Holiday let marketing that sells lodges, cottages, flats and guest rooms across the Cairngorms National Park, from Aviemore and the Spey villages to Braemar and Ballater on Royal Deeside, to the guests who book each season, with the licence number, the full price and a direct way to book in every listing.
Sixteen services, one team. Everything below is built in-house and scoped to your property and market. Most owners start with the 12-Step System.
Every engagement is quoted to your portfolio. These are the ready-made scopes owners pick most — our Fall Special (55% off list or more) is already applied to the website, King Broker, Hotels and à la carte scopes. A clear proposal within 48 hours. Prices are in US dollars.
The work is public. Selected engagements and what changed — and reviews from the owners and managers behind them.
* Market averages in pounds from AirROI data for Aviemore, October 2025 to September 2026 (updated 1 October 2026); the lead time is the average number of days between booking and arrival. A single home's numbers depend on its size, its location and how it is marketed.
Cavmir is a holiday let marketing agency. We build the brand, the direct-booking website and the marketing for holiday lets in the Cairngorms.
This page covers the Cairngorms National Park as most holiday let owners know it: Badenoch and Strathspey in Highland, with Aviemore, Carrbridge, Boat of Garten, Nethy Bridge, Grantown-on-Spey, Kingussie and Newtonmore; Royal Deeside in Aberdeenshire, with Braemar and Ballater; and Tomintoul in Moray. The park was established in 2003 and five councils share it, Aberdeenshire, Angus, Highland, Moray, and Perth and Kinross, so the corners in Angus and Perthshire sit outside this page, as do Inverness and Pitlochry. Every planning application in the park goes to the council for its area, and the Cairngorms National Park Authority calls in and decides the ones that matter to the park's wider aims, against the Local Development Plan it adopted in 2021. A family hunting for a week in a big lodge near Aviemore each August and a couple after a stone cottage in Braemar for Gathering weekend want different houses, so write each listing with one of them in mind.
Aviemore is the park's biggest market and the one this page's stats box describes. Over the twelve months to September 2026 AirROI tracked 203 active Aviemore listings; on average each charged £209 a night, filled 51% of its open nights and grossed £33,965, 15.3% more than a year earlier, even as the listing count dropped by 8%. AirROI's Scotland averages for the same period are £26,835 a year, £195 a night and 48% occupancy. Royal Deeside runs on different numbers: Braemar's 32 listings averaged £241 a night at 49% occupancy and £26,504 a year, and Ballater's 63 listings £201 a night at 46% and £25,322. The villages around Aviemore spread widely, from Nethy Bridge, where 48 listings averaged £38,243 a year, and Kingussie, at £258 a night, to Tomintoul, where 35 listings averaged £14,237 at 33% occupancy. AirROI publishes its UK pages in pounds, and the box spreads Aviemore's annual figure over twelve months, which gives £2,830 a month.
In AirROI's review data, about two-thirds of Aviemore's guests come from the UK, with Edinburgh, Glasgow and London the top cities, and the rest come from abroad, led by the United States at 7.3%, then France, Germany and Australia. Braemar is a little more international: one guest in ten comes from the United States, Germany, Canada and the Netherlands follow, and Edinburgh, London and Aberdeen head its city list. Guests from London have a rail option as well as the roads and the flights north, since the Caledonian Sleeper runs from London Euston and lists Aviemore among its destinations.
It's also a licensed and closely planned market. Since 1 October 2022, every new host in Scotland has needed a short-term let licence from the council before taking bookings or receiving guests, and every listing or advert must show the licence number, the maximum number of guests and, where one is required, the EPC rating. On top of that, the whole of Badenoch and Strathspey has been a short-term let control area since 4 March 2024, so a house there that isn't the owner's main home needs planning permission before it takes holiday guests. Second homes now face a council tax charge of 300% in both councils, in Highland from 1 April 2026 and in Aberdeenshire from 1 September 2026, and Highland Council's consultation on a £5-a-night visitor levy, open since 7 September 2026, goes back to councillors on 10 December.
Those rules change what good marketing looks like here. A licence number, a guest limit that matches the licence and a clear statement of what the price includes now belong in every listing, and a listing that shows them plainly answers questions before they're asked. Cavmir handles the selling side: brand, listing copy, a photo brief, the owner's own booking site, how the house shows up in Google and AI answers, and campaigns pointed at Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Americans touring the Highlands. The licence, the planning position, the safety checks and the tax returns stay with the owner and their solicitor, accountant or letting agent. Further down you'll find the numbers, the rules council by council, a year of events from the Spirit of Speyside in May to the Strathspey Railway's Santa trains, and three sample plans: an Aviemore family lodge, a Braemar stone cottage and two guest rooms in a Grantown-on-Spey home.
Nearby Markets: Edinburgh | Isle of Skye | Northumberland Coast
Every Cairngorms house gets marketed as itself, under the rules of whichever council it falls in. A family lodge near Aviemore goes to market by the week in July and August, with February and October sold as short breaks of their own; a stone cottage in Braemar leads with the Gathering and the drive to Balmoral; and rooms in an owner's home in Grantown-on-Spey go to couples and walkers who want a host's local knowledge. An Edinburgh family booking August, a London couple coming up on the sleeper and Americans on a Highland tour don't search in the same place, so the work spans Google, AI assistants, Instagram and an email to past guests that brings families back to the same lodge. We're a marketing agency only. We never hold keys, manage changeovers or message guests: the owner or their letting agent keeps every booking and every conversation, and enquiries from the direct site land in their inbox.
Royal Deeside's visitor trade has a royal start. Balmoral has been the Highland home of the royal family since it was bought in 1852, and the castle that stands there now was built in 1856. Up the road, the Braemar Gathering has run in its present form since 1832, and its organisers trace the tradition back more than 900 years, to the time of King Malcolm Canmore. Queen Victoria attended in 1848, and the reigning monarch and members of the royal family have attended regularly since. The Gathering still takes place on the first Saturday of September at the Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park in Braemar, and the next one is on 4 September 2027.
