When most real estate investors think about where to put their money, they think big. Dallas. Atlanta. New York. The major metros, the high-profile zip codes, the markets that show up on every conference slide deck.
Blake Dailey thinks differently. He bets on the towns people escape to within driving distance of these large metros and their population base.
As the founder of Stayvest, Blake has built his portfolio around secondary and tertiary travel markets: Townsend, Tennessee, sitting at the edge of Great Smoky Mountain National Park, and Blue Ridge, Georgia, tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia. These are not overlooked markets. They are exactly the right markets for what he is building and why he is building it, and that see millions of visitors per year each.
The logic starts with the traveler. The people filling major metros during the week, the busy professionals grinding through meetings and commutes and back-to-back obligations, are the same people booking weekend getaways to places like the Smokies and the Georgia mountains. Urban density creates demand for the opposite. The bigger and noisier the city, the stronger the pull toward somewhere quieter.
“When you look at leisure destination tourism, it is most prevalent just outside those major metros,” Blake says. “We are trying to cater to that busy couple, that busy professional, who wants a peaceful retreat to disconnect and reconnect.”
The markets he targets have a specific profile. They sit within a reasonable drive of a large population base (or multiple). They offer outdoor recreation and natural beauty. They have enough local infrastructure, good restaurants, wineries, guided excursions, and local character, to make a multi-day stay feel full without requiring guests to leave the area. And they have not yet attracted the kind of institutional capital that compresses returns in gateway markets.
Tremont is a clear example of this thesis at work. The Great Smoky Mountain National Park draws between 12 and 14 million visitors every year, making it the most visited national park in the country by a significant margin. The peaceful side of the Smokies, where Tremont Lodge sits, sees around 3 million visitors annually on its own. Blake and Nicole both grew up vacationing in the area, which gave them an unusually deep understanding of who the guest is and what they are actually looking for when they make that drive from Atlanta or Charlotte or Nashville.
That boots-on-ground knowledge matters more than most investors realize. Before real estate, Blake served as a contract and program management officer in the Air Force, overseeing complex projects where scope, budget, and timeline weren’t suggestions. That background translates directly to how he evaluates and executes on properties today. He can spot an undervalued asset where others see a headache, and more importantly, he knows how to close the gap between what a property is and what it could be: vetting contractors, developing scopes of work, and driving projects to completion on time and on budget. The spreadsheet matters, but the discipline to execute what the spreadsheet says is what actually moves the needle.
Each pocket of the Smokies has its own character and its own demand driver. You do not learn that from a data dashboard. You learn it from driving the roads, eating at the local spots, and talking to the people who live and visit there. That ground-level intelligence is part of what shapes how Stayvest designs and positions each property.
The secondary market strategy also carries a natural hedge. When the major metros slow down, people do not stop traveling. They often shift toward more affordable, more accessible options. The value proposition of a boutique resort in Blue Ridge or Tremont looks different from a luxury hotel in a big city, and in uncertain economic periods, that difference tends to work in favor of the drive-to leisure market.
For investors watching the boutique hospitality space, Blake’s approach offers a useful framework. The opportunity is not always in the obvious places. It is in the markets where the demand is real, the competition is thinner, and the right operator can create something that genuinely serves the guest rather than just filling rooms.
That is what Stayvest is building. Not the biggest footprint, but the right one, in the places people actually want to be.
Disclosure: Individuals or companies mentioned may have a commercial relationship with KeyCrew.
