$445
Avg. Nightly Rate
50%
Avg. Occupancy Rate
$5,400
Avg. Monthly Revenue
4-6%
Est. Cash-on-Cash ROI
HIGH
Seasonality
HEAVY
Regulatory Burden

* Market averages. Properties marketed by Cavmir typically exceed these figures by 25–45%. Data sourced from AirDNA, STR market reports, and Cavmir internal analytics.

The Market

Why Catalina Island is One of the World's Premier STR Markets

Catalina is twenty-two miles off the Los Angeles coast and about an hour by boat, and it does not behave like anywhere else in Southern California. Avalon, the island's one city, holds roughly a square mile of houses stacked up a canyon above a crescent harbour. There are almost no private cars. Residents drive golf carts, the city limits vehicle permits and the waiting list for one is long enough to be a local joke. William Wrigley Jr. took control of the Santa Catalina Island Company in 1919 and spent the next two decades building the place into a destination, including the round Art Deco Casino on the point, which opened in 1929 and never once housed a card table; casino is the Italian word for a gathering place. The Chicago Cubs held spring training here from 1921 until 1951 because Wrigley owned them too. Since 1972 the Catalina Island Conservancy has held around 88% of the island as protected land, which is why the interior looks like the California coast looked before anyone built on it. For an owner, all of that adds up to an unusual product and an unusually strict market.

Avalon capped transient rental units at 410 citywide, and the way the cap counts is the part owners miss. It includes grandfathered units, units operating under old conditional use permits and units holding current transient rental licences, all in the same total. The city also moved away from conditional use permits, which ran with the land, to transient rental licences, which do not. That single change is the most consequential fact about buying here: when a licensed house sells, the licence does not travel with it. A moratorium on new licences ran roughly two years and lapsed on 30 July 2025, and the council approved a further moratorium on 1 August; the city has publicly discussed running a lottery to work through the waitlist. Transient rentals are permitted in all zones with the right approvals, so this is not a zoning question, it is a queue question. The transient occupancy tax is 12% on stays of thirty consecutive days or less, and the taxable rent includes management and cleaning fees rather than just the nightly rate, which catches people out at their first filing. Verify the current moratorium posture with the city before you plan anything, because this file has moved more than once.

Top Attractions & Landmarks

  • The Catalina Casino on Casino Point, opened in 1929
  • Casino Point Dive Park, California's first underwater park
  • The Wrigley Memorial and Botanic Garden up Avalon Canyon
  • Descanso Beach and the beach club north of the Casino
  • Two Harbors at the isthmus, a boat or shuttle ride up-island
  • The Trans-Catalina Trail across Conservancy land
  • Avalon Harbor and the Green Pleasure Pier

Nearby Markets: Los Angeles  |  San Diego  |  Malibu

Airbnb marketing services in Catalina Island, California, USA
Postcards

Avalon Catalina through the lens

A few of the visual fingerprints we lean into when we shoot, brand and market a Avalon Catalina property — courtesy of the open Wikimedia Commons archive.

Historic Catalina Island Yacht Club and Casino from Avalon Harbor — Avalon Catalina airbnb marketing
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Historic Catalina Island Yacht Club
Two Harbors Catalina Island photo Don Ramey Logan — Avalon Catalina airbnb marketing
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Two Harbors Catalina Island photo
Catalina Island Interior photo Don Ramey Logan — Avalon Catalina airbnb marketing
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Catalina Island Interior photo Don
Catalina Express — Avalon Catalina airbnb marketing
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Catalina Express
Why Cavmir

The Cavmir Advantage
in Catalina Island

Cavmir markets Catalina properties around the trip, not the house, because the trip is what a guest is nervous about. Nobody drives here. They book a ferry from Long Beach, San Pedro, Dana Point or seasonally from Newport Beach, they arrive on foot with luggage, and they have to get up a canyon to your front door. A listing that answers the boat, the bags, the hill and the golf cart before anyone asks converts far better than one with better countertops. We photograph the property so the harbour view, the walk from the pier and the actual stair count are honest, because the single biggest source of bad reviews on this island is a guest who did not know about the climb. We write the arrival sequence as part of the listing rather than as a check-in message sent the night before. Then we build a direct booking site that can hold the ferry logistics, the licence status and a real itinerary, run local SEO against the searches people make while planning an island weekend, and keep an email list warm through the winter, when the boats run lighter and the town is quiet. Repeat guests carry this market. We help position and market your property. We never manage it or touch your keys.