Strathspey's story is the mountains. Skiers were on Cairn Gorm as early as the 1890s, and in the 1950s the Cairngorm Sports Development Fund was set up to establish commercial skiing in Coire Cas. Today CairnGorm Mountain runs Scotland's only mountain railway, which takes visitors up in eight minutes to a top station with a viewing terrace at 1,097 metres. The Cairngorm Reindeer Herd, Britain's only free-ranging herd, has roamed the mountains since 1952. And in Newtonmore, the Highland Folk Museum, founded by Dr Isabel Grant, has rebuilt more than 35 historic buildings to show Highland life from the 1700s to the middle of the 20th century.
The national park came in 2003, and the Park Authority's own figures show how the area has changed around it. The park had 18,654 residents in 2018, its population grew by 2,321, or 14.2%, between 2001 and 2019, and Aviemore alone accounted for 1,249 of them. Housing here is unlike the rest of Scotland: 52% of homes in the park are detached, against 21% nationally, 11.3% of dwellings are second homes and another 4.6% stand empty. In 2018 the median house price in the park was £190,000, £37,500 above the Scottish median, a gap that had been £13,197 in 2003. Those are the pressures behind the rules that came later.
The holiday let market today is mostly whole homes, run well. In AirROI's Aviemore figures, 91.1% of listings are entire homes, two-thirds are houses and about one in six is a flat, two- and three-bedroom homes make up about 70% of the entire homes, and half of all listings sleep six or more. Superhosts run 57.6% of listings, 31.5% are professionally managed, 62% carry Airbnb's Guest Favourite badge and the average rating is 4.85, with value the lowest-scoring category at 4.78. Only 46% of listings show a licence or registration number, although Scotland's rules ask for one on every listing. Reviewing Cairngorms listings, we keep finding the same gaps: a hallway as the lead photo when the sitting-room window looks at the hills, more beds advertised than the licence allows, no word about the drying room, and an empty calendar from Hogmanay to Easter.
The rules arrived in stages. Scotland's licensing law changed on 1 October 2022, when new hosts needed a licence before taking bookings, and hosts who were already trading could carry on while their council decided only if they had applied before 1 October 2023. Highland's councillors agreed a control area for Badenoch and Strathspey in December 2023, describing a local housing market badly out of balance, and it took effect at 12 noon on 4 March 2024; the Scottish Government lists only one other, Edinburgh's, from 5 September 2022. On 1 April 2026 the national cap that had limited second-home premiums to double the usual council tax came off, and both councils have moved to a 300% charge. Highland opened a 12-week consultation on a visitor levy on 7 September 2026. A guest may ask about any of those changes, so the listing should answer them in plain words beside the photos.
AirROI's Aviemore figures describe a market that charges for space. A typical Aviemore listing asked about £170 a night in the year to September 2026; a quarter of listings charged £240 or more, a tenth £405 or more, and the cheapest quarter £120 or less. Two-bedroom homes, the most common size, averaged £164 a night at 50% occupancy and about £25,000 a year; three-bedroom homes £232 at 49% and £32,600; four-bedroom homes £310 at 52% and £55,200; and homes with five or more bedrooms £500 at 56% and about £99,400. The top earner, a five-bedroom home, grossed £150,172 at £575 a night and 70.1% occupancy. Counted month by month, the middle listing made about £2,590, while the strongest quarter made at least £4,210 and the strongest tenth at least £7,420.
The £2,830 in the box spreads the average listing's £33,965 across all twelve months. July and August 2026 were the money months, at £5,702 and £5,754 for the average listing and roughly £238 a night, while January brought in £2,097. But the year doesn't rest on summer alone. In a typical year the three strongest months bring in 37% of revenue, and the November-to-March low season still averages about 40% occupancy at £192 a night. AirROI puts a value on two changes: filling ten extra nights at the £170 median would add roughly £1,720 a year, and charging 10% more on the nights the average lodge already sells would add about £3,020. After running costs of about £12,890, including the Airbnb fee of £5,240 and cleaning at £3,740, AirROI's model leaves the average listing about £21,075 a year, or £1,760 a month, towards the mortgage and other housing costs.
Cleaning charges and minimum stays shape what a guest sees at checkout. About 69% of Aviemore listings add a cleaning fee; the median is £82 and the average £206, and among the listings that charge one, cleaning fees make up 11% of gross revenue. Minimum stays split three ways: 32% of listings accept one night, 26% ask for two and 32% for three, while 9% ask for four to six nights and 2% for a week or more. A firm cancellation policy is the most common, used by 44% of listings, and the average stay is 4.2 nights, longest in July, when stays averaged 4.9 nights in 2026. Guests mark value lower than anything else, 4.78 against an overall 4.85, so the final bill is judged as closely as the nightly price.
Quote the full price. Since 6 April 2025, UK consumer law has banned drip pricing, showing a headline price and then adding mandatory charges, and the Competition and Markets Authority's guidance says the price must include mandatory fees, taxes and charges. On a holiday let that means the cleaning fee, any VAT if you're registered and, if Highland adopts its levy, a per-night charge that its draft scheme would apply from March to November. On your own booking site, put the nights, the cleaning and any tax in one figure before the guest reaches payment; when that figure matches the listing, the value score has less to complain about.
The calendar here has two seasons and a long middle. In AirROI's typical year for Aviemore, revenue per listing runs from about £2,040 in January to £5,470 in August, with July close behind at £5,310. AirROI's own season split shows May to August averaging £4,610 a month at 68% occupancy, April, September and October £3,270 at 56%, and November to March £2,280 at 40%. Guests plan the summer early: August stays were booked about 129 days ahead, so the typical August booking arrives in mid-April, while March stays were booked about 47 days out. Braemar's guests book further ahead still, about 105 days on average.
