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| APRIL 2026 ISSUE |
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MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
LARGEST INDEPENDENT STR OPERATOR
STAYWITHLPS.COM
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| Crawfish Season Meets
Final Buzzer | Position Now
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| Easter weekend. Three Grizzlies home games in six days. A 30,000-person crawfish festival downtown. SIX: The Musical at the Orpheum. R&B legends at the Forum. April stacks two distinct demand waves that reward hosts who price and position early.
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| 01 / MEMPHIS BY THE NUMBERS |
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| 13.1M
visitors in 2024
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$4.3B
visitor spending
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+2.7%
hotel occ. growth YoY
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| Memphis visitor spending hit a record $4.3 billion in 2024, up 14% from pre-pandemic levels. Hotel occupancy grew 2.7% year-over-year in 2025 while most U.S. markets lost an average of 2.4%. Tripadvisor named Memphis a "fastest-rising travel destination" in the U.S. Nationally, STR demand grew 6.0% in 2025 while traditional hotel demand contracted. The tailwind is real. |
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| 02 / THE MONTH AT A GLANCE |
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| Two Demand Waves, One Month |
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| April splits cleanly into two booking windows. Wave 1 (Apr 1 through 12)
opens with Easter weekend, three Grizzlies home games in six days, and a run of food and drink festivals before the NBA regular season ends on April 12. Wave 2 (Apr 17 through 26)
is headlined by the 33rd Annual Rajun Cajun Crawfish Festival (30,000+ attendees on Riverside Drive), Africa in April on Beale Street, CeCe Winans at the Orpheum, SIX: The Musical running a full week, and the B2K/Millennium Tour closing the month at FedExForum. Sustained weekend demand through month end. |
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| 03 / APRIL EVENT CALENDAR |
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| WAVE 1: EASTER + FINAL HOMESTAND + FOOD & DRINK FESTS |
| APR 1 |
Grizzlies vs. New York Knicks |
FedExForum |
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| APR 1 |
Dancing With The Stars: Live! |
Orpheum |
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| APR 2 |
Ducks Unlimited Wolf River Crawfish Boil |
Agricenter |
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| APR 3 |
Grizzlies vs. Toronto Raptors |
FedExForum |
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| APR 3-5 |
Easter Weekend(peak family travel) |
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| APR 4 |
Memphis Cocktail Festival |
Downtown |
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| APR 6 |
Grizzlies vs. Cleveland Cavaliers |
FedExForum |
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| APR 10 |
Jeff Dunham: Artificial Intelligence |
FedExForum |
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| APR 11 |
Taste the Rarity Beer Fest |
Wiseacre |
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| APR 12 |
Uncle Charlie's R&B Cookout(Charlie Wilson, Babyface, El DeBarge, K-Ci) |
FedExForum |
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| APR 12 |
Mimosa Festival + Giselle (Ballet Memphis) |
Riverfront |
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| APR 12 |
NBA Regular Season Ends |
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| WAVE 2: CRAWFISH SEASON + CULTURE + BROADWAY + R&B |
| APR 16 |
Riley Green + Justin Moore / Travis Tritt (Graceland) |
Multi-Venue |
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| APR 17 |
CeCe Winans: More Than This Tour |
Orpheum |
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| APR 18 |
Vintage901 Wine, Food & Music Festival |
Scheidt Center |
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| APR 18-20 |
Africa in April Cultural Awareness Festival(38th year) |
Beale St |
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| APR 19 |
33rd Rajun Cajun Crawfish Festival(30,000+ attendees, FREE) |
Riverside Dr |
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| APR 19 |
Mid-South Food Truck Festival |
IKEA Memphis |
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| APR 21-26 |
SIX: The Musical |
Orpheum |
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| APR 25 |
Overton Square Crawfish Festival |
Overton Sq |
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| APR 26 |
B2K / Millennium Tour: Boys 4 Life |
FedExForum |
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| PRICING ALERT |
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| Easter Weekend (Apr 3-5) |
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| Easter Sunday is April 5. This is one of the biggest family travel weekends of the year, and it overlaps with Grizzlies vs. Raptors on Friday night. If your listing sleeps families (3BR+, cribs, kid-friendly amenities), price 15-20% above your April baseline for this window and make sure your listing description highlights family-friendly features. |
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| PRICING ALERT |
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| The Rajun Cajun Weekend (Apr 18-19) |
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| Vintage901 Wine Festival on Friday. Africa in April running all weekend on Beale Street. Rajun Cajun Crawfish Fest (30,000+ attendees, free admission) on Saturday. Mid-South Food Truck Festival the same day. This is the biggest non-Memphis-in-May weekend of the spring. If your listing is within 15 minutes of Downtown
or Midtown
, price 20-30% above your April baseline for this window. Last-minute demand will be high, so keep your one-night minimum open and watch for 48-hour booking spikes. |
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| 04 / APRIL PRICING STRATEGY |
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| Spring Transition Playbook |
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Memphis STR demand shifts in April. Basketball season winds down (regular season ends Apr 12), but spring festival season ramps up hard. Here is how to navigate it:
Apr 1-6 | Easter + Final Homestand
Three Grizzlies games in six days: Knicks (Apr 1), Raptors (Apr 3), Cavaliers (Apr 6). The Knicks game is a premium matchup. Easter weekend (Apr 3-5) layers family travel demand on top of basketball. If your property is within 10 minutes of FedExForum, push your nightly rate 15-20% above baseline. Accept one-night stays.
