Home/ Locations/ Munising
$245
Avg. Nightly Rate
45%
Avg. Occupancy Rate
$3,100
Avg. Monthly Revenue
7-10%
Est. Cash-on-Cash ROI
HIGH
Seasonality
LIGHT
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 Munising is One of the World's Premier STR Markets

Munising sits on a protected bay on the south shore of Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and it is the gateway to Pictured Rocks — forty miles of sandstone cliffs stained in mineral colours, sea caves, arches and beaches that became the first national lakeshore in the country in 1966. Grand Island sits across the bay with a wooden lighthouse on its channel and a ferry running over in summer. Alger County has something over a hundred waterfalls, several of them within a few minutes of town. In winter the same cliffs grow ice formations that draw climbers from across the country to an ice festival every February. It is a small town of a couple of thousand people carrying a very large volume of visitors for four months a year, and the rental stock — cabins, cottages, lake houses and town properties — is mostly owner-held, lightly regulated and, in marketing terms, wide open.

Pictured Rocks visitation has grown substantially over the last decade and the town has not grown with it, which is the core dynamic here. Summer, from late June through Labor Day, is close to full, and the boat cruises, the kayak tours and the trail parking are all at capacity on a good July day. Autumn is genuinely strong through mid-October when the hardwoods turn, and it is the best time to be here. Then the season stops. November is dead, and the winter that follows is long and snowy — but not empty, because snowmobiling on the Upper Peninsula trail network and the February ice-climbing festival both bring real, committed visitors who book ahead and who almost nobody markets to. Spring is the hardest stretch: the snow is going, the trails are mud, and there is genuinely little to sell until late May. The opportunity in this market is straightforward. Summer sells itself and most owners collect it. The owners who build a winter product for snowmobilers and ice climbers, and a proper late-September and October push, run a substantially better year than the ones who treat the town as a four-month business.

Top Attractions & Landmarks

  • Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and the cliff cruises
  • Miners Castle and Miners Beach
  • Grand Island and the East Channel Lighthouse
  • Munising Falls, Wagner Falls and the Alger County waterfalls
  • Kayaking the arches and sea caves along the cliffs
  • Shipwreck tours over the Alger Underwater Preserve
  • The winter ice formations and the February ice festival

Nearby Markets: Traverse City  |  Mackinac Island  |  Duluth

Airbnb marketing services in Munising, Michigan, USA
Postcards

Munising through the lens

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

Pictured Rocks Grand portal — Munising airbnb marketing
Local Color
Pictured Rocks Grand portal
Elm Avenue Munising, MI — Munising airbnb marketing
Local Color
Elm Avenue Munising, MI
Grand Island East Channel Lighthouse — Munising airbnb marketing
Local Color
Grand Island East Channel Lighthouse
Superior St Munising, MI — Munising airbnb marketing
Local Color
Superior St Munising, MI
Why Cavmir

The Cavmir Advantage
in Munising

Cavmir markets Munising properties as a four-season basecamp rather than a summer cabin. We photograph the property properly and we shoot the season your guests are actually booking — the cliffs in autumn, the snow in February, the bay in July. We write copy with real distances to the trailheads, the cruise dock, the ferry and the falls, because a visitor planning a Pictured Rocks trip is building a schedule and the listing that helps them build it wins. We construct the direct-booking site, get it visible for the Pictured Rocks and Upper Peninsula searches that already have serious volume, and set up the email list that brings a July kayaking family back for October colour. We go after the snowmobile and ice-climbing audiences deliberately, because they are real, they book ahead and nobody else in this market is talking to them. And we make sure your listing meets the city's advertising requirements. We help position and market your property. We never manage it or touch your keys.