Summer and early autumn run on events. Tomintoul's Highland games and the Braemar Junior Highland Games come in July; August brings the Newtonmore, Ballater and Abernethy games, the Lonach Gathering in Strathdon, Ballater Victoria Week and the Grantown Show; and September has the Braemar Gathering, Carve Carrbridge, billed as the Scottish Chainsaw Carving Championships, and the Aviemore Triathlon at Loch Morlich. Aviemore ran 59.8% occupancy in September 2025 at £205 a night and 54.2% in October, and Braemar 59.9% in September. October adds the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championships and the Illuminator night trail race. Sell October to August's guests while they're still in the house: a note at checkout and a matching offer on your own site.
Winter is quieter than summer but not empty. Aviemore's occupancy was 36.4% in January 2026, 48.9% in February and 43.3% in December 2025, and December stays were booked about 90 days ahead. The season has its own reasons to come: the Strathspey Railway's Santa's Elf Express runs on selected dates from 28 November to 24 December and its Mince Pie Specials from 27 December to 5 January, Ballater holds a winter festival in November, Grantown has a torchlight parade in December, Hogmanay is celebrated across the park, and this winter's An Evening at Balmoral, with a guided tour inside the castle, is listed for select dates from 14 November to 18 December. CairnGorm Mountain has its 2026/27 season passes on sale, but the mountain and the reindeer hill trips both depend on the weather, so a winter listing should sell the fire, the food and an indoor plan as well as the snow. November and March, the slackest weeks, are the time to reshoot photos, fix what the summer wore out and give past guests first refusal on next August.
Start with Scotland's licensing scheme. Since 1 October 2022, all new hosts have needed a short-term let licence before taking bookings or receiving guests, and Highland Council's guidance applies it to a room in your home, a holiday cottage, a guest house or B&B, and pods or yurts, unless the property is specifically exempt. Hosts who were trading before October 2022 and applied before 1 October 2023 could keep operating while their council considered the application. Licences come in three types: home sharing is letting part of your home while you're living there, home letting is letting your home while you're away, and secondary letting covers a property you don't normally live in, such as a second home, a glamping pod or an annexe with its own entrance. You apply to the council where the property stands, Highland for Badenoch and Strathspey, Aberdeenshire for Royal Deeside and Moray for Tomintoul. Once licensed, breaking a licence condition is an offence, and the Scottish Government's guidance says the council can fine you, or vary, suspend or revoke the licence.
The licence comes with mandatory conditions. You must fit and maintain working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, keep upholstered furniture and mattresses to the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire Safety) Regulations 1988, arrange an annual gas safety inspection by a Gas Safe registered engineer, have the electrics inspected by a competent person at least every five years with a portable appliance testing report, and assess the risk from Legionella. You need valid buildings insurance and public liability insurance for every let, the number of guests must never exceed the number on the licence, and you'll be asked to confirm that planning permission is in place or applied for. Every listing or advert, online or in print, must show the licence number, the maximum number of guests and a valid EPC rating where one is required, and the guidance says to update listings as soon as reasonably practicable once the number arrives.
Fees differ by council. Highland charges by type of let and number of guests, not counting children under two: home sharing or home letting costs £320 for one or two guests, £390 for three to six, £460 for seven to nine and £530 for ten or more, and secondary letting costs £400, £470, £540 and £610 for the same bands, with a temporary licence at half the full fee and a variation at £120. Aberdeenshire's bands are different: home sharing or letting costs £364 for one or two guests, £481.50 for three or four, £610 for five to nine, £727.75 for ten to 15 and £909.75 for 16 or more, and secondary letting costs £481.50, £642, £813.50, £909.75 and £1,006. Renewals there cost less, £433.50 for a secondary let of one or two guests, a licence normally lasts three years, and the council says its current fees apply until 31 March 2027.
Planning is the second layer, and it's strictest in Badenoch and Strathspey. The entire ward became a short-term let control area at 12 noon on 4 March 2024, and inside it, Highland Council says, planning permission will always be required to change a house that isn't the host's only or principal home into a short-term let; the council adds that a control area isn't a ban. Its licensing pages warn that a property in the ward may need planning permission before you apply for a licence, and the council's development enquiry service gives informal advice only, not proof that permission isn't needed. Royal Deeside and Tomintoul aren't in a control area: the Scottish Government lists only Edinburgh's and Badenoch and Strathspey's, although a change of use can still need permission case by case. Everywhere in the park, applications go to the council, and the Cairngorms National Park Authority calls in the ones important to the park's aims and decides them against its 2021 Local Development Plan.
Then the property taxes. A self-catering let pays non-domestic rates instead of council tax when it's available to let commercially for 140 nights or more in the financial year and actually let for 70 of them, and the assessor wants the evidence, booking calendars, advertising and booking records, within 56 days of the year's end or of a request, whichever is later; lets to family and friends don't count. Many small lets then pay little or nothing: the Scottish Government's 2023 consultation reported that 88% of self-catering units on the valuation roll were receiving Small Business Bonus Scheme relief in July 2022. A house that misses the tests pays council tax, and if it's a second home, furnished and lived in for at least 25 days a year, the bill is now steep: the national cap of double the usual rate ended on 1 April 2026, Highland's second-home charge is 300% for 2026/27, and Aberdeenshire's 200% premium means owners pay 300% from 1 September 2026.
Two more layers are in motion. Highland's draft visitor levy would charge £5 per room or area per night at hotels, guest houses, B&Bs, rooms in houses, short-term lets and similar accommodation, and £2 at hostels, campsites and caravan parks, for nine months a year, leaving out December, January and February. The 12-week statutory consultation opened on 7 September 2026, councillors are due to consider the result on 10 December 2026, and an agreed scheme would need an 18-month implementation period; the council says no decision has been made, and nothing is charged today. Aberdeenshire surveyed views on a levy between 24 June and 22 July 2025, when 65% of its 767 respondents were not supportive, and has said a formal consultation will follow, date to be confirmed. Two UK-wide points sit alongside: holiday lets lost their furnished holiday lettings tax treatment in April 2025 (on the 6th for income tax and capital gains tax, the 1st for companies), and VAT registration becomes compulsory when twelve months' taxable turnover passes £90,000. Treat this section as orientation, not legal advice: your council, a Scottish solicitor and your accountant settle the detail, and Cavmir's job is the marketing.
