"Hi John, attached is your itinerary. You'll be landing in Boston at 9PM. Once you arrive, text Billy at 617-XXX-XXXX, you'll be sleeping at his place."
That's true of some Airbnb hosts - it's their own home, and their letting it (or a room in it) out. But my experience of Airbnb is generally that the host has their own home elsewhere, and the Airbnb venue is a dedicated place to let. For example, someone who has moved in with their Significant Other, and is letting/sub-letting what used to be their own place.
Compared to a business hotel, it generally lacks in terms of concierge/information/predictability. But things like a full-size refrigerator, cooking facilities, and sofas can compensate (if that's what you're looking for).
Personally, when I travel on business, for a trip of a few days, I prefer a hotel. If it's longer, or if I expect to have to work from the rental site, I prefer an Airbnb.
> Compared to a business hotel, it generally lacks in terms of concierge/information/predictability. But things like a full-size refrigerator, cooking facilities, and sofas can compensate (if that's what you're looking for).
All of which is available in many 3* brand name hotels -- Hyatt House, Marriott's Residence Inn etc.
However, do you really need a full-size fridge and cookies facilities when out and about for a couple of days? Most business people don't even cook back home, and you're talking about having to cook for yourself when you're on a business trip that someone's already paying for.
The complementary breakfast (Hyatt House and Hyatt Place are the best) and the evening reception or nice lobby with pay-for food would seem like a better option than full-size fridge and a cooker.
I not infrequently stay at the suite places mostly for the sofa. I do wish more hotels would have a small fridge for guest use though; don't need the full-size one. Especially given that those who still have minibars are now often using these RFID-enabled things that will automatically charge you if you look at them crooked.
I get that, I have two vacation homes for rent on Airbnb.
I just think it's a bit weird and honestly business renters aren't exactly ideal from a landlord standpoint. They are the most likely to think they're at a hotel and you're their cleaning lady.
Our guest have a checkout list that needs to be complete before they leave. I can't imagine too many business travelers would want to deal with that.
But it could easily be: "Once you arrive, proceed to the loft which is 2 blocks from your meeting site and punch in this code to enter. There's a beer in the fridge and the remote for the Apple TV is under the 70 inch flat screen."
"But please don't use the front door, only the side door. And, if any neighbors or building staff asks who you are, just tell them you're staying with your friend, Tim. Tell them you grew up with Tim and are just visiting for a few days."
Wow, there's a market for this? (Such words come before something is canned, or blows up to make millions I guess.)
Can a business really save a lot of money by putting up their employees in "business-ready homes," like a twee Lower East Side room for $55/night that looks like a (very) young woman lives in it?
One would think that the lost productivity in dealing with a different landlord in addition to the often exciting/terrifying moments that come with an AirBnB stay seem to offset the cost of a business rate hotel. Productive employees, also receiving a salary and benefits while traveling, are worth more to me than saving $100-$200/night on a hotel stay.
The only place I've worked where something like this would fly was where "employees" could take some abuse: grad school. Maybe I am now an old soul, but I like boring, dependable hotels when I travel for work.
Yeah, you sacrifice consistency. Although some AirBnb units are MUCH nicer than even the fanciest hotels. You can get a complete kitchen, ground floor access, a yard, in-unit laundry, private parking, lots of stuff that can be super useful that are rare in hotels.
An interesting point; but there are "efficency" hotel chains that have a complete kitchen/laundry/etc. Does today's business traveler need a yard and other accoutrements?
Private parking is a really good point, though. In a metro area that can shoot up the cost of the stay some if one must rent a car.
It's a modern take on 'serviced apartments'. Some places will get regular repeat clients, other places might prove flaky and not attract the same business clientèle.
Which is funny because when I was younger I preferred Hotel's, but now that I have some time traveling I much prefer a non chain, roll of the dice AirBnB room to any hotel. Spending night after night in a soulless hotel room is so draining.
Very interesting. Do you spend as much time as before in AirBnB-style rooms now?
I agree that after a certain point business travel becomes "soulless," but I figured it was due to being away from home instead of the surroundings. And the allure of accumulating hotel points to use at the high-end places is....alluring.