State of the Industry · History

The Catalina Island STR Market — Past & Present

The Tongva lived on Catalina for thousands of years and called it Pimu; the island's soapstone quarries supplied cooking vessels traded up and down the coast. Spanish contact came in 1542 with Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, and the island passed through Mexican and then American hands, spending the nineteenth century as a run of failed ventures: mining, smuggling, sheep, a short-lived resort. Avalon was laid out in 1887 by George Shatto, who named it after a line in Tennyson. The version of Catalina that exists today, though, is essentially one man's project. William Wrigley Jr., the chewing gum manufacturer, bought a controlling interest in the Santa Catalina Island Company in 1919 and spent the next twenty years building the island into a destination he could sell to Southern California. He put in utilities, a hotel, a bird park and a steamship line. He moved his Chicago Cubs to the island for spring training, which they did every year from 1921 until 1951 apart from the war years. And in 1929 he built the Casino, a round Art Deco building on the point with a ballroom on top and a theatre below, designed for big bands and motion pictures rather than gambling; casino means gathering place in Italian and the building has never had a card table in it. In 1972 the Wrigley family and the Island Company deeded the great majority of the island into the Catalina Island Conservancy, which now holds around 88% of it. That single act is why you can stand in Avalon, look up the canyon, and see almost nothing but hillside.

Pricing Strategy & Seasonality

Pricing, Seasonality & When to Capture ROI

Pricing Strategy

Catalina prices like an island, which means the ferry schedule matters more than the day of the week. Summer, roughly Memorial Day through September, is the peak and carries firm minimum stays without any resistance. Weekends year round are strong because the day-trip market converts into overnight stays whenever the weather holds. What separates good pricing from bad here is understanding that your competition is not other rentals, it is the decision to come at all: a family comparing a Catalina weekend against a hotel in San Diego is weighing boat fares, luggage and logistics as well as the nightly rate, so the total cost of the trip is what you are really pricing against. That argues for transparency and for packaging rather than for a low headline. Harbour views command a genuine premium and should be priced for it, but only if the view is real; overstating one is the fastest route to a bad review on an island this small, where word travels. Winter is quiet, the boats run lighter, and some businesses close, so the honest winter play is longer stays, off-season rates and a completely different pitch aimed at people who want the town empty. Group and multi-generational bookings do well because the trip has a special-occasion quality to it, and a property that genuinely sleeps eight without anyone on a sofa is scarce in Avalon's housing stock.

Seasonality & ROI Windows

Summer is the clear peak, running from Memorial Day weekend into September, with July and August the strongest. Spring and early autumn are excellent and consistently under-sold; September and early October often bring the best weather of the year with a fraction of the crowd. Winter is genuinely quiet, the seas are rougher, some restaurants close and the ferry schedule thins out. Weather is a real operational factor rather than a footnote: rough water can cancel boats, which means cancelled arrivals and cancelled departures, and any listing or booking policy that ignores that will eventually collide with it.

Regulation & Licensing · 2026

What the Law Requires in Catalina Island

The City of Avalon caps transient rental units at 410 citywide, and the cap counts everything: grandfathered units, units operating under old conditional use permits and units holding current transient rental licences all sit inside the same number. Transient rentals are permitted in all zones with the right approvals, so the constraint is not where the property is, it is whether a licence is available at all. The city moved from conditional use permits, which ran with the land, to transient rental licences, which do not. That is the single most important thing a buyer here can understand: when a licensed property sells, the licence does not automatically pass to the new owner. A moratorium on issuing new licences ran for roughly two years and expired on 30 July 2025, and on 1 August the council approved a further moratorium; the city has publicly discussed running a lottery to work through the waitlist rather than a queue. This file has moved repeatedly and is still moving, so verify the current position with the city before you buy, list or make any promise to a guest about future availability. The transient occupancy tax is 12% on stays of thirty consecutive days or fewer, and the taxable rent includes management fees, cleaning fees and other non-optional charges rather than just the nightly rate, which is where first-time filers usually get it wrong. Transient occupancy tax is one of Avalon's largest revenue sources, which tells you how seriously the city takes both collection and enforcement. Separately, remember that most of the island outside Avalon and Two Harbors is Conservancy land and is not a development or rental market at all.