Lead with the paperwork guests can see. Scotland wants the licence number, the guest limit and any EPC rating on every listing, and in AirROI's count only 46% of Aviemore listings show a number, so a listing that does stands out for the right reason. Put the number on the listing and on the direct-booking site, write the sleeping plan so it matches the licence's maximum occupancy, and say plainly what kind of let it is: a whole lodge, a cottage, or rooms in a home where you live. In Badenoch and Strathspey, keep the planning paperwork with the licence, since a buyer or a guest who asks deserves a clear answer.
Sell the outdoors and the evening. Guests come for the hills, the forest and the river, so photograph the view from the main rooms, the wood-burner lit, the drying room and the boot store, the garden and the parking, and give drive times to CairnGorm Mountain, Glenmore, the Strathspey Railway and the wildlife park at Kincraig, or to Balmoral and the Gathering park from Deeside. Decide your dog policy and put it in the first lines: in AirROI's Aviemore data, 71% of listings allow pets and they averaged £41,100 a year against £16,100 for those that don't, while the 10% with a hot tub averaged £60,800 against £30,900. AirROI notes that those gaps partly reflect the kind of home that has the feature, so treat them as a guide to what guests look for, not a price list.
Price the long year in seasons. Because August is booked around four months out, fix the summer prices and minimum stays by March, and sell families a week with a set changeover day; July stays run longest of all. In November, January, February and March bookings come closer in, about seven to nine weeks out, so keep the calendar open, add a midweek rate and give each season its own photographs and copy: the Gathering in September, a porridge championship or a chainsaw carving contest in the autumn, the Santa trains in December, a reindeer hill trip in any month the weather allows.
Market to the cities that send guests and to the guests who fly. Edinburgh, Glasgow and London lead Aviemore's city list and Edinburgh, London and Aberdeen lead Braemar's, while the United States is the biggest overseas source for both, at 7.3% and 10% of guests. Write the listing for a guest landing at Edinburgh or Aberdeen as well as for one driving up from Glasgow: the route, the sleeping plan, the bed sizes and a total in pounds. Time paid campaigns to when each audience plans rather than when it travels: February for the Gathering, when its tickets go on sale, and early spring for August.
Give returning guests a direct way back. The guests worth holding on to are the family back for the same August week, the couple who never miss the Gathering and the walkers who return for the whisky festival in May, and each should be able to rebook without searching a platform. Give them a quick-loading direct-booking website that shows the licence number and the all-in price, and an email list that offers last year's guests next summer's weeks first. With value already the weakest score in Aviemore's reviews, a fair and clearly stated direct price brings more of them back than a money-off code.
The rules change at the council line. A lodge in Aviemore and a cottage in Braemar both need a licence, but they pay different fees, deal with different councils and sit under different planning rules: a house in Badenoch and Strathspey that isn't the owner's principal home needs planning permission to become a holiday let, while the same house on Deeside doesn't face that automatic test, although a change of use there can still need permission. So the copy, the house rules and the booking settings follow the council the house stands in, and a buyer should check the licence, the planning history and the rating position before signing.
The second-home charge raises the stakes on the calendar. A house that fails the 140-night and 70-night tests pays council tax, and as a second home that now means a 300% charge in both councils, on top of AirROI's estimated running costs of about £12,890 a year for the average Aviemore listing, before any mortgage. With winter occupancy between about 36% and 49%, a lodge marketed only for summer sits empty for much of the year. The answer is a second product for the colder months, sold to Scotland's cities on shorter notice, and a direct channel for the summer guests who already know the house.
Supply is shrinking and the bar is high. Aviemore's active listings fell 8% in a year while revenue per listing rose 15.3%, and the established lets are well run: 57.6% are Superhost listings, 62% hold Guest Favourite status and the ten biggest hosts run 32% of all listings. An owner in Edinburgh, London or overseas faces a quieter problem: the photos date, messages wait a day, and the winter calendar stays shut without anyone noticing. Fresh marketing and someone nearby who picks up the phone fix most of it.
Scotland's licence makes insurance a condition: you need valid buildings insurance and valid public liability insurance for the duration of each let. Tell the insurer the house is let short-term, ask what it pays if a guest slips on an icy path or damages bikes, skis or a hot tub, and keep the gas safety record, the electrical report and the alarm checks with the policy papers. A broker who places holiday let cover in the Highlands and Aberdeenshire is the right person to price it.
Settle three tax points with your accountant before the first summer booking. Income tax first: since April 2025 (the 6th for individuals, the 1st for companies) a holiday let is taxed like any other property income, so capital allowances on furniture and the capital gains reliefs that treated it as a trade no longer apply, and the sums need redoing. VAT next: registration is due once taxable turnover for any rolling twelve months tops £90,000, or as soon as you expect the next 30 days alone to take you over, which a big lodge or several lets under one owner can reach. Last, rates or council tax: keep the calendars and booking records that prove 140 nights available and 70 let, because a let that can't show them pays council tax at the second-home rate. Ask your accountant; this is orientation, not tax advice.
Price benchmarks here are blunt. HM Land Registry's house price index put Highland's average price at £224,574 in August 2026 and Aberdeenshire's at £200,965, but those averages cover both councils' whole areas, flats and terraces included, and the Park Authority's figures show the park's median price running well above Scotland's. Detached homes, the most common kind in the park, averaged £349,591 in Highland and £294,811 in Aberdeenshire. Ask a broker who arranges holiday let mortgages, model only the weeks you can sell, and budget for the licence, the safety certificates and, in Badenoch and Strathspey, planning permission before you count on any income.