Stop. Look at it from the employee's perspective and all your issues go away. There are a lot of employees (and growing) who would prefer AirBnb lodging to hotels.
There is definitely a market for this, especially in a city like Manhattan where business rate hotels are hard to come by and can be inconveniently located compared to an AirBnB. When we have remote workers come visit us we put them up in an AirBnB that is a 5-minute walk from the office to get better, more spacious accommodations than a hotel for under $200 (which is for an entire apartment, not just a room). And who needs room service when you have Seamless, Postmates, Caviar, etc.
The only downside to AirBnB is the lack of daily housekeeping. Maybe there is room for a 3rd party service that caters exclusively to AirBnB hosts to provide regular housekeeping.
That all said, I'm not sure what this "Business Travel" service provides that you can't get from a regular booking. Is this just a shared AirBnB account for teams? Are there special business rates or liability insurance policies associated with it? This page does a fairly poor job of explaining the merits of creating a business account with them.
>The only downside to AirBnB is the lack of daily housekeeping.
Is this really an issue for most people? I haven't ever stayed in an AirBnB but I've stayed in B&B's or similar (without the second B) that charged a one-time cleaning fee for the stay but not daily room service. (Presumably you could pay for additional cleanings if you wanted.)
Interestingly, at one point, Starwood was offering points for forgoing daily maid service but I only ran across that a couple of times and then they must have discontinued the experiment.
I think that comes down to personal preference at the end of the day. I tend to be very tidy/neat, especially when I travel, which negates the need for daily housekeeping.
I know some people who are not that way that need more regular housekeeping, and prefer hotels because they provide that service. (Even though there is little to no guarantee that the housekeeping in a business-rate hotel will be any good.)
I would say the bigger problem isn't whether or not it is necessary for most people, but rather about breaking expectations. Many people have become so accustomed to daily housekeeping services in hotels that expect it as the norm.
No one has ever accused me of being tidy/neat :-) but I also don't fling stuff all over the room and, I guess, I'm perfectly fine with the towels and sheets being no more rumpled than they are at home.
The fact that the SPG experiment was apparently short-lived however suggests that you're probably right that this isn't how most people want the hotel experience to be.
That's not the only downside. There's a freaking enormous downside for large corporations, and that's their inability to centrally manage vendor relationships with large chains. For example, my company spends about 2500 nights/yr here: http://www.itchotels.in/hotels/itcgrandchola.aspx
As a result, we were able to negotiate a rate down from about 12,000INR/night to about 6500INR/night. The hotel is huge, has every amenity (in India, especially if you're flying solo, most business travelers are not likely to venture outside the hotel for dinner), is close to the office, and we're only paying about US$100/night.
I think Manhattan may be one of the few cities where this legitimately makes sense (due to general lack of hotels, or price gouging). SF, perhaps, but it depends where you're going to be for work and whether there are any huge conferences going on at the same time. One year at Dreamforce I booked late and ended up in a shared room at a craptastic rundown place near the Embarcadero. Perhaps not typical, but it does happen.
I definitely agree that how much this makes sense depends on the city where you are located. As you said, Manhattan is probably one of the only cities where it does.
Otherwise in most cities: Hotels are more conveniently located, better serviced, much better priced, much easier to deal with, etc. etc.
$100/night is astronomical compared to most Airbnb listings in India. You can get much nicer accommodations for half the price, and you don't need to be a large corporation to negotiate a package deal for it.
When I travel for work, I often add additional time onto my trip to explore where I visit. Sometimes people don't have a sense of adventure, and this may not be for them. For people like this I believe you are correct, they will not enjoy this program.
As someone who stayed in a hotel (mostly SPG) for 200+ nights last calendar year - I can definitely say that there were many times I might have considered staying in an AirBnb. I never did, solely because I valued the SPG points, but many times the Airbnb options near your work location are far, far nicer (and cheaper) than available hotels
When staying on location for extended periods we would (the group I travelled with) get an apartment to rent out. Typically this was done when travelling outside the US because it was so cheap, but sometimes in the US we did this also. It helps too if your employer gives you the option to collect housing per diem in lieu of booking a hotel for us. We could then pool together and pocket the extra per diem money if the apartment was cheap enough.