Market-Specific Tips & Challenges

Local Tips & Unique Market Challenges

Tips That Actually Move Revenue in Catalina Island

Write the arrival, in order, in the listing. Guests are coming without a car, on a boat, with luggage, to a house that is probably up a hill. Tell them which terminal you recommend and why, how long the crossing takes, what happens to the bags at the pier, whether you can arrange a cart, and exactly how many steps there are from the street. The properties that convert best on this island are not the prettiest ones, they are the ones that made the trip feel solved. Second, be honest about the climb. Avalon is built up a canyon and a great many houses have a genuine staircase between the road and the door. Guests with older parents or small children need to know, and telling them costs you the bookings you were going to get a complaint from anyway. Third, sell the evening. The day-trippers leave on the late boat and the town changes character completely; that quiet harbour after five o'clock is the actual product and very few listings mention it. Fourth, treat the boat as part of your cancellation thinking. Weather cancels crossings, and a policy plus a pre-arrival message that acknowledges this makes you look like someone who has done this before. Fifth, name the things people cannot picture: the dive park off Casino Point, the Trans-Catalina Trail, the shuttle up-island to Two Harbors, the botanic garden at the top of the canyon. And finally, build your own booking channel and keep it. On an island with a hard licence cap and no way to add supply, the guest relationship is the asset you can actually grow.

Unique Catalina Island Challenges

Everything arrives by boat, and that shapes cost, maintenance and expectation. Trades are limited and expensive, materials come across on a barge, and a repair that would take a day on the mainland can take a week. The licence regime is genuinely restrictive and, because licences do not run with the land, a purchase decision cannot rest on the previous owner's operating history. Winter is quiet enough to matter to annual returns. Weather cancels crossings and therefore bookings. And the housing stock is old and tightly packed, which means noise, parking and neighbour relations are live issues in a town where the city has every incentive to enforce.

The bison that came for a film and stayed
There is a herd of American bison living on Catalina Island, roughly a hundred head, grazing Conservancy land in the interior where nothing like them has any business being. They were brought over in the 1920s for a motion picture production, and when the shoot finished nobody took them home. Which film is a matter of long argument; the usual claim is a 1924 Zane Grey adaptation, and the evidence has never been clean. What is not in dispute is that the animals stayed, bred, and became a permanent and non-native population that the Conservancy now manages deliberately, including contraception to hold the herd at a size the island can carry. Guests hiking the Trans-Catalina Trail are told, correctly, to give them a very wide berth.
Finance Essentials — Catalina Island
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Insurance

Insuring a Catalina rental is a specialist job and a mainland agent is likely to get it wrong. You need a policy that names short-term rental use, carries liability limits appropriate to a property guests will arrive at unaccompanied, and covers loss of income. The island-specific exposures are worth raising directly with a broker: wildfire risk on an island where firefighting resources are finite, wind and salt exposure on harbour-facing structures, and the simple fact that repairs after any loss will cost more and take longer because materials and trades come by barge. If your property has a spa, a deck over a slope or a long external staircase, get each of those confirmed in writing as covered rather than assumed. If guests will use kayaks, paddleboards or a golf cart supplied with the house, ask specifically about liability for those, because a cart is a vehicle and cover for it is not automatic. Use a broker who already writes hospitality risk on Catalina.

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Property & Income Tax

Avalon's transient occupancy tax is 12% on rent for stays of thirty consecutive days or less, and the definition of rent is broader than most owners expect: it includes management fees, cleaning fees and other non-optional charges associated with the rental, not just the nightly rate. Getting that wrong at your first filing is common and easily avoided. Transient occupancy tax is one of the city's largest revenue sources, so registration, filing and audit are taken seriously. Confirm with the city which portions, if any, a booking platform collects and remits on your behalf, because relying on an assumption there is how liabilities accumulate quietly. California state income tax and federal treatment of rental income are separate questions and depend on how you hold the property and how many days it is personally used; ask your accountant rather than a forum. If you also hold a business licence, keep the licence, the rental licence and the tax registration renewals on one calendar, because they do not all fall due together.