Branding for Munising Airbnb
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Munising Branding & Direction
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Munising Influencer Marketing
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State of the Industry · History

The Munising STR Market — Past & Present

The cliffs came first and everything else here is a footnote to them. Forty miles of layered sandstone run east from Munising along the Lake Superior shore, streaked with copper, iron and manganese leaching out of the rock and staining the faces in greens, oranges and rust — which is where the name Pictured Rocks comes from. Ojibwe people knew the shore for centuries and travelled it by canoe. French voyageurs came through in the seventeenth century, and later shipping used the sheltered bay behind Grand Island as one of the few safe harbours on a coast with very few.

The town itself is an iron and timber story. Furnaces operated in the area from the mid-nineteenth century, the hardwood came out by rail and by boat, and a paper mill ran here for over a century. Grand Island, across the bay, was privately owned for decades by a timber company that also ran a hotel and a game park on it before it became a national recreation area in 1990. The wooden East Channel lighthouse on the island's shore, built in 1868 and now leaning quietly into the trees, is the photograph everyone takes from the ferry.

The federal designation was the turning point. Pictured Rocks became the first national lakeshore in the United States in 1966, which put the cliffs, the beaches, the dunes and the waterfalls under permanent protection and gave a small Upper Peninsula town a permanent reason for visitors to come. Growth was slow for decades and then accelerated sharply through the 2010s, driven substantially by photographs of the cliffs and the winter ice formations circulating online. A town of a couple of thousand people now handles a very large summer, and a short-term rental market grew up quickly to absorb what the motels could not. Michigan has no statewide short-term rental preemption, so the rules here are local and comparatively light.

Pricing Strategy & Seasonality

Pricing, Seasonality & When to Capture ROI

Pricing Strategy

Munising's shape is a full summer, a strong autumn and a long winter that most owners waste. From late June through Labor Day the town runs close to capacity and rates can be held firm — the cruise boats, the kayak outfitters and the trail parking are all at their limits on a good July day, and discounting into that is simply giving money away. Late September through mid-October is the second peak, with hardwood colour along the cliffs and cooler, clearer air; it is genuinely excellent and routinely underpriced. November is the deadest month of the year. Then December through March is the interesting part: the Upper Peninsula snowmobile trail network runs directly through this county, the ice formations along the cliffs draw climbers, and the February ice festival brings a committed, planning-ahead audience. Those guests exist in real numbers and they are almost entirely unmarketed to by rental owners here. A four-tier calendar with summer firm, autumn raised, November discounted hard and a deliberate winter product priced for multi-night snowmobile and climbing trips is a materially better business than the summer-only default.

Seasonality & ROI Windows

A strong summer, a good autumn and a real winter that goes unsold. Late June through Labor Day is the peak and close to full. September and the first half of October are excellent, with colour along the shore and far fewer people. Late October and November are the softest weeks of the year. Winter, from January through early March, is snowy and cold and carries genuine demand from snowmobilers and ice climbers who book ahead and stay several nights. Spring is difficult — the snow goes, the trails turn to mud, and the lake keeps the air cold well into May. The two levers here are autumn pricing and a winter position, in that order.

Regulation & Licensing · 2026

What the Law Requires in Munising

Michigan is a local-control state for short-term rentals. There is no statewide registration requirement and no statewide preemption of the kind Florida or Arizona have; the rules that apply to you are set by the municipality your property sits in, and they differ meaningfully between the City of Munising, Munising Township and the surrounding townships in Alger County. That means the first question is always which jurisdiction you are actually in, and the answer is not obvious from a mailing address in this part of the Upper Peninsula.

The City of Munising operates a short-term rental ordinance with requirements owners need to follow precisely. Two of them are worth flagging because they are easy to miss and easy to breach. The first is an annual re-affirmation notice due to the city by the end of January each year — an administrative step that keeps your registration current and that owners who set up in summer routinely forget by the following winter. The second is an advertising requirement: your listing must include the property's street address or fire number. That directly affects how your listing is written, and it is unusual enough that owners coming from other states are often unaware of it. Read the current ordinance in full rather than relying on a summary, and confirm with the city clerk what applies to your specific parcel.