Working Internet, for one. I've dealt with prospective hosts that don't have wifi, and not stayed at their places because of that - and that was for leisure travel.
I've stayed somewhere with working wifi, but the host mailed me and said its not working right now and I had to plug in. On a Mac that doesn't have wired Ethernet.
Rant over, but for real I'd want to avoid airbnb surprises.
I actually do, specifically for situations like this. A short (2ft) CAT5e cable lives in my backpack alongside a small 3-outlet surge protector, spare flash drives, spare battery pack for USB devices, etc when I'm on the road. I frequently work while traveling and don't want to gamble that a misconfigured access point near my gate, full power outlet, etc could cost me productivity. I've occasionally even stayed in hotels which didn't seem to provide wifi (or wanted to charge way too much for it), but, had an ethernet jack on the room's desk.
I stay in hotels a lot, and I don't remember the last time I've used their internet -- it generally sucks!
Having your own hotspot is generally a more pleasant experience, instead of having to re-authenticate all the time, and call the support when their inet is down or has ridiculously bad latency.
And I'm talking about brand-name hotels like Courtyard by Marriott, or Hyatt House / Hyatt Place.
"Lower your trip cost with amenities like WiFi, stocked kitchens, and free parking."
I'm LOL'ing! Airbnb is often several times more expensive than the opaque 3* hotel deals on Priceline! Whatever they do, lowering trip costs is not one of them!
Just to give you an example -- I was able to book several 3* hotels in Austin during SxSW for about $50 per night, all the while craigslist and such were at $200/ni for one person, or $300/ni for two. Heck, some guy was even renting out his trailer for 1.2k$/week, or something like that!
My experience has been the exact opposite. I'm not a heavy user, but I've stayed at an airbnb at least 5 times now and each one of those stays were significantly cheaper than a comparable hotel, but with a way better experience in almost every way.
Also, finding multi room hotel suites for a reasonable price is usually next to impossible.
> My experience has been the exact opposite. I'm not a heavy user, but I've stayed at an airbnb at least 5 times now and each one of those stays were significantly cheaper than a comparable hotel, but with a way better experience in almost every way.
Are you comparing published list prices, or the opaque prices through priceline / hotwire? Because I was clearly talking about opaque, which is a better comparison with Airbnb anyways, since you never really know what you're getting.
> Also, finding multi room hotel suites for a reasonable price is usually next to impossible.
You must be a novice hotel traveller, then. Pretty much all Hyatt House and Hyatt Place are suites that essential have two rooms (House would even have a door between them often), as well as Residence Inn and SpringHill Suites. Courtyard by Marriott has full suite rooms, too; surprisingly, very often the price difference between two-room suite and non-suite is like a symbolic $10 or $20, although you generally don't get any discounts if you require a suite, and can't use points for them, either. Hampton Inn (by Hilton) has two-room suites as an upgrade, too. I'm pretty sure other brands do, too.
Heck, you could even go opaque for two rooms, and ask for a connecting door, which most decent hotels always do have.
It completely depends on where you go in my experience. I took a trip to Taiwan and the airbnb places were way better/cheaper than the hotels we stayed at. Also why are you talking about Craigslist? This is airbnb...
> Also why are you talking about Craigslist? This is airbnb...
And Airbnb is even more expensive than Craigslist. At least here in Austin, the hosts figure that the extra security etc should come for free, and they shall maintain their supposed margins, so, they pass all of the fees back to the guests!
We only rent full flats when we travel with my GF and have been able to always get in under 50€ in Berlin and Barcelona (including a 2 room flat 400m from the beach for 43€/night). The one time I got a 60€/night hotel in Berlin it was literally in the middle of nowhere and the front desk staff didn't speak English.
This definitely already happens, in the few cases where I've seen AirBnB be used for repeat business travel. A colleague of mine goes to Rome for 2-3 week stays and found the place he currently rents via AirBnB, but now he just books it directly. It's quite possible that they can make enough money on the other cases to not matter, though.
I'm not surprised at all. This is such a tiny issue compared to the bigger opportunity. And it's not even the same where the customer would hire the cleaner and never return to the service.
