Maximize your STR revenue performance in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Allentown sits at the practical, work-and-weekend core of Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley travel corridor.
Allentown is the largest city in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, positioned between New York City and Philadelphia and connected by major highways and regional transport. Visitors arrive for concerts and hockey games at the PPL Center, for regional fairs and festivals, and for business connected to healthcare, logistics, and industrial employers. Many guests pair Allentown with its neighbors Bethlehem and Easton, exploring arts venues, breweries, sports, and family attractions across the valley rather than treating any single city as a standalone destination. For operators, this is a practical, drive market city where lodging is a tool that enables trips built around work, events, and visiting relatives, not just sightseeing.
Allentown visitors are regional drive travelers balancing work, family, and event-centric stays.
The dominant traveler in Allentown is a domestic, regional drive guest arriving from across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and nearby Mid Atlantic states, often traveling in small groups or as families [source: tourism authority]. They come for specific reasons rather than open-ended tourism: a PPL Center concert or AHL hockey game, a sports tournament, a college visit, a healthcare appointment, or a logistics project at one of the area’s large warehouse or industrial parks. Many of these visitors are price and convenience driven, comparing options along the Lehigh Valley based on parking ease, travel time to their venue, and basic comfort rather than luxury. Weekends skew toward leisure and family travel, tied tightly to event schedules, fairs, and local festivals, while midweek is steadier with corporate travelers, contractors, and healthcare or university related guests cycling through one to three night stays.
International visitors are present but modest in numbers, often extending trips to Philadelphia or New York with a night or two in the Lehigh Valley, or visiting family connected to local universities and employers [source: tourism authority]. These guests are more likely to value walkable downtown experiences and local culture, using Allentown’s urban core and nearby Bethlehem as bases for exploring art museums, historic sites, and regional food scenes. Operationally, this creates a visitor mix where same-day and short-window bookings are common, particularly around event dates when guests decide late to attend a concert or game and need a convenient overnight option. Longer stays emerge from extended contractors, traveling nurses, and families visiting relatives, who typically prefer kitchens, laundry, and straightforward weekly or monthly pricing. Across segments, guests reward clear communication about parking, perceived safety, and access to venues, and they tend to respond positively to properties that feel practical, clean, and well located rather than over-designed or premium priced for the market.
For leisure and lifestyle guests, optimize with clear listing content about proximity to the PPL Center, parks, breweries, and neighboring Bethlehem or Easton, bundle parking and late checkout where possible, and offer simple local guides so one and two night stays feel effortless and repeatable.
For business and urban core visitors, prioritize reliable Wi-Fi, workspaces, early check-in or late check-out flexibility, and frictionless self check-in; align weekly corporate or project rates with extended stay hotels while positioning downtown or highway access as a time-saving advantage.
For international, festival, and long stay visitors, focus on inventory with kitchens and laundry, transparent weekly and monthly discounts, multilingual or highly visual arrival instructions, and calendar controls that keep prime festival or fair dates available for higher yielding bookings while using gaps for discounted yet profitable long stays.
For a clearer sense of how to align your photos, copy, and amenity mix with the expectations of these travelers, explore the listing optimization pillar, which outlines the upgrades that reliably increase visibility and conversion.
Pricing in Allentown rewards event-aware operators who blend value positioning with sharp, pre-planned peaks.
Seasonal pricing in Allentown reflects a classic Northeast pattern, with stronger demand from late spring through early fall and softer conditions in the coldest winter months [source: tourism authority]. Within that frame, the real pricing story is the cadence of local events. PPL Center concerts and AHL Lehigh Valley Phantoms games create frequent, shorter bursts of compression, particularly on Thursday to Saturday nights; the Great Allentown Fair spikes demand around late August and early September; and large regional draws like Musikfest in nearby Bethlehem or major baseball homestands for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs can push additional visitors into Allentown inventory when closer options tighten. On those dates, occupancy can climb quickly, ADRs trend higher, and last minute booking windows shorten, which punishes operators who price purely on historical averages without incorporating the live event calendar or cross-market activity. Even smaller sports tournaments, college events, and civic gatherings can lift demand noticeably in a market of Allentown’s size, making accurate, forward-looking calendars essential for revenue optimization.
Operators should approach pricing with an explicit playbook that distinguishes baseline, event, and off-peak strategies, rather than gradual, reactive changes. In high season and on major event dates, set clear rate premiums and consider 2 night minimum stays for properties near downtown, the PPL Center, or key highways, using fenced discounts for extended stays that cover shoulder nights before and after peak events. In shoulder seasons, maintain competitive but firm rate floors and focus on occupancy through better merchandising, flexible cancellation for early bookers, and targeted discounts on low demand midweek nights rather than blanket reductions. During winter lows, use weekly and monthly pricing, especially for units suited to contractors or traveling nurses, while protecting select high potential weekends tied to specific concerts or regional happenings. Channels should support this logic: keep direct and high-quality platforms at the center of your strategy, reserve aggressive last minute deals for channels that reliably backfill unsold nights, and avoid chasing every cancellation or soft period with deep discounts. The goal is to anticipate demand through event and seasonal insight, set pricing and minimum stays early, and adjust only as needed, which consistently outperforms a wait-and-react approach in a market as event-driven and value-sensitive as Allentown.
To understand how to price for busy periods and protect your revenue across the year, the pricing pillar breaks down the key steps operators use.
Operators win in Allentown by treating it as an event-led, value-focused corridor market and executing with discipline.
Success in Allentown comes from understanding that this is a practical, purpose-driven city where travelers prioritize convenience, clarity, and price integrity over spectacle. Operators who map the local and regional event rhythm, differentiate weekdays from weekends, and grasp how the PPL Center, Great Allentown Fair, IronPigs baseball, and neighboring festivals interact can time their pricing, availability, and minimum stays to catch every wave of compression without alienating a value conscious base. Mastering these demand rhythms allows you to preserve occupancy in softer stretches while harvesting premium ADR on key nights, transforming what might appear to be a quiet regional market into a consistently performing portfolio.
The operators who outperform are those who align disciplined pricing with strategic positioning and reliable operations: listings that highlight parking, access, and neighborhood strengths; inventory that matches real use cases like short project stays or one-night concert trips; and guest communication that removes friction from arrival to departure. By pairing clear intent about who each unit serves with proactive calendar and channel management, you can capture the best guests on the best nights and backfill the rest with dependable, repeat demand. In a market where many hosts and hotels still lean on generic pricing rules, this combination of demand insight, structured rate strategy, and consistent delivery creates a durable advantage and turns Allentown into a high-performing, steady contributor within a broader regional portfolio.
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