Wyo Stays publishes this report to its property owners on the first of every month. This is the public edition: the market, the industry and the operating picture. The owner edition adds our portfolio's own performance and what we're doing about it — you can request it below.
The 30-second version
Sheridan County's lodging tax receipts fell 6.2% in the state's 2026 fiscal year, while Wyoming as a whole rose 5.8% and neighbouring Johnson County rose 10.9%. The local lodging market contracted. Nationally, 2026 has been a rate year rather than an occupancy year — short-term rental rates rose 6–7% a month through Q2 while occupancy barely moved. Meanwhile the average booking window has fallen to 60 days and AirDNA has cut its 2026 US supply forecast almost in half. Fewer new competitors, a shorter runway to sell each night, and a local market you now have to take share in rather than ride.
The Sheridan lodging market contracted last fiscal year
Wyoming publishes lodging tax collections county by county, which makes it one of the few honest, auditable proxies for how a whole local lodging market actually performed. For the state's 2026 fiscal year, ending 30 June:
Source: Wyoming Economic Analysis Division, county lodging tax collections, state-imposed portion. FY2026 figures prepared 6 July 2026; FY2025 from the Sales, Use & Lodging Tax Revenue Report. Lodging tax reflects all taxable lodging in a county — hotels included — so it is a market indicator, not a short-term-rental index.
| Fiscal year 2026 | Collections | Change vs. FY2025 |
|---|
| Wyoming statewide | ~$36.0M | +5.8% |
| Johnson County (Buffalo) | $427,431 | +10.9% |
| Sheridan County | $707,915 | −6.2% |
Sheridan County's collections had risen 9.9% the year before. This is a genuine reversal, and it sits underneath everything else in this report. Sheridan County Travel & Tourism's own framing for the year — "2026 is not about chasing growth, it's about capturing value" — reads less like a slogan against that number and more like a warning.
What July looked like on the ground
Rodeo week landed hard. Sheridan WYO Rodeo ran performances July 8–11, the Sheridan County Fair ran July 25 – August 3 on the back end of the month, and Sheridan set a new all-time record high of 109°F on July 12, breaking the previous 107°F mark — hot enough that the Rodeo Tailgate and Cowboy Polo Games scheduled for that day were cancelled outright.
Sheridan County · the numbers that matter
- 19% of Sheridan County's overnight visitors stay in a vacation rental — versus 51% hotels and motels and 30% campground and other.
- $165.8 million in travel-generated spending in 2025 — essentially flat, and fractionally below 2024's $166.9 million — from 460,000+ overnight visitors and about 1.7 million visitor days. Average stay 2.8 nights; average spend $264 per person, $633 per group. Over 80% from out of state.
- Unemployment 2.4% in June 2026, down from 3.6% in June 2025. County population is up 7.5% since 2020 against the state's 2.1%.
- Sheridan County Airport posted a record 2025 at 60,339 passengers, up roughly 4% on 2024, on twice-daily United Express service to Denver.
- Wyoming still has no state-level short-term rental regulation, and there has been no new STR ordinance activity in the City of Sheridan, Sheridan County, or the Legislature in 2026.
Sources: Sheridan County Travel & Tourism Spring 2026 Industry Update (May 2026); Wyoming Dept. of Workforce Services, June county series (July 2026); Wyoming EAD / US Census population estimates (2026); Sheridan Media (18 Feb 2026).
The four rings around Sheridan
Ring 2 · Wyoming
- Wyoming visitor spending hit a record $5.0 billion in 2025, generating $292 million in state and local taxes and supporting about 34,000 jobs. Travel-related GDP has grown 6.1% a year on average since 2019.
- Statewide lodging tax collections rose 5.8% in FY2026 — while Sheridan County's fell 6.2% and Johnson County's rose 10.9%.
Sources: Wyoming Office of Tourism / Dean Runyan Travel Impact Report 2025 (27 April 2026); Wyoming EAD lodging tax collections FY2026 (6 July 2026).
Ring 3 · The region
- Yellowstone had 903,025 visits in June 2026, down 3% on June 2025; year to date it is down 1%. Grand Teton had its third-busiest June ever at 666,422, down 2% on last June but up 2.5% year to date and possibly nearing its 2021 record.
- Colorado — which the Wyoming Office of Tourism calls the state's number one drive market — posted a record $29.2 billion in 2025 but its second straight year of minimal growth, with business travel down 11%. Its tourism director: "2026 is not looking so rosy."
- Sturgis runs August 7–16. The 2025 rally moved an official 537,459 vehicles, 11.3% above the five-year average — and a meaningful slice of that traffic uses the I-90 corridor through Sheridan.
- Wyoming regular gasoline is $4.13/gal, up 33% year over year. The EIA cut its forecast in July after the June 18 US–Iran agreement reopened the Strait of Hormuz, and now projects a national average of $3.80 for Q3 and $3.39 for Q4 2026. Prices have moved the other way since — Wyoming rose 17 cents in the last week of July — so treat it as a forecast, not a trend already in motion.