The Cairngorms and Jackson Hole are both mountain gateways where guests come for skiing, wildlife and a famous park, with Balmoral on one side of the Atlantic and resorts such as Teton Village and Grand Targhee on the other, and both keep a tight grip on where short stays can happen. The difference is the method. Scotland requires a licence for every let and lets a council require planning permission for new ones inside a control area, as Highland has done in Badenoch and Strathspey since 4 March 2024; unincorporated Teton County uses zoning to decide whether a home may take nightly guests at all.
The market figures below come from AirROI's Aviemore and Jackson pages for the twelve months to September 2026, each in its own currency, and the rules from each side's official pages as they stood in October 2026.
| Topic | Cairngorms | Jackson Hole |
|---|---|---|
| Who allows a let | Every short-term let in Scotland needs a council licence before its first booking: £320 to £610 in Highland and £364 to £1,006 in Aberdeenshire, by type of let and number of guests. | In unincorporated Teton County, a stay of under 31 days counts as a lodging use under the land development regulations, so zoning decides whether a home can take one at all. |
| Where short stays are allowed | Wherever the council grants a licence and planning allows; in Badenoch and Strathspey's control area, a house that isn't the host's only or principal home always needs planning permission first. | Only in approved developments such as Teton Village Areas I and II, Spring Creek Ranch (up to 200 of its 301 units), The Aspens and Grand Targhee Resort; other homes must be let for at least 31 days, and guest houses for at least 90. |
| Enforcement | Breaking a licence condition is an offence, and the council can fine the host or vary, suspend or revoke the licence. | The county can seek a fine of up to US$750 per offence, each day counting separately, and its planning staff check rental listings for future reservations that break the rules. |
| A number on the listing | Every listing must show the licence number, the guest limit and any required EPC rating; AirROI finds a number on 46% of Aviemore listings. | AirROI finds a registration, permit or licence number on none of Jackson's 370 active listings. |
| Tax on the stay | None is charged today. Highland's consultation, open since 7 September 2026, proposes £5 per room a night from March to November, and councillors decide on 10 December. An owner whose taxable turnover passes £90,000 a year has to add VAT. | On stays of 29 nights or fewer, Airbnb collects Wyoming's 4% state sales tax, the statewide lodging tax, local taxes and a 2% resort district tax in Teton Village and Grand Targhee. Teton County's lodging tax is 5%, of which 2% stays local. |
| Income tax | Profits are property income, and since 6 April 2025 the furnished holiday lettings rules, with their capital allowances and trading reliefs, no longer apply; ask an accountant. | Rental income and expenses go on Schedule E of Form 1040, with different rules once the owner's own use passes the greater of 14 days or 10% of the days rented; ask an accountant. |
| The market | Aviemore: 203 active listings averaging £209 a night, 51% occupancy and £33,965 a year per listing. | Jackson: 370 active listings averaging US$681 a night, 48.3% occupancy and US$96,400 a year per listing. |
| Shape of the year | Aviemore peaks in August and bottoms out in January, and its best three months earn 37% of the year. | July is the best month and November the quietest, and the top three months bring 43%. |
| Who runs the lets | Superhosts run 57.6% of Aviemore listings, and 31.5% are professionally managed. | Superhosts run 74.9% of Jackson listings, and 48.9% are professionally managed. |
| Where guests come from | About two-thirds are British, led by Edinburgh, Glasgow and London; 7.3% come from the United States. | About 96% are American, led by New York, Denver and Salt Lake City; about 1% come from the UK. |
| Price display and fees | Since 6 April 2025, UK law bans drip pricing, so mandatory fees, taxes and charges belong in the price shown. The median cleaning fee is £82. | Since 12 May 2025 the FTC's fees rule has made hosts show the total price more prominently than any other price, but taxes can still be left out of that headline. The median cleaning fee is US$497. |
| Stay length | 4.2 nights on average; 32% of listings accept one night and another 32% ask for three. | 4.9 nights on average; 41% of listings ask for three nights and 24% accept one. |
For a Cairngorms owner, the licence is part of the sale. An American guest who knows Jackson, where AirROI finds no number on any listing, may not expect one, so a short line explaining Scotland's licensing, the guest limit and the safety checks behind it turns a rule into a reason to trust the house. The planning layer also works differently: in Teton County a home outside an approved development can't take nightly guests at all, while in Badenoch and Strathspey the control area's planning test applies when a house that isn't the host's principal home is turned into a short-term let.
Money looks different too. Jackson's guests can see taxes added before they pay, which the FTC rule allows, while a British listing has to show mandatory charges in the price up front, so quote American visitors a total in pounds and say what it includes. Jackson's listings are bigger businesses, with a higher nightly rate, a far higher median cleaning fee and more professional management, and its year leans harder on its best months; Aviemore's flatter year means the shoulder and winter marketing carries more of the result.
American visitors are a real but small share here: 7.3% of Aviemore's guests and 10% of Braemar's in AirROI's data, against about 1% of Jackson's guests who come from the UK. They plan months ahead and compare what they find with what they know at home, so the listing should answer an American's questions before they're asked.
The American side in more detail: vacation rental marketing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
The rules are still settling. Highland's councillors are due to consider the visitor levy consultation on 10 December 2026, and if they agree a scheme, the 18-month implementation period puts the earliest start at around mid-2028; Aberdeenshire has promised a formal consultation of its own. The end of the national cap on second-home premiums in April 2026 lets each council set its own rate, and both have moved to 300%. Plan around the current rules, ask before you buy or convert, and set up the booking tools now so a levy can appear as its own line on the day a council starts one.
