Smoky Mountain Vacation Rental Forum: E10 — Lessons from Annie Holcombe About Our Industry

For Episode 10, Tom Goodwin steps outside the Smoky Mountain market to bring in a friend from the wider vacation rental industry: Annie Holcombe, co-host of Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals — a podcast Tom calls his personal go-to, and one the two had just recorded their 300th episode of the day before this conversation. Annie's own connection to the Smokies predates her career entirely; her husband's family, from Pickens, South Carolina, has been crossing the mountains into Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge for generations, including an early, memorably rough stay in a cabin the family still refers to as "El Stinco."

Annie's professional path into hospitality started almost by accident in 1992 — a hotel front desk job in Panama City Beach taken to pay back her parents after a surgery — and grew into leading vacation rental operations as Panama City Beach's market exploded from roughly 16,000 hotel rooms to nearly 30,000 combined hotel and vacation rental units. From there she moved into the OTA and technology side of the industry (leaving traditional property management in 2011) before eventually founding her own consulting company, Annie & Co., focused especially on property managers in that scrappy, high-growth 25-unit range who've outgrown their systems but don't yet have the infrastructure to match.

The heart of the episode traces the origin of Alex & Annie itself — born out of COVID-era "Clubhouse" panel discussions, sealed by a chance bathroom encounter at the first post-COVID VRMA conference with the hosts of Thanks for Visiting, and launched in November 2021 with essentially no equipment or plan, on the strength of encouragement from industry friends like Simon Lehmann and guest Amber Hurdle. From there, Tom and Annie dig into hard-won lessons for new owners and operators: the importance of finding a mentor and simply asking questions, the specific operational and safety dangers of remote co-hosting (including a sobering discussion of human trafficking risk in unsupervised short-term rentals), the non-negotiable basics of trust accounting, and the danger of building an entire online presence on an OTA's own platform rather than a business's own brand and direct booking site. The conversation closes on a shared, hopeful read of where the industry is headed — technology in service of human connection, not a replacement for it — and an invitation to the VRMA's annual conference, October 4–6 in Nashville.

• 300 episodes, born from a bathroom encounter. Alex & Annie grew out of COVID-era "Clubhouse" panel discussions Annie was already hosting; the idea was sealed at the first post-COVID VRMA conference in San Antonio, after a chance meeting with the hosts of Thanks for Visiting in a hotel restroom, and launched in November 2021 with no equipment or formal plan.
• A career that started with a hotel front desk job in 1992. Annie's path into vacation rentals came through Panama City Beach, a market that grew from roughly 16,000 hotel rooms to nearly 30,000 combined hotel and vacation rental units during her time there.
• Find a mentor, and don't be afraid to ask questions. Annie's top piece of advice for new owners and operators: reach out to someone you admire, even outside your own market, since most people in this industry are generous with guidance rather than guarded about competition.
• Remote, out-of-market co-hosting carries real safety risk. Annie and Tom discuss specific dangers of co-hosts managing properties they've never visited in markets they don't live in — including documented cases of drug activity and human trafficking in unsupervised short-term rentals — and the responsibility platforms bear in enabling that model.
• Trust accounting is non-negotiable. Annie stresses that guest funds must be held separately from operating funds, warning that commingling money — even temporarily, to cover payroll or vendor bills during a cash crunch — is a dangerous and surprisingly common mistake among newer operators.
• Don't build your brand on someone else's platform. Annie cautions strongly against operators who invest in a name, logo, and website but then funnel all their marketing spend and SEO efforts toward their Airbnb listing page instead of their own direct booking site.
• Technology should serve hospitality, not replace it. Both Annie and Tom point to a generational shift — citing Gen Z's embrace of "old" technology like film cameras and landlines — as evidence that guests increasingly crave genuine human connection, even as AI and automation continue to reshape the industry.
• VRMA's annual conference lands in Nashville, October 4–6. Annie, a VRMA board member, highlights this year's keynote speakers — Glenn Fogel of Booking.com and Shawn Achor of BetterUp — and encourages Smoky Mountain owners and operators to attend given the region's proximity.