Sources: National Park Service (9 July 2026); Buckrail (18 July 2026); Colorado Sun (30 July 2026); SD DOT final vehicle counts (12 Aug 2025); AAA (retrieved 3 Aug 2026); EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook (7 July 2026).
Ring 4 · The United States
- Only 45% of Americans planned a paid-lodging summer vacation this year — a six-year low. Those who travel plan to spend $4,069 on their longest trip, up 17%.
- Intent to stay in a private vacation rental rose from 25% to 29%, while hotel intent stayed flat at 81%. Rentals gained share inside a shrinking pool.
- US travel spending in June 2026 was up 6.2% to $122.1 billion — but air passenger volumes fell 1.3%, the second straight monthly decline, and much of the spending increase is price rather than volume. Travel prices are up 8.1%; airline fares up 26.5%.
- Expensive flying, resilient spending, rentals gaining share: that combination describes a drive-to Western market almost perfectly.
Sources: Deloitte 2026 Summer Travel Survey (19 May 2026); US Travel Association Travel Insights Dashboard, June data (28 July 2026) and Travel Price Index (14 July 2026).
Ring 5 · The short-term rental industry
- In December, AirDNA forecast US short-term rental supply would grow 4.6% in 2026. In July they cut that to 2.7% — mortgage rates went back above 6% and would-be investors stayed on the sidelines. Demand is forecast to grow at the same 2.7%.
- Occupancy is now forecast at 57.4% for the full year — above the pre-pandemic baseline of 57.0%. AirDNA's title for the report: "A Better Year to Own Than to Buy."
- 2026 is a rate year. Q2 short-term rental ADR rose 6–7% a month with RevPAR up 7–10%, while occupancy gains stayed in the low single digits. US hotels ran the same pattern: RevPAR +5.7%, ADR +4.4%, occupancy +0.8%.
- The booking window has collapsed. The average US booking window was 60 days as of spring 2026, down 11.4%, and 38% of accommodation searches now happen within 28 days of arrival. Deloitte found the share of travelers fully booked in advance fell from 39% to 35% in a single year. A calendar that looks open three weeks out is now normal.
- Direct booking is losing ground industry-wide. Direct fell from 25% to 21% of reservations year over year while Airbnb rose from 47% to 51%. Direct guests still punch above their weight — 21% of reservations, 29% of revenue.
- Looking forward, US vacation rental RevPAR for September was pacing 26% ahead of last year as of mid-July (occupancy +13%, ADR +11%).
Sources: AirDNA US 2026 Midyear Outlook (8 July 2026) and 2026 Outlook (16 Dec 2025); Key Data Dashboard Summer Index and Q2 channel mix (28 July 2026); CBRE Q2 2026 US Hotel Figures (29 July 2026); StaySTRA analysis of Key Data / Lighthouse / PriceLabs (2 April 2026); Deloitte (19 May 2026).
The fall demand calendar
September and October are not a wind-down in this market. They're a different market.
Hunting is the demand wall
Archery opens September 1 across the Bighorn deer areas and most elk areas, with a few elk areas opening September 15. General rifle opens between October 9 and October 15 depending on hunt area, running into November. Antelope archery opened August 15, and several private-land cow/calf elk types opened August 15 too — hunting is already a live booking category. Check exact dates for your hunt area with Wyoming Game & Fish. (WGFD 2026 approved regulations, April 2026.)
Events through October
Aug 7–16 Sturgis Rally (SD). Aug 20 and Sep 17 3rd Thursday Street Festival, downtown Sheridan, 5–9pm. Sep 6–7 Don King Days, Big Horn Equestrian Center, 38th annual, about 2,000 spectators a day. Sep 18–19 Born in a Barn. Oct 1–4 Sheridan WYO Film Festival.
What changed on the booking platforms in 2026
The platforms now rank you on data, not on charm
Airbnb's 2026 Summer Release (20 May) rebuilt search around AI personalisation. Two guests looking at the same listing now see different amenity highlights and different review highlights depending on who they are. What decides which version a traveler sees is structured listing data — amenities, attributes, tags, photo labelling. Accuracy stopped being a courtesy and became a ranking input. Airbnb also began synthesising AI Review Highlights across a listing's entire review history, and now requires approval for custom house rules.
Vrbo tightened Premier Host in January 2026 to a 0% partner-cancellation rate, 99% booking acceptance and a 4.6 minimum review score, and is rolling out Sponsored Listings — paid search placement — before year-end. Roughly a third of Vrbo bookings in Q1 2026 already involved a supplier-funded promotion.
Property management software became agentic
2026 is the year the software this industry runs on became agentic. Across the category, the major platforms shipped AI agents that execute inside operator-defined guardrails — pricing, guest messaging, operations, reviews — rather than simply recommending and waiting for a human. Several also opened their architecture for the first time, so an operator's own tools can plug straight into the system rather than working around it. Expect the gap between operators who build on that and operators who wait for it to widen quickly.