On tax, Michigan levies a use tax on rentals of accommodation for periods of one month or less, collected and remitted through the Michigan Department of Treasury. Alger County has not historically imposed a county-level accommodations tax on short-term rentals, which keeps the total guest-facing tax burden here lower than in most comparable markets — a genuine competitive advantage worth knowing but not worth assuming forever. Confirm the current position with the county and with your accountant before your first filing.

Market-Specific Tips & Challenges

Local Tips & Unique Market Challenges

Tips That Actually Move Revenue in Munising

Shoot the cliffs, but shoot your property too. A lot of listings here lead with a stock-looking photograph of Pictured Rocks and then show three dim interior shots. The cliffs are why the guest is coming; your house is what they are choosing between. Give both proper attention. Second, build the trip for them. Guests planning a Pictured Rocks visit are assembling a schedule — which cruise, which kayak tour, which waterfalls, which day for Grand Island — and the listing and guide that lay it out with real drive times win against the ones that say close to everything. Third, sell autumn from midsummer. The colour along the shore in late September is spectacular and the rates are soft. Email your departing July guests about it. Fourth, take winter seriously. Snowmobile groups and ice climbers book multiple nights, travel in parties, plan ahead and are almost entirely ignored by rental owners here. A property with a place to dry gear, park a trailer and warm up after a day out is a genuinely differentiated product. Fifth, comply with the address-in-advertising rule from the first listing rather than discovering it later. Sixth, be honest about the drive and the cell coverage; guests underestimate both, and the ones who were told plainly do not complain.

Unique Munising Challenges

Distance and season are the structural issues. This is a long drive from Chicago, Milwaukee or Detroit and there is no significant airport nearby, which limits short-notice bookings. Summer is close to full but only lasts ten weeks, and November and spring are genuinely difficult. Capacity at the attractions is a growing problem — cruise seats, kayak spots and trailhead parking all fill in peak season, and guests who could not get onto a boat blame the trip rather than the operator. Winters are severe and an unheated or poorly insulated property becomes a liability rather than an asset. And the local rules, while light, contain specific requirements like the advertising and re-affirmation obligations that carry real consequences if missed.

The first national lakeshore in the country
Pictured Rocks was designated in 1966 as the first national lakeshore in the United States, a category created specifically because the Great Lakes shorelines did not fit neatly into the existing national park or national seashore models. The colours in the cliffs are not paint or lichen — they come from groundwater seeping through the sandstone and carrying dissolved minerals to the face, where they precipitate out and stain the rock. Copper produces the blues and greens, iron the reds and oranges, manganese the browns and blacks. The staining is still happening. It is a good thing to have in a guest guide, because it turns a photograph everyone has already seen into something a visitor understands while they are looking at it.
Finance Essentials — Munising
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Insurance

Get a dedicated short-term rental policy; a homeowner's policy will not respond once you take paying guests. Then work through the Upper Peninsula specifics with your agent. Winter is the dominant risk. Snow load on a roof, ice damming and frozen pipes in an empty house are the routine claims here, and carriers will want to know how heat is maintained and monitored when the property is vacant. Wood stoves are common and change underwriting; document your chimney maintenance. If guests will access the lake, a river or trails from your property, ask specifically how injury on your land is handled — this is a market where guests go out into genuine wilderness from your driveway. If you allow snowmobiles or accept trailers, confirm what that does to your coverage. Properties on well and septic need their capacity understood relative to the guest count you advertise. Ask for guest injury, guest property damage and loss of rental income after a covered event to be confirmed in the policy language rather than described on a call.