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Mortgages & Financing

Financing on Catalina is not like financing on the mainland and you should assume a narrower field of lenders. Comparable sales are thin because the market is small, which makes appraisals slower and less predictable. The licence question compounds it: because a transient rental licence does not run with the land, a lender cannot underwrite future short-term rental income on the assumption that the seller's operation continues, and a cautious underwriter will treat the property as a second home rather than an income property. That usually means a larger deposit and a rate priced accordingly. Insurance cost feeds directly into the affordability calculation and on an island it is higher, so get an indicative quote before you get too far into a purchase. Older housing stock, shared walls, unusual access and structures built into a slope can all trigger additional survey requirements. Work with a mortgage broker who has closed on Catalina specifically, because the ones who have will tell you in the first conversation which lenders will not look at it at all.

Future Outlook · 2027 & Beyond

Where Catalina Island is Headed Next

Avalon's direction is set by a simple constraint: the city has decided it does not want more transient rental units, and it has the tools to mean it. The 410 cap, the shift to licences that do not run with the land, and successive moratoria all point the same way, and the discussion of a lottery for the waitlist suggests the city expects demand to exceed supply indefinitely. For an owner, the practical reading is that an existing licence is a scarce and increasingly valuable operating right, that it needs to be protected through any ownership change with real care and professional advice, and that competing on price against a shrinking pool of legal competitors is a poor strategy. The island's own future is more stable than most: the Conservancy holds the great majority of the land in perpetuity, so there is no scenario where Catalina gets built out. The variables are the ferry operators, the cruise calls, and the cost of doing anything on an island. Marketing that leans on what cannot change here, the quiet after the last boat, the harbour, the interior, is marketing that will still be true in ten years.

From the Desk of Sofie Sinag

Why We Love Marketing in Catalina Island

Catalina is twenty-two miles from one of the largest cities on earth and feels like a different decade. That gap is the whole appeal and it is remarkably hard to explain to someone who has not made the crossing. You leave Long Beach with the container cranes behind you, you spend an hour on the water, and you step off onto a pier in front of a crescent of pastel buildings stacked up a canyon, with a round Art Deco casino at one end of the bay and almost no cars anywhere. People drive golf carts. The main street is a promenade. Boats swing on moorings in the harbour all night. Then the last ferry takes the day-trippers home at about five o'clock and the town changes completely: the shops thin out, the light goes gold on the hillside, and Avalon becomes a small coastal village that happens to have a ballroom on the point. That evening is what we would sell if we could only sell one thing. Beyond the town, the island is essentially wild. The Catalina Island Conservancy holds around 88% of it, so the interior is grassland and canyon and ridge, with bison in it for reasons that make no sense, and the Trans-Catalina Trail running across the whole thing to Two Harbors at the isthmus. Under the water off Casino Point is California's first underwater park, thick with kelp and garibaldi, and you can walk into it from the steps. Very little about this place can be replicated, copied or built somewhere cheaper, which is a good foundation for a rental business.

Why It Matters

A great property in Avalon Catalina doesn't just want a listing — it wants a point of view, an audience, and a brand the city itself would recognise.

Cavmir's Catalina Island Cheat Sheet

The Picks We Recommend for Your Welcome Book

Eight things a guest will want answered before they book an island trip, and which most Avalon listings still leave to a check-in message sent the night before.

Getting here

The ferry terminals

Catalina Express runs from Long Beach, San Pedro and Dana Point, and the Catalina Flyer runs seasonally from Newport Beach. Name the one you recommend and why.

The bags

Arriving on foot

Guests land at a pier with luggage and no car. Say what happens next: the walk, the cart, the hill, and who carries what.

The hill

Avalon is a canyon

Most houses sit above the street. State the stair count. It is the single biggest cause of complaints here and it is entirely avoidable.

The building

The Casino, 1929

Round, Art Deco, a theatre below and a ballroom above, and never a gambling house. Casino is Italian for gathering place. Guests always ask.