This program offers interesting features to a business but not s much for the traveler. Anyone who is spending 25+ nights a year in a hotel is going to be sure to be getting points for those stays. Points == status and status == more convenience when traveling. Beyond earning free nights, there's expedited check-in, private lounges with free food, gift baskets when you check in, etc. The caveat is that to get status most (or all) of your points need to be with the same company. This means most hardcore business travelers are very loyal to <program x>. This travel program doesn't have any kind of loyalty rewards which is a non-starter.
Other downsides of airbnb: booking isn't instantaneous as with a hotel (wait hours or days for confirmation from owner), checkin has to be pre-arranged and requires you get in touch with the owner (i.e. no 3am red-eye check-ins), each place you stay is slightly different amenities versus hotel chains which all have the same brand of pre-wrapped toothbrush when you forget yours. These might seem trivial but when you travel a bunch it's the little things that hurt the most.
Story: I once had to wait for 2 hours to check into an airbnb in SF since the owner was in Africa and his mother forgot to leave his key where he said it would be.
I completely agree. But to play devil's advocate: is there a percentage of business travelers that would prefer an AirBnB experience over the lure of elite status and hotel points?
Time will tell if this is a smart move or just AirBnB smashing together something that it already has anyway. But I'm curious if anyone has an insight.
> But to play devil's advocate: is there a percentage of business travelers that would prefer an AirBnB experience over the lure of elite status and hotel points?
Looking at the photos of the "business-ready homes" on https://www.airbnb.com/business/signup, I can assure you that there is nothing that would make me prefer the "AirBnB experience" over, say, a stay at the Mandarin Oriental or St. Regis. Hotels generally might get a bad wrap, but the quality of the accommodations and conveniences offered at the higher end of the market are very hard to compete with, elite status and hotel points not even taken into consideration.
I used to go to four stars hotels in London at my previous job for business trips, costing like 100-200 pounds a night, and really I didn't like it so much. The rooms had a TV with some light on it that was disturbing my sleep, sometimes I could hear the ventilation noise, etc. Many small details that were making it, IMO, a not too good experience, and many times I was happy I was not paying for this expensive accommodation with my own money.
London hotels are very expensive compared to what you get. Having stayed there many times I was always jaded about the more expensive hotels, but visiting luxury hotels in Berlin or Vienna is a much nicer experience, Hyatt or Sofitel (and sure, Mandarin Oriental if you can afford it). E.g. you can go to Berlin and stay at the 5-star Sofitel which has a top 20 (out of 800) hotel rating at Tripadvisor and pay 110€/night for a 4om² room. I've paid the same at a hotel without a window in London once.
Lisabon is another city good for cheap luxury hotels. Trivago is a great hotel aggregator.
Good point about the quality and price of hotels varying according to the city. Guess Airbnb business will be more successful in places like London than Berlin or Lisabon (Lisboa?).
At the higher end of the market (let's call it SPG and up), I'm also paying for a certain conformity of experience and comfort-related services. I'm paying for a concierge who'll let me use the 4 hours of free time I have effectively. I'm paying for a bar and lobby.
When I travel privately, I'm willing to pay to avoid all that crap.
I would generally prefer it, except for three big things: 1) guaranteed accessibility of management/owner if something goes wrong, 2) nearness to my destination (I stay at a lot of airport hotels, and in a lot of places that's because our offices are near the airport, too), and 3) I often travel with colleagues, and sharing a home with them would just be a little weird. Not necessarily bad, but not something a lot of my coworkers are culturally prepare to accept.
Yes. I work for a small company and recently had to spend a few nights in a foreign city. Airbnb let us have an apartment in the centre of the city (we were 100m from the central square) for a fraction of the cost of an equivalent hotel. We didn't care about food because we were eating on expenses for each meal and the local restaurants were probably better than hotel fare. All in all it was a very pleasant stay.
I don't care about getting a gift basket or gym membership or being recognised personally at check-in. Perhaps if I travelled significantly more it would make sense. WiFi and a power socket next to the bed is enough.
The downside was mostly that we couldn't instabook, there's still some required interaction with the host. It means you need to be there on time and so does your host. If something goes wrong, you're at the mercy of a random person to fix it whereas in a hotel there's normally some chain of command.
For instance, our outbound flight was 6 hours delayed (different city) and we arrived at 3am. We were thankfully booked into a hostel for the first two nights with 24 hour reception. If we'd gone for Airbnb, we would likely have been sleeping on the street.
