Sevierville Cabin Revenue Looks Up. Check Which Number Actually Moved.

How does the average Sevierville short-term rental earn a quarter more in a year when it charges less per night and fills about the same share of its nights?

AirDNA's Sevierville dashboard shows exactly that in its October 13, 2026 update. From September 2025 to September 2026, average annual revenue per active listing rose 25.7% to $71.2K. Over the same 12 months, average daily rate fell 6.9% to $368, occupancy slipped 0.4% to 57%, and RevPAR fell 6.0% to $211. Each of those figures can be correct at once. Only one of them says a cabin's nights became more valuable, and it's the one most likely to end up in a purchase projection.

Five numbers, and only one went up

These are the headline figures for Sevierville, all from the same page and the same September 2025 to September 2026 comparison:

The bottom three rows describe what a night is worth. AirDNA defines RevPAR as occupancy multiplied by average daily rate, a measure of what a listing earns across every available night. Guests paid less per booked night, and once rate and occupancy are combined, a night of availability brought in 6% less. The revenue row is the only figure that rose, and it's built differently from the others.

What goes into the revenue line

AirDNA describes annual revenue as the trailing-twelve-month earnings of a typical active listing before host expenses, including booked nightly rates plus cleaning and other guest fees. That total depends on three things the per-night figures don't capture:

1. How many nights each listing was open. A cabin available more of the calendar can earn more in a year even at a lower RevPAR.
2. Fees on top of the nightly rate. Cleaning and other guest fees count toward revenue but not toward ADR or RevPAR.
3. Which listings are in the average. When listings that were open only part of the year drop out of the count, the average for those that remain goes up, even if no cabin earned an extra dollar per night.

The listing row points toward the third. AirDNA counted 45.8% fewer active Sevierville listings than a year earlier. The dashboard doesn't break the 25.7% down by cause, so none of the three can be ruled out. For a buyer, revenue per listing is the figure most exposed to all three. RevPAR and ADR are measured per night and are less exposed to who gets counted.

The same pattern in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg

If the gap only showed up in Sevierville, it might come from something local. AirDNA's pages for its two neighboring markets, updated the same day and covering the same September 2025 to September 2026 window, show the same shape:

All three markets show revenue per listing up between 25% and 34%. ADR and RevPAR fell in all three. Occupancy rose 1.7% in Pigeon Forge and 2.0% in Gatlinburg, and fell 0.4% in Sevierville.

Gatlinburg keeps the counting explanation from settling the whole question. Its listing count barely moved, down 0.3%, yet its revenue per listing still rose 28.8% while RevPAR fell 3.8%. There, more open nights per listing or more fee income would have to carry most of the gain. Whatever is behind it applies to the whole region, which is reason enough to treat the revenue line as something to look into before you rely on it.

A second dashboard tells the opposite supply story

AirROI's Sevierville report, updated September 12, 2026, covers August 2025 through July 2026. It counts 7,393 active listings, within about 160 of AirDNA's figure. It reports supply growth of 42.4%, where AirDNA shows a 45.8% decline. It puts average annual revenue at $51,876, occupancy at 42.0%, ADR at $402, and RevPAR at $174.

Here's how the two compare for the same city:

• Listing count: nearly the same, about 7,400 to 7,550.
• Supply trend: sharply down from AirDNA, sharply up from AirROI.
• Revenue per listing: $71.2K from AirDNA, $51,876 from AirROI, about $19,000 apart.
• Occupancy: 57% from AirDNA, 42.0% from AirROI.

Some of the gap comes from how each company measures. AirROI labels its numbers as Airbnb data. AirDNA says it tracks Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com and removes listings that appear on more than one platform. AirROI says it sets city boundaries by matching anonymized listing coordinates to official or commonly recognized boundaries, and that Airbnb's anonymization can move a listing's displayed location by a few blocks. In Sevier County, a few blocks can be the difference between a city address and an unincorporated one.

