Carmel-by-the-Sea's Tourism Numbers Aren't Your Occupancy Rate

Jacob Mishalanie
6 days ago
10 min read

Carmel River State Beach cove from Scenic Road overlook, Carmel-by-the-Sea photograph

Every year a handful of impressive-sounding travel and tourism figures circulate around Carmel-by-the-Sea — county visitor spending in the billions, city-level lodging tax collections in the millions, destination-marketing numbers that make for a good headline. None of them tell a host what their listing is actually going to book at and treating them as though they do is a reliable way to misjudge a market that has its own, much more specific short-term rental data available.

This post separates the two categories cleanly: tourism and visitor-spending figures, which describe the broader economic footprint of travel to the Monterey Peninsula and Carmel area, and the short-term rental occupancy, rate, and revenue data that actually describes what a host's listing can expect. Both are real. Only one answers the question a host is actually asking.

This is not legal advice. It's a guide to reading published data sources correctly, which matters as much for accuracy as any regulatory question does in this market.

The County Travel Figure Is Not a Village Number

A Visit California / Dean Runyan figure for Monterey County travel spending has been cited around $1,251 million for a recent year (verify the current-year figure at the time of use). That number describes the entire county's travel economy — hotels, restaurants, attractions, retail, and lodging of every type across a geography far larger than the one-square-mile village of Carmel-by-the-Sea. It has essentially no direct bearing on what a specific short-term rental listing inside the incorporated city will earn.

A host quoting this figure as evidence that 'the market is strong' isn't wrong about the broader trend, but they're using the wrong instrument to measure it. County-level travel spending is a demand signal at best — it says people are visiting the region — not a proxy for occupancy or rate on a specific street in Carmel-by-the-Sea.

It's also worth noting that a county-level figure blends towns with very different STR regulatory environments — Carmel-by-the-Sea's own restrictive R-1 zoning is not representative of how every town in Monterey County treats short-term rentals. A strong countywide travel number says nothing about whether a specific Carmel-by-the-Sea parcel can even legally capture any of that spending as short-term rental revenue.

The $95 Million Visitor-Spending Figure — Same Caveat

A separate figure, cited from a Monterey destination-marketing presentation, puts visitor spending in and around Carmel at roughly $95 million. This is closer to the village's own footprint than the countywide number, but it's still a destination-marketing figure covering total visitor spend — dining, retail, attractions, lodging of all types — not a short-term rental occupancy or revenue number specifically.

Point Lobos, a well-known nearby state natural reserve, sometimes gets folded into Carmel-by-the-Sea's tourism narrative in casual marketing copy. It's a neighbor park, not inside the village, and visitor counts there measure trail and park attendance, not booked nights in a Carmel-by-the-Sea rental. Keep park visitation, destination-marketing spend, and STR occupancy data on three separate lines.

That said, Point Lobos is a genuinely useful detail in listing copy and a complete visitors guide — it's a real draw that brings guests to the area, and naming it accurately as a nearby attraction is legitimate marketing. The issue is only ever using its visitor numbers as a stand-in for a Carmel-by-the-Sea occupancy or revenue figure, which is a different use of the same fact entirely.

City TOT Collections Describe the City, Not One Listing

A countywide lodging-tax comparison table cites Carmel-by-the-Sea's total transient occupancy tax collections at $9,527,386, calculated at the city's 10 percent TOT rate. This figure is hotel-inclusive and describes the entire city's collections across every legally operating lodging property — not a single short-term rental host's tax bill or revenue.

A host trying to reverse-engineer their own expected revenue from this citywide figure is working with too many unknowns to make it useful — the mix of hotels versus short-term rentals within that total isn't broken out, and the figure says nothing about a specific property's rate or occupancy. This number is useful for understanding the overall scale of Carmel-by-the-Sea's lodging tax base, not for underwriting an individual listing.

There's also a proposed 2 percentage point increase to the city's TOT rate that has circulated in recent council discussion but was not enacted law as of this writing. That's a policy figure, not a market-performance figure, and it belongs in a compliance conversation with the city rather than in a revenue estimate for a specific property.