Travelers now plan trips inside AI — and almost nobody has adjusted
More than half of US travelers have now used AI to plan, book or navigate a trip. 33% use a general AI assistant like ChatGPT for trip research, a fivefold increase since 2024 — 74% among millennials, 72% among Gen Z — and 44% say they'd book directly inside an AI platform. Yet AI referrals are still under 1% of actual website traffic for independent hospitality businesses. Intent has moved years ahead of attribution. Travel and hospitality already has the highest AI citation rate of any industry, around 23% against a 6.8% average, because travelers demand sources for travel answers. (Phocuswright, 28 July 2026; Lighthouse via eHotelier, 7 July 2026; Similarweb, 29 July 2026.)
Wyo Stays is growing
Three additions this summer, all for the same reason: a portfolio growing at this rate stops being manageable by good intentions and starts needing people whose full-time job it is.
Operations
A full-time Operations Manager
Owning turnovers, scheduling, vendor coordination and the daily operating rhythm across the whole portfolio.
Maintenance
In-house maintenance, expanded
Ready Fleet growing into a full in-house maintenance capability rather than a coordination layer over outside contractors. Faster response, and no waiting behind a contractor's commercial queue.
Coverage
Buffalo, with someone on the ground
Expanding into Buffalo with a full-time team member based there. About 35 miles and a 40-minute drive south — and a genuinely separate market.
Why Buffalo
- Johnson County's lodging tax rose 10.9% in FY2026, to $427,431, while Sheridan County's fell 6.2% — same source, same period, same methodology.
- Travel supports 8.6% of all Johnson County jobs against 3.6% in Sheridan County, on $67.5 million of direct travel spending in 2025, up 3.4% on 2024. Buffalo is a far more tourism-levered economy than Sheridan. (Dean Runyan Associates for the Wyoming Office of Tourism, calendar 2025.)
- The City of Buffalo requires an annual short-term rental permit, treats short-term rental as a special use in R-2, requires registration with the Wyoming Department of Revenue before applying, and requires a local contact who can address issues within 24 hours. That last clause is effectively a local-presence mandate — which is why we put a person there rather than adding a drive to someone's route. Unincorporated Johnson County has no adopted short-term rental regulation. (City of Buffalo Chapter 29 Zoning Ordinance, Art. 3 §15 and Art. 7 §2.B, as amended Ord. 1409, 2022.)
Buffalo sits at the northern terminus of Interstate 25 where it meets I-90 — the only town in Wyoming where the north–south and northern east–west interstates converge — and it is the eastern gateway to the 47-mile Cloud Peak Skyway over Powder River Pass. Longmire Days (July 16–19) and the Johnson County Fair & Rodeo (July 24 – August 2) ran back to back this year: nine straight days of peak demand.
On the ballot, 3 November
Two Wyoming ballot items touch property owners this November. Stated factually; we take no position on either.
Sheridan County 2% lodging tax — renewal
County Commissioners voted on 5 May 2026 to place continuation of the existing 2% county lodging tax on the ballot. It is a renewal of an existing tax rather than a new one, and it is collected from guests, not from owners. Revenue funds Sheridan County Travel & Tourism. (Sheridan Media, 5 May 2026.)
Statewide Proposition One — property tax
A proposed 50% property tax exemption on the assessed value of a qualified homeowner's primary residence, requiring Wyoming residency of at least a year and occupancy for six months of the prior tax year. Earliest applicable tax year is 2027. How it applies to any particular property is a question for a CPA. (Wyoming Secretary of State 2026 Voter's Guide.)
Nothing on this page is tax, legal, investment or voting advice.
The owner edition
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The owner edition adds our portfolio's own performance against this market, the pricing decisions behind it, the SUMMIT operating process we run on every property, and our honest list of what we're watching. We'll email it to you.
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In the owner edition
- Wyo Stays portfolio performance — nightly rate, occupancy and growth, month by month, against this market
- What's already on the books through December, and how to read a calendar that looks thin
- The pricing decisions behind a record July, explained
- SUMMIT — the six-step process we run on every property, every month
- Our direct-booking share, and why it's moving opposite to the industry
- The Owners Vault, and what's in it
Own a property in Sheridan, Buffalo, Dayton, Story or Big Horn?
If any of the above changed how you're thinking about your property, that's the conversation we like having. A property evaluation is free, there's no obligation, and we'll tell you honestly if short-term rental isn't the right answer for your address — we do that more often than you'd think. Request a free property evaluation →
About these figures. Every market, industry and economic figure on this page is attributed inline to its published source with a publication date. Where a source is a vendor survey or an on-the-books pacing snapshot rather than a finalised result, we have said so. Lodging tax collections reflect all taxable lodging in a county, hotels included, and are a market indicator rather than a short-term-rental index. Wyoming is a non-disclosure state; any listing figure is an asking rate. This report is published monthly on the first; past editions are in the Owners Vault. Nothing here is tax, legal, investment or voting advice.