AirDNA doesn't describe "active listing" the same way everywhere. Its Sevierville overview page counts a rental as active if it was available or booked at any point in the trailing 12 months. AirDNA's Help Center article on total active listings, dated June 12, 2026, uses the previous month instead. It treats a listing as active if it had an available night or a booking that month. Its "Total Active Listings" count is narrower and includes only properties with at least one booking that month. The article keeps both apart from listings booked at any point in the past 12 months. AirDNA's methodology page also lists a 2025 data model release, Data Model 5.0, with new matching and reservation algorithms. Neither company publishes the exact map of what it counts as "Sevierville," including whether that covers Wears Valley, Seymour, or county parcels with a Sevierville mailing address.

So both supply trends can't be right, and neither one, on its own evidence, settles whether Sevierville cabin supply grew or shrank over the past year.

What visitors actually spent

Spending data from the state doesn't depend on how anyone counts listings. The Tennessee Department of Tourist Development's 2025 Economic Impact of Travel on Tennessee puts Sevier County direct visitor spending at $4,090,908,818 for calendar year 2025, up 3.2% from 2024. Lodging spending was $1,530,651,042, up 1.6%. Visitor activity produced $191,787,055 in local tax revenue.

These are countywide figures, they cover every type of lodging, and they run through December 2025, so they're a backdrop rather than a cabin-by-cabin measure. They fit the per-night story better than the per-listing one. Lodging spending in the county grew slowly in 2025. That's consistent with RevPAR edging down. It's much harder to square with every cabin in the corridor earning a quarter more.

Reading a projection before the offer

An income estimate for a Sevierville cabin, whether it comes from a seller, a management company, or a dashboard, is built from these same pieces. Here's how to take one apart:

1. Ask for RevPAR and ADR, and treat annual revenue as the result. A projection that starts from a market's per-listing revenue average carries whatever happened to the denominator. One built from a nightly rate times expected booked nights shows its assumptions.
2. Separate fees from rent. Because AirDNA's revenue figure includes cleaning and other guest fees, ask how much of a projected total is fee income and what it costs to deliver.
3. Match the data window. AirDNA's comparison runs September to September. AirROI's runs August 2025 through July 2026. Those windows cover different peak months in a market that runs on seasons.
4. Check the definition of "active." A trailing-12-month count and a past-month count describe different groups of cabins, and AirDNA uses both in different places.
5. Confirm the platforms. Data from Airbnb alone and deduplicated data from three platforms will give different occupancy and revenue figures for the same market.
6. Test the calendar. Ask how many nights a year the projection assumes the cabin is open, and compare that with the owner-use and maintenance calendar you actually plan to keep.
7. Pull the property's own history. A seller's actual booking and payout records for that address are evidence a market average can't replace.

FAQ

Is Sevierville's short-term rental supply growing or shrinking? The two public dashboards disagree. As of its October 13, 2026 update, AirDNA showed active listings down 45.8% from September 2025 to September 2026. AirROI's September 12, 2026 report showed supply up 42.4% for August 2025 through July 2026. Their current listing counts are close, about 7,550 and 7,390, so the disagreement is mostly about how each one measured the year before.

Which single dashboard number is most useful for comparing Sevierville with Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg? On AirDNA's September 2026 figures, RevPAR was $211 in Sevierville, $197 in Gatlinburg, and $194 in Pigeon Forge. Because RevPAR is measured per available night, changes in the number of listings counted affect it less than they affect revenue per listing, which is where the three markets look most alike and least like the per-night data.

This post covers market data and is general information, not financial or investment advice. Confirm any purchase assumptions with your own lender, accountant, or advisor.

If you're weighing a Sevierville cabin and the income projection rests on a dashboard average, Kristi Street can help you rebuild it from nightly rate, realistic booked nights, and that property's own booking history before you write an offer. Request a consultation and home valuation to start from those numbers.