What Actually Answers 'How Much Does an Airbnb Make in Carmel-by-the-Sea'

The data that actually answers that question is short-term-rental-specific: AirROI's extract, showing a typical annual figure of $91,583 across 318 active listings at 45.9% occupancy and $688 ADR, and AirDNA's separate figure of $122.7K across 378 listings at 66% occupancy and $594 ADR. These two disagree by roughly 34%, and the honest response is to present both, not average them or lean on whichever flatters a specific pitch.

None of the tourism or destination-marketing figures above should be substituted for these two whenever the actual question is 'what will my listing earn.' They're useful as background — evidence that this is a real, actively visited destination — but they're the wrong tool for the specific job of estimating a listing's calendar.

Beyond the headline dollar figures, the AirROI extract carries other genuinely useful detail for a host — entire-home listings at 91.5% of the 318 active rentals, average guest capacity of 4.8, a typical 66-day booking window. These are the kinds of specifics that inform a real marketing and pricing plan, in a way that a countywide travel-spending total simply cannot.

A Quick Checklist for Vetting Any Number Before You Quote It

Given how often an impressive-sounding figure circulates around this market, it's worth having a fast, repeatable way to check whether a number is actually useful before repeating it in a pitch deck, a listing description, or a conversation with a buyer. Start with the source: was this figure published by a short-term rental data provider tracking actual listings — AirROI, AirDNA — or by a tourism board, a county travel-economy study, or a lodging-tax comparison table? That single question sorts most figures correctly on its own.

Next, check the geography. A figure covering Monterey County, the broader Central Coast, or even 'Carmel and surrounding areas' is not the same as a figure covering the incorporated City of Carmel-by-the-Sea specifically. This market has already shown how easily geography drifts — Carmel Point's separate $157,376 figure, Point Lobos sitting just outside the village, 17-Mile Drive and Pebble Beach getting folded into casual 'Carmel' references. A number that doesn't specify its exact boundary should be treated as suspect until that boundary is confirmed.

Third, check the unit being measured. Dollars can mean total city tax collections, total visitor spending, or per-listing annual revenue — three entirely different things that happen to share a currency symbol. A figure worth quoting to a host or buyer should specify, plainly, which of those three it is. If a source doesn't make that clear, that's a reason to either dig further or leave the figure out rather than including it and hoping the ambiguity goes unnoticed.

Running a figure through those three checks — source type, geography, and unit measured — takes less time than it takes to find the number in the first place, and it's the difference between a market report that holds up under scrutiny and one that quietly repeats a headline number that never actually applied to the question being asked.

Why Aggregate Figures Show Up So Often in Investment Pitches

It's worth understanding why county and citywide tourism figures get reached for so often in the first place, since it isn't usually deliberate misdirection. Aggregate travel-economy numbers are produced by well-funded, professional research organizations — Visit California, Dean Runyan, county destination-marketing offices — and they're genuinely impressive in scale, which makes them attractive to cite in a pitch or a listing description meant to build confidence quickly. Short-term-rental-specific data, by contrast, requires knowing to look for AirROI or AirDNA specifically, and reading past the topline number to the underlying listing count and date window.

The practical effect is that the bigger, more available number often wins by default, not because it's more accurate, but because it's easier to find and more persuasive on first read. A host or an agent building a pitch under time pressure reaches for what's readily available rather than doing the extra work of separating a $1.25 billion county figure from a $91,583 per-listing figure that actually answers the question being asked.

Recognizing that pattern is useful for a host evaluating someone else's pitch, too — a listing description, a real estate agent's investment case, or a property management proposal that leans heavily on county-scale tourism numbers rather than short-term-rental-specific data is a signal worth noticing. It doesn't necessarily mean the underlying opportunity is bad, but it does mean the person making the case either hasn't done the more specific research, or is choosing the more flattering number on purpose.

Why This Distinction Matters for Marketing Copy, Too

This isn't purely an academic distinction. A listing description or an investment pitch that leans on the county's billion-dollar travel figure to imply strong short-term rental returns is making a claim the data doesn't actually support, and a sophisticated buyer or guest doing their own research will notice the gap. Citing the AirROI-versus-AirDNA range, by contrast, demonstrates the host or seller actually understands the market they're operating in.

The same discipline applies to any tourism dataset a host encounters going forward — county spending figures, park visitation counts, destination-marketing dollars. Before using any of them to describe a Carmel-by-the-Sea short-term rental's prospects, check whether the figure is actually measuring short-term rental performance or something adjacent to it that only sounds like it is.