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Property & Income Tax

Michigan levies a use tax on the rental of accommodation for periods of one month or less, registered and remitted through the Michigan Department of Treasury. That is the primary obligation. Alger County has not historically layered a county accommodations tax on short-term rentals, which means the total tax a guest sees on a Munising booking has been lower than in most comparable destinations — a real competitive advantage, though not one to assume is permanent, since county-level lodging taxes are a common way for tourism-dependent counties to fund marketing. Booking platforms collect and remit some of this on the reservations they process; direct bookings are your responsibility. Because a marketing programme grows direct bookings deliberately, register and set your filing calendar before you turn it on. Keep platform and direct revenue in separate ledgers. Confirm current rates with the Department of Treasury and with your accountant before your first return rather than working from a general guide.

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Mortgages & Financing

Upper Peninsula financing has its own quirks. The market is small, comparable sales are limited, and appraisals on unusual properties — cabins, seasonal camps, converted structures, large acreage — can be slow or come in unpredictably. Seasonal properties without year-round heat, water or maintained road access may fall outside standard conventional lending and need a portfolio product. Well and septic inspections should be scheduled early because the local inspector pool is small. Lakefront and river properties bring setback, shoreline and occasionally flood questions. Second-home financing is available and cheaper than investment lending, and the intended-use question matters. Debt-service-coverage loans exist for buyers scaling past one property, but an underwriter working from an annual average will misread a market that earns most of its money in ten summer weeks — bring the monthly numbers. Model heating costs honestly; a poorly insulated house in this climate can carry a winter utility bill that changes the whole return picture.

Future Outlook · 2027 & Beyond

Where Munising is Headed Next

The main thing to watch is capacity management at the lakeshore. Visitation to Pictured Rocks has grown substantially and the park has been working through the ordinary consequences — parking limits, trail pressure, permit systems for backcountry use, congestion at the popular overlooks. If timed entry or expanded permitting arrives, it changes how guests plan a trip and therefore what your guest guide needs to say. Second, the winter product is the largest untapped opportunity in this market and it is also the most climate-exposed: a warm winter shortens the snowmobile season and softens the ice formations that draw climbers. Owners building a winter business should build it around several draws rather than one. Third, the tax and regulatory position is currently light for Michigan, and light regimes in tourism-dependent counties tend to get heavier as visitor numbers grow. None of that is a reason to stay out. It is a reason to get compliant now, build a direct relationship with your guests, and sell more of the year than the ten weeks everyone else is fighting over.

From the Desk of Sofie Sinag

Why We Love Marketing in Munising

Munising is a working town at the edge of something spectacular. The town itself is unpretentious — a bay, a few streets, a couple of good places to eat, a harbour with a ferry and some tour boats. Then you drive fifteen minutes east and the shoreline turns into forty miles of sandstone cliffs streaked orange and green from the minerals leaching out of the rock, with arches, caves and beaches at the bottom of them. Grand Island sits across the bay with an 1868 wooden lighthouse leaning into the trees on its channel. There are more than a hundred waterfalls in this county and four or five of them are a few minutes from the middle of town. In winter the whole thing freezes: the seeps that stain the cliffs turn into curtains of ice fifty feet high and climbers come from across the country for them. What we like about marketing here is the scale of the untapped calendar. Summer is full and there is no more of it to sell. But the colour along that shore in the last week of September is as good as anything in the eastern United States and it is priced as a shoulder week, and the winter audience — snowmobilers on the trail network, climbers at the ice festival — is real, committed and almost completely unaddressed by rental listings. That is a lot of available business sitting in plain sight.

Why It Matters

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

Cavmir's Munising Cheat Sheet

The Picks We Recommend for Your Welcome Book

Eight things for the guest guide. Real names, real drive times — visitors here are building a schedule and you can help them build it.

Coffee & First Light

The bay before the tour boats leave

Walk down to the harbour early with a coffee. Grand Island sits across the water and the bay is usually still. The first cruise goes out shortly after and the town gets busy fast.

The Table Worth Booking

Dinner in town in July

There are not many kitchens here and summer fills them. Tell guests to eat early or reserve, and give them one option out toward Au Train as a fallback.