Apr 7-12 | Overlap Window
Basketball ends but food and drink festivals fill the gap: Cocktail Fest, Taste the Rarity, Mimosa Festival, and Uncle Charlie's R&B Cookout (Charlie Wilson + Babyface at FedExForum). The Apr 12 weekend is stacked. Don't drop rates just because the Grizz are done.
Apr 17-26 | Festival Corridor
This is the money window. CeCe Winans, Vintage901 Wine Festival, Africa in April, Rajun Cajun (30K+ people), SIX: The Musical running all week, Riley Green at Landers Center, Overton Square Crawfish Fest, and B2K at the Forum. Ten straight days of overlapping demand. Price aggressively and keep calendar open through month end. |
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| 05 / LOOK AHEAD: MAY IS COMING |
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| Memphis in May + Riverbeat + World Championship BBQ |
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| May is the single biggest month for Memphis STR demand, confirmed by market data year after year. Two anchors to plan around: Riverbeat Music Festival (May 1-3)
featuring Dave Matthews Band, Wu-Tang Clan, Marshmello, Ice Cube, T-Pain, St. Vincent and more. Then the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest (May 13-16), drawing tens of thousands of visitors from across the country. If your May calendar is not already priced 30-40% above baseline for both windows, you are leaving significant money on the table. Start building your pricing strategy now. We will cover this in depth in next month's issue. |
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| 06 / WHY LPS OUTPERFORMS THE MARKET |
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| 72%
LPS OCCUPANCY
last 30 days
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$151
AVG NIGHTLY RATE
vs. $138 peer avg
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<1 HR
AVG TURN TIME
in-house crew, every time
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| Most Memphis STR managers are one person with a co-host account and a cleaning contractor they found on Thumbtack. LPS is built differently. We operate the largest dedicated short-term rental management operation in Memphis, with infrastructure no other local operator can match: a full in-house cleaning crew, a dedicated commercial laundry facility, and an on-staff maintenance team that handles turns, repairs, and property refreshes without a single outside contractor. That infrastructure is why we accept same-day bookings other operators have to turn away. The results speak for themselves: our listings generate 13,665 views per month versus 6,121 for peers, a 2.2x visibility advantage. We maintain an 87.1% five-star rating, and we block 25% of incoming bookings that do not meet our guest screening standards, protecting your property from the guests other operators accept by default. Over 40% of Memphis STR guests book within 48 hours of check-in. We built our entire operation to capture that demand. See our full STR management services.
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| 07 / OWNER INSIGHT |
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| Spring Refresh = Summer Revenue |
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April is the bridge between winter slowdown and summer peak. If your property could use a refresh, now is the time. Here are three things that pay for themselves before May:
1. Update your listing photos.
Spring light is the best light. Swap winter-dark interior shots for bright, airy photos that show off outdoor spaces, patios, and natural light. Guests scroll fast. Your cover photo gets one second to stop them.
2. Refresh the basics.
New linens, fresh towels, a coat of paint on the front door. These small investments compound. Our maintenance team can handle the work. Just reply to this email and we will scope it out.
3. Update your amenity list.
If you added a fire pit, a grill, or patio furniture since your last listing update, make sure it is reflected. Guests filter by amenities. If it is not listed, it does not exist.
Memphis in May is four weeks away.
If your property has deferred maintenance or outdated photos, fixing it now means you capture the biggest revenue month of the year at full potential. Don't wait until May 1. |
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| 08 / COMPLIANCE CORNER |
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| Memphis STR Permit Reminder |
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| Quick reminder: Memphis requires a permit for all short-term rental properties. Operating without one carries a $50/day fine per unit, plus court costs. On the tax side, most booking channels like Airbnb and VRBO collect and remit state sales tax and local occupancy tax on your behalf. However, if you accept any direct bookings outside of those platforms, you are responsible for collecting and remitting those taxes yourself. If you are self-managing and not sure where you stand on permitting or direct booking tax obligations, now is a good time to get current before the busy season. LPS handles permitting, tax compliance, and reporting for all properties we manage. If you want that off your plate, let's talk. |
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| 09 / FREE TOOL |
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| Run Your Own Numbers |
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| We built a free STR calculator you can download and run yourself. Plug in your nightly rate, occupancy estimate, and operating costs and it gives you projected income, expenses, and cash flow instantly. Tweak one variable at a time to find the combination that actually works for your property. Your numbers, your scenarios, your call. |
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| 10 / NOT YET AN LPS OWNER? |
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| Free Property Analysis. 20 Minutes. Real Data. |
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| If you own a property in Memphis and want to know what it could earn as a short-term rental, or if you are already self-managing and want to see how your numbers compare to professionally managed listings, we will run a free custom analysis for your specific property. No obligation, no pitch. Just your address, your numbers, and an honest conversation about whether professional management makes financial sense for you. We manage properties across Midtown
, Downtown
, Berclair
, East Memphis
, and beyond. |
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| 13,665 VIEWS / LISTING (vs. 6,121 PEERS) |
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87.1% FIVE-STAR RATINGS |
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25% CANCELLATION RATE BLOCKED |
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| Reply “chat”
to review your property performance.
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