Visitors from abroad deserve their own version of the listing. About a third of Aviemore's guests come from outside the UK in AirROI's data, led by the United States, France, Germany and Australia, and one in ten of Braemar's comes from the United States alone. A listing written with those guests in mind, covering the drive from Edinburgh or Aberdeen, the bed sizes, the heating and a total in pounds, reaches people planning a Highland trip months ahead. Aim those offers at September and October, when the summer houses have open weeks and the Gathering, the autumn colour and the porridge championship give a reason to come.
Guests are also changing where they start. A family can now ask an AI assistant for a licensed lodge near Aviemore that sleeps eight, welcomes dogs and has a drying room, and get names back without visiting Airbnb at all. An assistant can only name a lodge whose details are out in the open, so a house with its own site giving the licence number, the beds, the dog rules, the drive to the funicular and the Gathering date is the likelier pick. How that works is set out in our piece on generative engine optimisation for holiday lets; it's also why a Cairngorms owner gets the booking site and the AI-search work from one Cavmir team.
What I love about the Cairngorms is that the best marketing lines are already on record. The Gathering has run in its present form since 1832, Balmoral has been a royal home since 1852, skiers were on Cairn Gorm by the 1890s and the reindeer have been on the hill since 1952. Put those in a listing and it sounds local, and every line stands up if a guest looks it up.
I also like the rhythm of the year here. May belongs to the whisky festival and the first long evenings, July and August to families, games and the river, September to the Gathering, October to the carvers and the porridge makers, and December to the Santa trains and Hogmanay. Market all of those months, not only the summer, and each kind of guest finds a reason to pick your house.
And a lot of range fits into one park: lodges near Aviemore, stone cottages in Braemar and Ballater, flats close to the station and rooms in owners' homes in the Spey villages. A Spey village flat in March and a Deeside cottage in Gathering week want different people, and pairing each house with its people is my favourite part of the Cairngorms.
The picks we would put in a Cairngorms welcome book: the places guests ask about between Carrbridge and Ballater, plus the first page that keeps a licensed stay running smoothly.
Scotland's only mountain railway takes visitors up in eight minutes to the top station, where the viewing terrace sits at 1,097 metres and the operator runs what it calls the UK's highest restaurant and bar. Season passes for 2026/27 are on sale; weather can stop operations at short notice, so check the mountain report before sending guests up.
Britain's only free-ranging reindeer herd has roamed the Cairngorms since 1952. Guided hill trips to see the herd run on most days, the shop in Glenmore opens daily except from January to early February, and the paddock is open from the Easter holidays to the end of the year; winter trips depend on the weather and on finding the herd.
The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland's park is home to Scotland's only polar bears, along with wildcats and snow leopards, and reserve tours are part of a visit. It was open from 10am to 5pm in late October 2026; check the opening hours before a winter visit.
Trains run between Aviemore, Boat of Garten and Broomhill in a standard season that ran from March to November in 2026, with afternoon steam teas on the 12.45 and 15.00 departures from Aviemore until 1 November. Santa's Elf Express runs on selected dates from 28 November to 24 December, and the Mince Pie Specials from 27 December to 5 January.
An open-air museum of more than 35 reconstructed historic buildings showing Highland life from the 1700s to the middle of the 20th century, founded by Dr Isabel Grant. It's closed for the winter and reopens on 26 March 2027, so save it for a spring or summer stay; the car park costs £3 for a car.
The royal family's Highland home since 1852, with the castle built in 1856. The grounds, gardens, Castle Ballroom, restaurant and Mews Gift Shop open from 10am to 4pm on the days the castle lists, and this winter's An Evening at Balmoral, with a guided tour inside the castle, runs on select dates from 14 November to 18 December.
Held on the first Saturday of September at the Princess Royal and Duke of Fife Memorial Park, in its present form since 1832, and regularly attended by the reigning monarch since Queen Victoria came in 1848. The next Gathering is on Saturday 4 September 2027, and tickets go on sale on 1 February 2027.
August brings the Newtonmore, Ballater and Abernethy Highland games, the Lonach Gathering in Strathdon, Ballater Victoria Week and the Grantown Show, with Tomintoul's games and the Braemar Junior Highland Games in July. Check each year's date before you promise guests a games day.
Loch Morlich hosts a running festival in January and an open-water swim and the Aviemore Triathlon in September, and the reindeer herd's shop is in Glenmore too. In December, Badaguish in Glenmore holds a Christmas fayre with a Santa's grotto, a good outing for families staying over the holidays.
Carve Carrbridge, billed as the Scottish Chainsaw Carving Championships, comes in September, and the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championships in October. Both give an autumn short break a date to sell; confirm each year's dates before you put them in an offer.
Open the welcome book with the licence number, the maximum number of guests the licence allows, the house rules, the heating and wood-burner instructions, and a local contact who answers the phone. That way the welcome book agrees with the listing, and guests rarely need to ring on their first evening.
Guests who find a holiday let in the Cairngorms on Airbnb or Booking.com often search its name afterwards, and the page they should land on is the owner’s own site. Cavmir builds holiday let websites of 40 to 125 pages in the owner’s brand. For a home that only lists on Airbnb, that is a website for your Airbnb listing: your name and domain, your photos, your area guides and your reviews, with a button that sends guests to the listing. For homes on Hostaway, Guesty or Hospitable it is a direct booking website: live availability and prices from the PMS, the whole stay priced before checkout, and the booking completed in the PMS. Both start from the same holiday let website design, run the TrollBuster™ compliance scan before launch, and are yours at launch: domain, code, content and photos.
The guide pages of your site can start with the picks on this page: CairnGorm Mountain Railway, Cairngorm Reindeer Herd, Glenmore and Highland Wildlife Park, Kincraig. Each one is a search a guest makes before choosing where to stay, and each becomes a page that leads to the booking button.
Packages start at about £1,100 (US$1,475) for the Starter Website (40 pages, two to three weeks) and run to about £2,780 (US$3,732) for Full with Direct Booking (125 pages, booking synced with your PMS). Cavmir bills in US dollars; the pound figures use the Bank of England’s average rate for October 2025 to September 2026 (about US$1.34 to the pound), and the current prices are on the pricing page.