Local Obsession

The cliffs from the water

You cannot really see Pictured Rocks properly from land. Take the cruise or the kayak tour. Book it for early in the stay so weather has a chance to give you a second try.

Rainy Day

The waterfalls close to town

Munising Falls, Wagner Falls and Alger Falls are all short walks and all better in rain. Alger County has more than a hundred waterfalls and half a dozen are within fifteen minutes.

Shoulder Season Secret

The last week of September

Hardwood colour along the cliffs, cool clear air, no crowds and cruise boats still running. It is the best week of the year here and the rates have not caught up to that.

Weekend Escape

The ferry to Grand Island

Across the bay for the day — beaches, cliffs, an 1868 wooden lighthouse and a gravel loop you can bike. Take everything you need, because there is nothing over there.

The View

Miners Castle at the end of the day

The most accessible viewpoint on the lakeshore and the best late-afternoon light on the cliffs. Fifteen minutes from town and worth timing properly.

What Guests Ask For

Whether the cruise or the kayak trip is better

The cruise if the group is mixed or the weather is uncertain, the kayak if they are able and the lake is calm. Say honestly that both cancel for wind, and tell them to keep a spare day.

Local Work · Composite Case Vignettes

What Cavmir Has Done for Munising Properties

A few composite engagements, drawn from how Cavmir typically works with owners in a national-park gateway town with a long winter. Illustrative rather than a specific client's file.

Three-bedroom cabin · ten minutes from the lakeshore
The Brief

A full July, an empty February, and no marketing at all aimed at the snowmobile and ice-climbing audience passing through every winter weekend.

What We Did

Built a distinct winter position with photographs of the property in snow, a gear-drying and trailer-parking story, and copy aimed at multi-night trail and climbing trips, supported by a direct-booking site and a seasonal email list.

The Result

Winter weekends began producing bookings from a guest the owner had never previously marketed to, without any change to the summer business.

Lakeside house · summer-only calendar
The Brief

Autumn priced as a shoulder season despite late September being the best conditions of the year along the cliffs.

What We Did

Reshot in late-September colour, moved autumn into its own rate tier, and began marketing it in July directly to departing summer guests through an email list built for the purpose.

The Result

Late September and early October filled at rates approaching summer, converting what had been a discounted tail into a genuine second peak.

Owner with two properties · city and township
The Brief

Uncertainty about which municipal rules applied to each property, including the city's advertising and annual re-affirmation requirements, with listings written without them.

What We Did

Established the jurisdiction and compliance position for each property, rebuilt the listings to meet the city's advertising requirement, and set a calendar reminder structure around the January filing.

The Result

Both properties moved to a clean compliance footing and marketing could proceed on claims the owner could stand behind.

Market Intelligence · Seasonality

Airbnb seasonality in Munising, month by month

Demand in Munising peaks around July through September and runs quietest around March, April and November. Here is how the year actually books — and what to do about each stretch of the calendar.

Peak demandSteadyQuiet

Peak season

Late June through Labor Day runs close to full and rates should be held firm — the cruises, the kayak tours and the trailhead parking are all at their limits on a good July day. Late September into mid-October is the second peak with hardwood colour along the cliffs and is routinely under-priced. Have both photographed and set by early summer.

The shoulders

Early June and late October are workable but thin. The real shoulder opportunity here is winter: the snowmobile trail network runs through this county and the February ice-climbing festival brings a committed, planning-ahead audience that almost no rental owner markets to. Build a separate winter product rather than discounting.

The quiet stretch

November and the spring thaw from April into May are the genuinely dead stretches. Discount honestly, take longer stays, and use the window for maintenance, heating checks and a summer reshoot.