Under the water

Casino Point Dive Park

California's first underwater park, entered from steps beside the Casino. Kelp, garibaldi and a wreck or two, no boat required.

Up-island

Two Harbors and the trail

The isthmus is a shuttle or boat ride away and feels like another island entirely. The Trans-Catalina Trail crosses Conservancy land the whole way.

The evening

After the last boat

The day-trippers leave around five and the town empties out. This is the best part of a Catalina stay and almost nobody puts it in a listing.

The weather

Crossings get cancelled

Rough water stops boats, which stops arrivals and departures. Say so in advance and have a policy, rather than improvising in a storm.

Local Work · Composite Case Vignettes

What Cavmir Has Done for Catalina Island Properties

The three examples below are composite and illustrative. They reflect patterns common to island and ferry-access markets rather than any single Catalina client, and no real business is described.

A harbour-view two-bedroom
The Brief

A well-located property with a genuine harbour view was getting steady summer bookings and a recurring complaint: guests arrived exhausted, having dragged luggage up a long external staircase nobody had warned them about.

What We Did

We rewrote the arrival as a numbered sequence in the listing, photographed the stairs honestly, added the stair count and a recommended terminal, and arranged a standing cart option guests could book in advance.

The Result

The complaint stopped almost entirely. Bookings held, and the guests who did book arrived prepared, which showed up immediately in the tone of the reviews.

A property that went dark in winter
The Brief

An owner treated November through February as a write-off, dropped the listing to a low rate and left it there, competing on price in a month when very few people were shopping at all.

What We Did

We built a separate winter story around the empty town, calm-weather crossings and the Casino ballroom's New Year tradition, gave it its own page on a direct booking site, and emailed it to past summer guests in October.

The Result

Winter stopped being a discount and became a different product, filling a run of longer stays with repeat guests who specifically wanted Avalon without the crowds.

A licensed rental changing hands
The Brief

A buyer was preparing to purchase a licensed Avalon property on the assumption that its rental history would simply continue, and had built projections on the seller's past occupancy.

What We Did

Marketing was paused while the licence position was checked with the city, and the plan was rebuilt around what could actually be relied on rather than on the previous owner's numbers, with the direct-booking asset treated as the thing to build from day one.

The Result

The buyer went in with accurate expectations instead of a projection that assumed a transfer that does not happen automatically here, and started building an owned guest list rather than inheriting one.

Market Intelligence · Seasonality

Airbnb seasonality in Catalina Island, month by month

Demand in Catalina Island peaks around June through September and runs quietest around January through February. Here is how the year actually books — and what to do about each stretch of the calendar.

Peak demandSteadyQuiet

Peak season

Memorial Day through Labor Day is the season, with July and August at the top. Minimum stays are accepted without resistance in that window and rates should be set well in advance. The real pricing question is not what other rentals charge but what the whole trip costs a family once boats and logistics are counted, so present the total honestly and early.

The shoulders

September and early October bring the best weather of the year with a fraction of the crowd, and they are consistently under-sold. Spring holds up well too. These weeks reward email to past guests and copy that treats them as their own product rather than a discount on summer.

The quiet stretch

Winter is genuinely quiet, the crossings get rougher, some businesses close and the boat schedule thins. Do not fight it with a low nightly rate. Sell longer stays and an entirely different pitch aimed at people who want the town empty, and treat the New Year period as its own event.

Dates that fill first

Catalina Island Jazz Trax Festivalautumn
Fills the Casino ballroom over several weekends and pulls overnight demand into a shoulder month.
New Year's Eve in the Casino ballroomDecember
A long-running island tradition that produces a hard peak in the middle of the quiet season.
Summer holiday weekendsMay through September
Any three-day weekend behaves like mid-July and should be priced and minimum-stayed accordingly.
Catalina Island Conservancy programmesspring and autumn
Hiking and conservation events bring visitors into the shoulder weeks who would not otherwise come.
Market Intelligence · Guests

Who books Catalina Island Airbnbs — and how far ahead

Southern California families
Crossing for a long weekend without a car. They need the arrival sequence explained and they care about the stair count more than anything else.
Special-occasion couples
Anniversaries and birthdays. They want the harbour view and the quiet after the last boat, and will pay for both if you describe them.
Divers and snorkellers
Coming specifically for the underwater park off Casino Point. Gear storage, an outdoor rinse and a drying space matter.
Multi-generational groups
Booking a whole house for a milestone. Genuine sleeping capacity without anyone on a sofa is scarce in Avalon and worth a premium.

