A homecoming for hotels

A hotel is meant to provide a home from home - but a little bit better. A short-term rental is, from time to time, a real home and should know how to function like one, no excuses allowed. So while a hotel can choose to ignore the TV - at its peril, in my opinion? - a short-term rental should no more ignore the TV than you would at home.?

The short-term rental market is a disparate one; Airbnb alone has over 5 million hosts and no strict brand handbook. There is no foot-deep guide on how you must do things or lose your flag. No inspector calling. The platform has guidance, of course. But it’s a platform. It provides access to market and the comfort of a brand. It has no power to mandate what is on offer.?

But it does have influence. It can hand out the title of Superhost. This comes with increased visibility on the site and is earned by having an account “in good standing”. This phrasing may hark back to the Victorian era, but in modern times it means maintaining a 4.8 overall rating, which can only be garnered through good reviews. And, as hotels know, reviews have to be earned, and from guests who are more demanding by the day. Your rental may look like someone’s home, but guests aren’t impressed if it looks like someone actually lives there. They’re taking a break from all that, remember. Much like a hotel room, it needs to be better than home.

Airbnb, Vrbo and its competitors are largely ignored by the hospitality sector, after a few years of reacting with morbid terror every time their names were mentioned. The hotel brands responded; Marriott now offers home stays and Accor bought Onefinestay, but interest has waned. The conference circuit has turned to thoughts of AI instead.

Yet it continues to grow in popularity with the consumer. In the fourth quarter last year, Airbnb reported 99 million nights and experiences booked, its highest fourth quarter ever. Ninety-nine million nights makes the group the largest single provider of hospitality out there and one which it would be very odd for service providers to ignore.

We think the short-term rental market represents a huge opportunity for everyone in the hotel sector - even the brands. For us, the clue at Airbnb is in the word ‘experiences’. Firstly, the overall stay experience could be vastly improved by the guest being able to cast their favourite apps to the in-rental TV. We know this is a significant contributor to guest satisfaction through our work with hotels and it is ever-more relevant for short-term rentals as they move into being long-term homes for digital nomads, a market Airbnb is targeting with some success.

Once the guest experience has been improved, there is the Airbnb-specific ‘experience’. The platform has been seeking to sell experiences alongside its stays since 2016, with varying levels of success. These range from meditation with Buddhist monks, to virtual visits with the dogs of Chernobyl and cooking with a Moroccan family.

When you research your break, these options pop up. But imagine if you could release the marketing power of the TV, with an interface which could act as a communications tool, not just entertainment, and upsell experiences during the stay. And not just experiences: the host can take one step up from the stack of paper takeaway menus left on the coffee table, to creating delivery options to be ordered from the TV. Just like people can at home.?

A few years ago we saw hotels start to dance around the idea of offering hotel services to local short-term rental properties? - F&B, spa, gym - but the trend has ceased to be. With hotels eager to drive ancillary revenues, it might be time to think outside the hotel box and look around the neighbourhood.?

Frenemy is a silly word and one which must never be used. But after years of fearing, then ignoring Airbnb and its pals, it’s time to work together for the good of all.