're coming for that experience. They're coming for the memories, and the more ways you can capture that and just reconnect with them. You know, through that type of a strategy, I think is fabulous. But I'm also curious too, what about activities like do you? I know in your area, the attractions are a big part of why you go to Gatlinburg, there's so many museums and Ripley's and the zip line, and we got to go on all of them last year we came for the chamber trip. It was so much fun. But do you work with any of the attractions or any of the vendors up there to partner your guests up?

Tom Goodwin
Yes, we definitely do, and one of the easiest ways that we've been able to accomplish that is through our partnership with explory and offering the free tickets, one ticket per night to each of the different attractions. But like old smokey moonshine, I interview Johnny with old smokey moonshine on the podcast, and he does backstage tours of how they make the moonshine and talk about local experience. So he does at a time. So we've been we have a relationship there where he's able to do those backstage tours for our guests, or group of guests. Also worked with Jason aldeans, which is a new restaurant, in partnering with them and having a good experience Mike Fowler with Fowler's clay works on private pottery classes that people can go and make a piece of pottery. We're also working with the Friends of the Smokies, which is the kind of volunteer organization in the national park for hikes and all the recommendations within the Smokies preservation sustainability. We give a discount to anyone that's a member of the Friends of the Smokies, and then we also have a good partnership and relationship with them. But our guest, you know, explory is great, and there's customer service is outstanding, but our guest persona is really more of a graduated tourist that's coming to do the unique individual experiences of Gatlinburg, and whether that's their own unique experience in their. House and their view and their meals and their family traditions, some of the things that we've come to experience from our guests is we have a lot of people that spend Thanksgiving with us year after year after year, and we started giving away free pies, delivering pies to the houses on Wednesday before Thanksgiving this year, our guests were calling the office and saying, Are we getting pumpkin or pecan this year? Yeah,

Alex Husner
oh, I love that with

Tom Goodwin
the local food city, and get those homemade pies, and then we hand deliver them. But I do think with the experiences there's, there's so many more opportunities, whether it's, I've been to some of the like the Disney resorts, where they do the some more, and the movie night, you know, the little more difficult. When you have your own property or your own home, you're not staying in a condo, or, yeah, for sure, but how can we do some more of those activities, even working with the the neighborhood association that we're primarily involved with even thinking of ideas like movie nights at the pool or a food truck, and then we would sponsor that as well. But I think we need to be thinking more in that experience, mindset, as opposed to the basics of clean, nice accommodations with great Wi Fi, great entertainment. I mean, how many putt, putt courses can you put in at a Yeah, it's hard to keep up with all those things, but there's other partners in the community that we can create those unique experiences.

Alex Husner
You know? What could be really cool? And this reminds me of Ocean Reef and Destin, our good friend Richard. I remember when I went down and saw them a few years ago, he said that, you know, pre COVID, when you still had to go to the office to pick up your keys. You know, they had hundreds of units. So on Saturdays, it was like just massive traffic jam. So they would, they there. They own this whole complex in Destin so they would have, like food trucks and like a carnival and like a band play and like, they made it into a party every Saturday, so the guests, as they were waiting in line, they were happy to be there, right? But obviously that's changed now, and everything's digital, but you could do that on the checkout side, that if you are most of your stays in season, like Saturday to Saturday, or is it, does it really vary?

Tom Goodwin
It varies and Sunday from the weekends and okay, but we do. We've done lemonade and coffee at the office and cookies and so forth, you know, for people and creating that but like, we have our annual homeowners meeting at the end of April. I've mentioned that before, yeah. How do we make that more of an event that's more kid friendly? Blow up, you know, rides and things like that. We we hosted at Ober mountain. So seems like there could be an opportunity to do

Annie Holcombe
sure recreation, yeah, yeah. I would think you're

Tom Goodwin
giving me good ideas.

Annie Holcombe
We wanted, yeah, we want to come. I know when we hosted the we used host, I think we talked about this before, like, coast managers out on the homeowners meetings, it was always like a cocktail party on the pool, but you had, like, a room for kids to go play games, and we hired babysitters for people to send the kids in, and they would do activities or watch movies or whatever. But I'm with Oprah Gatlinburg. I mean, you could do the slides and, I mean, all the stuff that's there, and actually all, all of what you're saying, reminded me of Megan Moylan. Well, Megan Myers, she was talking about when she had gone to stay with Rachel all day out in they had gone to one of the properties in Park City, and it was a family reunion type thing, and she said they were driving in. So Rachel actually sent her a cooler with some games and some water bottles and some so it's kind of like reverse of what you're doing for people going home. But what a great thing. I mean, if you think about these families that are driving in, I know for like, for us to come to up to Gatlinburg, it's like a nine hour, 910, hour drive. It's not an easy drive, but if you have kids in the car. You've got to figure something out. So being able to send something pre stay for them to, like, do their drive up, or even the drive home. I mean, just to make it a little better, because Lord knows, the kids are like, I don't want to go home. I don't want to go back to school. Do all that. So if you can make it fun, there's so many ways that you could make this just a memorable way to like, cap off their vacation, and then that way they are like, emboldened to like book with Tom all the time. Mount Laurel chalets will be there, their family retreat in the mountains forever. And

Tom Goodwin
it could get overwhelming. You're thinking, right? Much more do I have to do? I think if we make it simple to the most common basic level is, remember their name, remember yes and they're there, yeah, and make them feel welcomed. And everyone can do that without adding a line item to your budget. Yeah, sure. It's just a matter of being intentional with that. And then you begin this relationship. With them, and you're thinking, then you think of, okay, what are the other fun things that we can do? So we love card games. We love playing with playing card games as a family. And so we created branded cards, and then we put those in the welcome kit. I don't know how many people use them, something that we like, but we're always looking at different ideas of, how do we connect relationally with our guests as well?

Alex Husner
Love it, yeah, nice to keep people away from just, you know, being on TVs and iPads too. So

Tom Goodwin
make sure we have a TV in every bedroom. Still not a luxury anymore, kind of a necessity, yeah,

Alex Husner
definitely, definitely. Well, it's been great catching up with you, Tom, and we're so excited for you, and I'm excited to go and listen to the podcast and start following that and just see where this journey takes you. And hopefully, maybe next year, at one of the conferences, you could do a session about it, fill everyone in

Tom Goodwin
all the things I've learned from that and from acquiring another business, another listen. Another listening to y'all, and I love the relationship that we have. It's so unique within this industry to enjoy the human connection that we have. And I think I love that you guys set a high bar of hospitality and a high bar of relational connectedness, and it brings humanity into what we do, and beds, and it's not just the rents, and it's not just the profit, but it's a really the experience. But I love how you model that for us as an industry and as my friends as well. So my friends, thank you.

Alex Husner
Appreciate that. Well, if any, if anybody wants to reach out Tom, what's the best way do you have a website for the podcast? I'm sure it's on all the networks, but what's the best way for them to go listen? For

Tom Goodwin
the love of gatlinburg.com or it's on Apple podcast or Spotify. You can check it out. You can just Google Gatlinburg podcast, and it should come up, or my name as well. Awesome, awesome.

Alex Husner
Well, if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I you can go to AlexandAnniepodcast.com and until next time, thanks for tuning in, everybody.