The Story

H&HT Presents

Why Hosts & Home Teams™ exists

Hosts & Home Teams™ began with a simple question:

Why don’t destination organizations and short-term rental hosts work together like hotels and DMOs?

In many destinations, the relationships, communication channels, and decision-making systems connecting them haven’t kept pace with the growth of short-term rentals.

That question led to years of research, writing, field observation, stakeholder conversations, and work across the tourism industry.

The more we studied the issue, the clearer the pattern became.

The tension between destination organizations and short-term rentals isn’t the core problem. It’s the symptom of a larger challenge.

Tourism has become more interconnected than ever, but the relationships supporting it haven’t evolved at the same pace.

From a shared challenge to a practical initiative

Hosts & Home Teams™ was created to help destinations strengthen those relationships and develop more practical ways to work across the visitor economy. The work sits at the intersection of tourism strategy, stakeholder engagement, short-term rental research, behavioral science, hospitality, and civic leadership.

A different way of approaching the conversation

Hosts & Home Teams™ doesn’t begin by asking which side is right. It begins by examining the relationships, systems, incentives, and expectations shaping the issue.

It Started in Portland

The first Hosts & Home Teams™ Field Lab was held in Portland, Oregon, in July 2026. Tourism leaders from destination organizations, the short-term rental industry, hospitality businesses, local government, and industry partners came together for an immersive day of facilitated conversation, collaborative working sessions, and systems thinking.

The people behind the work

Hosts & Home Teams™ was developed by Destination Innovate, a tourism strategy firm focused on helping destinations navigate change, strengthen stakeholder relationships, and build more effective visitor economies.

Jenn Barbee

Jenn Barbee is the founder and Field Director of Hosts & Home Teams™ and the co-founder of Destination Innovate. Her work has focused on destination leadership, short-term rental strategy, stakeholder relationships, tourism systems, and the changing role of destination organizations.

Jenn leads the research direction, Field Lab methodology, executive conversations, and industry partnerships that shape the initiative. Her approach combines direct industry experience with a willingness to ask difficult questions and examine the systems behind them.

Kristen Cruz

Kristen Cruz is the co-founder and Chief of Experience at Destination Innovate.She leads the experience design, strategy, communications, operations, and development work that helps turn Hosts & Home Teams™ research and ideas into practical engagements.

Kristen’s work focuses on creating clear, intentional experiences that help people participate, connect, and move complex conversations toward action. Together, Jenn and Kristen lead the strategy, research, facilitation, and expansion of Hosts & Home Teams™.

Built through collaboration

Hosts & Home Teams™ is shaped by destination leaders, short-term rental professionals, researchers, hospitality partners, public officials, industry organizations, and advisors willing to contribute their experience and challenge the work.

That collaboration is central to the initiative.

Hosts & Home Teams™ conducts original and commissioned research focused on STR and DMO alignment, host engagement, destination governance, stakeholder relationships, and visitor economy trends.

Our research helps organizations better understand complex issues and make decisions grounded in evidence.

No single organization has a complete view of the visitor economy. The work becomes stronger when people from different parts of the system help test the questions, improve the methods, and contribute to the research.

Future Field Labs, commissioned studies, Executive Retreats, and public conversations will continue expanding that network.

The work continues

Every destination engagement adds to a growing body of knowledge about tourism stakeholder alignment, host engagement, destination governance, and healthier visitor economies.

Some lessons remain specific to the destination where they were developed. Others reveal patterns that can help inform the industry more broadly.

Hosts & Home Teams™ exists to study those patterns, test practical approaches, and make useful findings accessible to the people responsible for leading destinations.

The question that started the work still guides it today:

What if one of the greatest opportunities in tourism isn’t another campaign, but better relationships?

That’s the work.

And we’re just getting started.

Work with Hosts & Home Teams

Whether your organization is exploring STR and DMO alignment, stakeholder engagement, destination research, a Field Lab, executive advisory, or an industry partnership, we’d be glad to learn more about the challenge you’re navigating.