Three property types that do well in the Cairngorms, a common starting point for each, and the plan Cavmir builds for it.
A four-bedroom lodge on the edge of Aviemore, let all year under a secondary letting licence. Its listing offers two nights at the same price in January as in August, opens on a kitchen photo, skips the drying room, the dog rules and the road up to CairnGorm Mountain and the reindeer, and carries neither the licence number nor the guest limit.
Cavmir starts with the paperwork guests can see: the licence number and the guest limit go on the listing and the direct site, and the owner confirms the lodge's planning position with Highland Council, since the ward became a control area in March 2024. Then July and August become weekly stays with a fixed changeover day, February and October get short-break offers of their own, the photo brief starts from the view, the wood-burner and the drying room, and the copy gives the drive times to the mountain railway, the reindeer and the steam railway. If the owner accepts dogs, that goes in the first lines.
A year sold in seasons instead of at one flat rate, a listing that shows the licence and the guest limit up front, and a direct route back for returning families. Track the summer rate, February and October bookings, enquiries from dog owners and the share of stays booked direct.
A three-bedroom stone cottage in Braemar, let under an Aberdeenshire secondary letting licence. The listing prices the Gathering weekend like any other in September, says nothing about Balmoral, the Gathering or the walks from the door, and gives no bed sizes or route from Aberdeen or Edinburgh, although one guest in ten in Braemar comes from the United States.
Cavmir checks the licence and the rating position first, since a cottage that misses the 140-night and 70-night tests pays council tax at Aberdeenshire's second-home rate. The Gathering weekend gets its own minimum stay and rate, offered to last year's guests before tickets go on sale; the new copy leads with the walk to the Gathering park, the drive to Balmoral and the walks from the door; and an overseas version of the listing gives bed sizes, the drive from Aberdeen or Edinburgh and the full price in pounds.
A September priced around the Gathering, a listing written for American and European guests as well as British ones, and a calendar planned to stay rated as self-catering. Track the Gathering-weekend rate, overseas bookings, nights let against the rating test and the share booked direct.
Two guest rooms in the owner's own house in Grantown-on-Spey, let under a home sharing licence. The control area's rule that always requires planning permission covers houses that aren't the host's only or principal home, so it doesn't catch these rooms, but the listing describes them as if they were a whole house, says nothing about the town, the river or the August show, and goes quiet from November.
Cavmir confirms the home sharing licence and the guest limit first, then repositions the rooms for couples and walkers: the walk to the high street, breakfast or local suggestions if the owner offers them, and offers built around the Grantown Show in August, the Spirit of Speyside whisky festival in May and the torchlight parade in December. We set a midweek rate for the quiet months, write search content for Grantown weekends and add a simple direct-booking page.
Rooms sold on the town and its events rather than on price, with a quiet season of their own. Track midweek nights, show-weekend rates, review scores and bookings taken direct.
Yes. Cavmir markets lodges, cottages, flats, guest houses and rooms in owners' homes across the Cairngorms National Park, from Aviemore, Carrbridge, Boat of Garten, Nethy Bridge and Grantown-on-Spey to Kingussie, Newtonmore, Tomintoul, Braemar and Ballater. The work runs from brand and listing copy to a photo brief, a direct-booking website, search and AI visibility and paid campaigns, and the largest houses and estates can go into Cavmir's estates and private collections tier. We stop at marketing: keys, cleaning and guests remain with you or your letting agent.
In AirROI's year to September 2026, Aviemore's average listing took about £209 a night at 51% occupancy, or £33,965 of bookings before any costs, which is the £2,830 a month in the box. Braemar averaged £26,504 at £241 a night and 49% occupancy, and Ballater £25,322 at £201 and 46%. AirROI's running-cost model, which counts the Airbnb fee, cleaning and upkeep, leaves the average Aviemore listing about £21,075 a year before the mortgage, council tax or rates and any management fee. These are market averages, not a forecast for any one house: size, position and marketing move the figure either way.
July and August. In AirROI's data, Aviemore ran 73.5% occupancy in July 2026 and 77.6% in August at about £238 a night, and August stays were booked about 129 days ahead. May and June run close behind, at 66.4% and 59.3%, and September holds at about 60%, with the Braemar Gathering on its first Saturday. Winter is quieter, from 36.4% in January to 48.9% in February, with January, March and November the quietest months.
Yes. Since 1 October 2022, every new host in Scotland has needed a short-term let licence before taking bookings or receiving guests: from Highland Council in Badenoch and Strathspey, Aberdeenshire Council on Royal Deeside or Moray Council in Tomintoul. Highland charges £320 to £610 and Aberdeenshire £364 to £1,006, depending on the type of let and the number of guests, and every listing must show the licence number, the maximum number of guests and any required EPC rating. Inside the Badenoch and Strathspey control area, in force since 4 March 2024, a house you don't live in as your main home needs planning permission as well. Check with the council before listing; we market the house, and we don't give legal or planning advice.
Not yet. Highland Council's draft scheme would charge £5 per room or area per night at hotels, guest houses, B&Bs, rooms in houses and short-term lets, and £2 at hostels, campsites and caravan parks, for nine months of the year, leaving out December, January and February. Its public consultation opened on 7 September 2026, councillors are due to decide on 10 December 2026, and an agreed scheme would need an 18-month implementation period, so the earliest start would be around mid-2028. Aberdeenshire ran a survey in summer 2025 and has promised a formal consultation, date to be confirmed. A direct-booking site built now can show a levy as its own line on the day one starts.