A simple test works well here: ask whether the figure was produced by a short-term rental data provider tracking actual listings, or by a tourism board, destination-marketing organization, or tax authority tracking something broader. The first category answers a host's question directly; the second is useful context at best, and a source of confusion if presented as though it were the first.

Supply Growth Is Not a Demand Figure Either

One more figure worth flagging while on the subject of numbers that get misread: AirROI's extract shows supply grew 7.8% on that pull, meaning the active listing count itself is rising. That's a useful fact — it says more properties are entering this market — but it isn't a demand or revenue figure any more than a tourism dataset is, and it shouldn't be read as evidence that bookings or occupancy are rising by the same amount.

Supply growth and occupancy can move in either direction relative to each other. More listings competing for a roughly similar guest pool can just as easily pressure occupancy downward per listing as it can signal a market getting stronger overall. Treat the 7.8% supply figure as context about competitive density, worth knowing when deciding how aggressively to price and market a new listing, rather than as proof the market itself is expanding in the way a rising occupancy or revenue number would show.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the actual tourism numbers for Carmel-by-the-Sea hosts?

The short-term-rental-specific figures that matter for a host are AirROI's $91,583 typical annual revenue at 45.9% occupancy, and AirDNA's separate $122.7K figure at 66% occupancy — a roughly 34% spread that should be presented as a range, not averaged. Broader tourism and visitor-spending figures don't answer this question.

Does the $1.25 billion Monterey County travel figure describe Carmel-by-the-Sea specifically?

No. That figure covers the entire county's travel economy — hotels, restaurants, attractions, retail — across a geography far larger than the one-square-mile village. It's a demand signal for the broader region, not a proxy for a specific listing's occupancy or rate.

Is the $95 million visitor-spending figure the same as short-term rental revenue?

No. That figure, from a Monterey destination-marketing presentation, describes total visitor spending in and around Carmel across dining, retail, attractions, and all lodging types — not short-term rental occupancy or ADR specifically.

Does Point Lobos visitation count as Carmel-by-the-Sea tourism data?

Not directly. Point Lobos is a nearby state natural reserve, not inside the village, and its visitor counts measure park and trail attendance rather than booked nights in a Carmel-by-the-Sea short-term rental.

What does the $9.5 million TOT collections figure represent?

Total citywide transient occupancy tax collections, hotel-inclusive, at Carmel-by-the-Sea's 10 percent TOT rate, from a countywide lodging-tax comparison table. It describes the whole city's lodging tax base, not any individual short-term rental host's revenue or tax obligation.

Should I use county tourism figures in my listing marketing copy?

Generally no, at least not as evidence of a specific listing's earning potential — they're the wrong tool for that job. If used at all, they should be framed as general destination context, clearly separate from any specific revenue or occupancy claim about your property.

How reliable is AirROI versus AirDNA for Carmel-by-the-Sea?

Both are credible sources measuring overlapping but not identical listing pools over slightly different date windows, which produces a real roughly-34% disagreement on annual revenue. Present both figures as a range rather than treating either as definitively correct on its own.

Why do hosts sometimes cite the wrong tourism figure for their listing?

Often because a large, impressive-sounding number is more available or more frequently cited in local news and destination-marketing materials than the more specific but less publicized short-term rental data. The larger figure feels persuasive but doesn't actually measure what a host needs to know.

What's the difference between a demand signal and an occupancy figure?

A demand signal, like county travel spending, indicates that people are visiting a region in general. An occupancy figure specifically measures booked nights for short-term rentals. The two are related but not interchangeable, and only the second answers a host's practical revenue question.

Is there a single authoritative source for Carmel-by-the-Sea STR revenue?

No single source is authoritative on its own — AirROI and AirDNA disagree by roughly a third, and a host's own trailing twelve months, once it exists, is more reliable than either public aggregator. Treat published figures as a starting range, not a final answer.

Work with Crest & Cove Creative

A billion-dollar county tourism figure gets quoted around Carmel-by-the-Sea like it means something for a host's calendar. It doesn't, and confusing the two leads to badly built pricing and marketing decisions.

Crest & Cove Creative builds listing strategy around the data that actually predicts bookings, not the headline tourism number. Ask us for a marketing audit grounded in the right figures for your property. Send the live listing draft and the facts you can actually cite.

Reach out at crestcove.co or (256) 998-7502.