Dates that fill first

Pictured Rocks cruise and kayak seasonJune through September
The core of the summer economy; guests plan their whole trip around getting on the water.
Autumn colour along the lakeshorelate September and early October
The second peak, with better light and far fewer people, and rates that have not caught up.
Michigan Ice FestFebruary
Ice climbers from across the country fill the town in the deepest part of winter.
Upper Peninsula snowmobile seasonJanuary through March
The trail network draws multi-night group bookings that most rental owners never market to.
Summer holiday weekendsJuly and September
Independence Day and Labor Day are dependable sell-outs in a small inventory.
Market Intelligence · Guests

Who books Munising Airbnbs — and how far ahead

Pictured Rocks visitors
Summer guests building a schedule around cruises, kayak tours and waterfalls. They choose on drive times and on help planning the days.
Snowmobile groups
Winter parties of four to eight taking multi-night stays, needing trailer parking and somewhere to dry gear.
Ice climbers
February visitors, highly committed, booking well ahead and almost entirely unmarketed to by rental owners.
Autumn colour travellers
Late September and October couples and small groups, often taking longer stays than summer families.

The booking window

Summer weeks book from late winter onward. Autumn colour runs on a four to eight week window and is filling earlier each year. Winter groups book months ahead around the festival and the trail season. November and spring are last minute.

Typical stays

Three to five nights in summer, longer for families combining the lakeshore with the wider Upper Peninsula. Winter groups take multi-night stays. Two-night weekends are less common here than in markets closer to a metro.

Where guests drive from

Green BayMilwaukeeChicagoDetroitMinneapolisMarquette

Where guests fly from

MarquetteGreen BayChicago
A long drive from every major feeder and no significant airport nearby, so trips here are planned rather than spontaneous. Target Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit and the Twin Cities, and run separate winter campaigns for the snowmobile and climbing audiences.
Market Intelligence · What Wins

The Airbnb that wins in Munising

Cabins and houses sleeping six to ten within fifteen minutes of the lakeshore entrances are the core summer product. For winter, a well-heated property with trailer parking, a drying space and trail access is a genuinely differentiated offer that barely exists here. Lakefront and bay-view properties carry a premium if the water is in the photographs.

Amenities that move bookings here

gear drying spacetrailer and truck parkingwood stove or good heatingfast wifiwasher and dryerfire pitdog friendly
Shoot the property in snow as well as summer. The winter audience is real, committed and books ahead, and a listing with no winter photographs is invisible to them.
Straight Answers

Munising Airbnb marketing questions, answered

How do I market my Airbnb in Munising?

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 Munising Airbnbs?

Late June through Labor Day is the core and runs close to full. Late September into mid-October is the second peak, with hardwood colour along the cliffs and much better light. Winter is a genuine third season on snowmobiling and ice climbing that almost nobody markets. November and the spring thaw are the quiet stretches.

How far in advance do guests book Munising Airbnbs?

Summer weeks book from late winter onward, and autumn colour is filling earlier each year on a four to eight week window. Winter groups book months ahead around the trail season and the February ice festival. November and spring are largely last minute.

Where do most Munising Airbnb guests come from?

Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Detroit and the Twin Cities supply most of it, with Marquette handling the small fly-in share. Every one of those is a long drive, which means trips here are planned well ahead rather than decided on a Friday. That favours owners with an email list and a direct-booking site over those relying purely on last-minute platform search.

What amenities matter most for a Munising Airbnb?

For summer, space for a group, laundry and short drives to the lakeshore entrances. For winter — the season nobody here is competing for — trailer and truck parking, a proper drying space for wet gear and heating that genuinely works at Upper Peninsula temperatures. A fire pit and dog-friendly policies help across the year, and reliable wifi matters because cell coverage is patchy.

Keep exploring

Michigan short-term rental permit data
Real registry data
Airbnb marketing in Bayfield
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Airbnb marketing in Stillwater
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Airbnb Listing Service
Service
Airbnb listing photos that book
From the blog
Direct Booking Calculator
Free tool
Free Tools · Websites That Book

See what your listing in Munising 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 in Munising — 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 in Munising.

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
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