It depends on the calendar. A self-catering let pays non-domestic rates when it's available to let commercially for at least 140 nights in the financial year and actually let for at least 70, and in July 2022 most self-catering units on the valuation roll received Small Business Bonus Scheme relief; the assessor wants booking calendars, advertising and booking records as evidence. A house that misses those tests pays council tax, and as a second home that now means a 300% charge: Highland's rate for 2026/27 applies from 1 April 2026 and Aberdeenshire's from 1 September 2026. Ask your accountant and the council which side of the line your house falls on before you set the season.
Possibly, but planning comes first. The whole ward has been a short-term let control area since 12 noon on 4 March 2024, and inside it planning permission is always required to change a house that isn't the host's only or principal home into a short-term let. Highland Council says the control area isn't a ban, and letting rooms in the home you live in sits outside that rule, though it still needs a licence. The council's development enquiry service gives informal advice only, so ask a planning consultant or solicitor before you buy, and remember that the Cairngorms National Park Authority can call in applications that matter to the park's aims.
That depends on what the property needs. Plans and one-off projects are set out on our pricing page. A lodge or cottage on Speyside or Deeside often starts with a rebuilt listing or our 12-step system, with holiday let SEO added once the direct site is live. Get in touch for a free first look at your own listing.
Send us the listing and we'll tell you what we'd change. Not a pitch deck — a straight read on your photos, your title, your rates against the The Cairngorms comparable lets, and whether a direct-booking site would pay for itself.
You'll hear back from a person, usually inside one business day. If we don't think we can move your numbers, we'll say so. Cavmir is a holiday let marketing agency — we position and market properties, we don't manage them.
Demand in Cairngorms peaks around July through August and runs quietest around January, March and November. Here is how the year actually books — and what to do about each stretch of the calendar.
July and August are the peak, when families take lodges and houses for a week or most of one and Highland games run through the villages from Tomintoul to Ballater. Summer books furthest ahead, typically from the spring, so set July and August rates, minimum stays and a fixed changeover day before Easter, and have the listing photographed and written by then. Weekly stays suit the big houses, while short breaks fill the nights either side.
May, June, September and October are the most useful shoulder months. May brings the Spirit of Speyside whisky festival and long evenings for walkers, September has the Braemar Gathering on its first Saturday and the chainsaw carvers at Carrbridge, and October adds the Golden Spurtle porridge championship and autumn family breaks. Sell these weeks as short breaks with their own photographs and offers, and put the offer in front of summer guests before they check out.
January, March and November are the quiet stretch, with December and February busier thanks to Christmas, Hogmanay and winter breaks. Keep the calendar open for late bookers, add a midweek rate, and sell what still runs in winter: the Santa trains on the Strathspey Railway, a reindeer hill trip when the weather allows, the wood-burner and a good dinner. Book the handyman and the photographer for these weeks, and send past guests next summer's dates while they're quiet.
August is booked about four months out, so most August bookings come in during the spring, and Braemar's guests commit earlier still. Christmas and Hogmanay also book well ahead, while winter and early spring stays come in a few weeks to two months out. Have summer rates and photos ready by early spring and keep the winter calendar open for late bookers.
Stays average around four nights and run longest in July, when families take a week or most of one; outside summer, short breaks are the norm. Most listings accept stays of one to three nights; the big houses do better with a seven-night summer minimum and a set changeover day, then short breaks for the rest of the year.
The winning Cairngorms property is a detached lodge or house that sleeps six or more within a short drive of Aviemore, or a stone cottage in Braemar or Ballater, with a wood-burner, a drying room, a garden, parking and a dog policy stated plainly. The bigger the house, the higher the rate it carries, and a listing that names the walks from the door, the mountain railway and the Gathering in its first lines gives guests more to choose on than one that only lists rooms.
Sell the house for the season it's in. Photograph the view, the wood-burner lit, the drying room and the garden, give drive times to CairnGorm Mountain, the reindeer, the steam railway or Balmoral in the first lines, and state the dog policy and the sleeping plan plainly. Price the calendar around the games, the Braemar Gathering, Christmas and Hogmanay rather than running one rate, and keep winter open for late bookers. A marketing agency adds the photography brief, the listing copy, a direct-booking site and local search work, and the past-guest email that brings summer families back without a platform search.
July and August, when families take the big houses for a week and Highland games run through the villages. May, June and September follow, helped by the Spirit of Speyside whisky festival and, on September's first Saturday, the Braemar Gathering. Winter is quieter, though Christmas, Hogmanay and February breaks keep December and February busier than January, March and November.
Summer books furthest out: August stays are typically booked about four months ahead, so the spring is when your summer calendar is sold. Christmas and Hogmanay also book well ahead, while winter and early spring stays come a few weeks to two months out. Braemar's guests tend to plan earlier than Aviemore's, so open next year's Gathering weekend as soon as the current one ends.
Mostly from the UK, led by Edinburgh, Glasgow and London, with Aberdeen strong on Deeside. The United States is the largest overseas source, followed by France, Germany and Australia, with Canada and the Netherlands showing up on Deeside. Target Scotland's cities and London for short breaks and summer weeks, and reach overseas visitors months ahead with a listing that explains the route, the beds and the total price in pounds.
Dogs welcome, a wood-burner and a drying room come first, followed by a hot tub, secure storage for bikes and skis, an electric car charger, fast wifi and a garden with parking. In AirROI's data, listings that accept pets or have a hot tub earn far more on average, partly because of the kind of home they are. For the biggest houses, the sleeping plan and how many cars fit decide the family weeks.
Run your listing on Airbnb, Booking.com or Vrbo, or your own website, through Cavmir's free grader. It checks the things that decide whether guests book in the Cairngorms — photos, listing copy, page speed, local search — and shows you where bookings leak. Takes about a minute, and there's no sales call attached.
If the report says your booking engine is the weak link, that's fixable: a direct-booking website of your own means repeat guests stop paying platform fees to come back to you. That's the work Cavmir does — see holiday let website design in the Cairngorms.
Talk to Cavmir today. We'll show you exactly what your Cairngorms property is leaving on the table — and how fast we can change that.
Book a Free Strategy Call