The booking window

Summer weeks and holiday weekends book months ahead, and returning guests often rebook the same week before they leave. Shoulder-season trips move much later and are frequently weather-driven, which rewards being instantly bookable. Winter is largely last-minute apart from the New Year period.

Typical stays

Two and three night stays dominate, with a strong weekend skew because the crossing makes a single night feel wasteful. Summer supports longer bookings and holiday weekends fill first. Winter is the natural home for longer stays and monthly arrangements.

Where guests drive from

Los AngelesLong BeachOrange CountySan DiegoRiverside

Where guests fly from

PhoenixLas VegasSan FranciscoDenverDallas
This is a Southern California drive-then-ferry market above all else, with guests driving to Long Beach, San Pedro, Dana Point or Newport Beach and crossing from there. Targeting by terminal catchment converts better than targeting the region as a whole.
Market Intelligence · What Wins

The Airbnb that wins in Catalina Island

Properties that solve the logistics win. A harbour view is worth a real premium when it is genuine, but the bigger differentiator is manageable access: fewer stairs, a cart arrangement, and somewhere to put luggage. Whole houses that genuinely sleep six or eight are scarce in Avalon's tight housing stock.

Amenities that move bookings here

genuine harbour viewmanageable stair accessgolf cart arrangementoutdoor rinse for dive gearfull kitchenair conditioningfast wifi
Write the arrival as a numbered sequence, from terminal to front door, including the stairs. It is the single highest-return change most Avalon listings can make.
Straight Answers

Catalina Island Airbnb marketing questions, answered

How do I market my Airbnb on Catalina Island?

Start with photography that shows what a guest actually gets here, then write the listing around a real itinerary rather than a feature list. Build a direct-booking site so returning guests can come back without going through a platform, and keep an email list segmented by season so you can reach last year's visitors before the calendar opens. Local search matters more than people expect in a market this size, because guests search the destination and the attraction rather than the word rental. A marketing agency layer handles the photography, the listing copy, the direct-booking site and the local SEO as one system instead of four disconnected jobs.

When is peak season for Catalina Island Airbnbs?

Memorial Day through Labor Day is the season, with July and August strongest. September and early October often bring the best weather of the year with far fewer people and softer rates. Winter is genuinely quiet, the crossings are rougher and some businesses close, though the New Year period is its own hard peak.

How far in advance do guests book Catalina Island Airbnbs?

Summer weeks and holiday weekends book months ahead, and returning guests frequently rebook before they go home. Shoulder-season trips decide much later and are often weather-driven, so being instantly bookable matters more than long-lead visibility. Winter is largely last-minute apart from New Year.

Where do most Catalina Island Airbnb guests come from?

Overwhelmingly Southern California, with guests driving to a ferry terminal at Long Beach, San Pedro, Dana Point or seasonally Newport Beach and crossing from there. A smaller fly market comes through the Los Angeles airports. Targeting by which terminal a guest is nearest converts better than advertising to the region as a whole.

What amenities matter most for a Catalina Island Airbnb?

Access matters more than anything. Fewer stairs between the street and the door, a golf cart arrangement and somewhere to leave luggage all convert. A genuine harbour view earns a real premium when it is honestly described. Divers want an outdoor rinse and drying space, and air conditioning matters in late summer.

Free Tools · Websites That Book

See what your listing on Catalina Island is leaving on the table

Run your Airbnb, Vrbo, or website through Cavmir's free grader. It checks the things that decide whether guests book on Catalina Island — 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 Airbnb website design on Catalina Island.

What the grader measures

  • Photos and the first-impression frame
  • Listing title and copy
  • Your direct-booking website (or the lack of one)
  • Page speed and mobile experience
  • Local search and Google visibility
Grade My Listing — Free
Ready to Grow in Catalina Island?

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