We had a great stay because Airbnb worked. If something had gone wrong, it would have been hell.
Traditionally, yes, but only if the employee initially pays out of pocket for the expense (and is then later reimbursed). However, some employers are starting to migrate those points over to their own accounts, or forcing you to use a company card for travel so that the company accumulates points, not the employee.
Right - but I've heard anecdotes (I know...) of companies requiring the use of their own loyalty cards (or special deals with vendors). If a company is paying for the trip, they will eventually try to capture all of the benefits.
My employer always paid for everything then I would hand them my loyalty card at the desk and get the points attributed to me. The rooms and cars were always in my name so maybe that was the difference.
What card you use doesn't matter for loyalty/elite points, only for your credit card points.
Always put down your own loyalty/elite number when booking the reservation. Always charge everything (meals, sundries, drinks, etc) to the room to maximize loyalty points.
Not to split hairs, but they're technically owned by the hotel. You participate in the program at their pleasure. See the Northwest Airlines Supreme Court case.
To the spirit of your question, almost always the employee.
I'm not actually too much of a brand loyalist when it comes to hotels--in spite of having something over 100 days on the road last year. My itineraries are too varied for one or two chains to really work for me most of the time. Furthermore, prices tend to vary a lot with hotels on any given day so I tend to shop around a bit. So I have frequent stay programs and accumulate meaningful points on a couple of them but don't go crazy.
>booking isn't instantaneous as with a hotel (wait hours or days for confirmation from owner), checkin has to be pre-arranged and requires you get in touch with the owner (i.e. no 3am red-eye check-ins),
As for these points though, I agree that I mostly don't want to deal with this sort of thing when I'm traveling on business. I want a 24 hour desk that I can just roll up to a 2 in the morning if need be and I need to be able to cancel on short notice. On vacation, I'm often willing to deal with something more interesting/less cookie cutter but for business I mostly want "just works."
Not sure how to answer that, but we're talking about maybe bouncing around Expedia, another portal, making a few queries on Trip Adviser, and checking the hotel website. Maybe 15-20 minutes tops? (I'm not talking about any deep bargain hunting.)
In some locations, I know where the deals probably are, whether because of company-negotiated rates or just past experience. But $50-$100 (or more)/night cheaper is not at all unusual compared to just choosing my default chain in a large city. (Though sometimes the price of the large chain is fine.)
And just last night I happened to get an email from a hotel I've stayed at previously in SF about a special. Turns out it was about $150/night cheaper than a rate I had locked in at another hotel just to make sure I had somewhere to stay for an event in late August. So I cancelled and switched. Took 5 minutes to save about $600.
My basic point is that, especially in expensive cities, there's a big difference between even doing just a quick search and just staying at the usual.
I'm surprised they didn't roll out some kind of loyalty program to go along with this. I spend $30k/year with SPG (employer covers it) and using the SPG Amex and other bonuses I estimate about 20% of that amount comes back into my pocket. It's hard to pass up a $6k/year tax free bonus.
AirBnB can start a loyalty program with appropriate partnerships. The problem with typical loyalty programs is that you don't get points if you book through a discount travel agency like Travelocity, so you are essentially paying dollars for points. AirBnB doesn't have that problem (at least assuming that property owners aren't also listing outside of AirBnB). AirBnB also theoretically has a greater selection, which makes a loyalty program more compelling.
The other objections regarding amenities aren't too worrying, because 40% of AirBnB stays are through commercial operators that presumably are able to offer hotel-comparable amenities.
I stayed 250 nights in a hotel for work last calendar year. ~220 in SPG, ~25 in Hyatt (enough to earn Diamond status), ~5 in a Marriott because there were no other options.
Although I was at full liberty to do so (and expense it), I never chose to stay in an AirBnb. To make this feasible for me, I think AirBnb would need several things:
* Some sort of loyalty program with PERSONAL benefits to me - this would best manifest itself as a credit in my personal account
* Status - SPG Platinum greatly enhanced my traveling experience with perks such as recognition on check-in, upgrades, gift baskets, etc. I didn't care about most of this, but AirBnb could certainly implement aspects such as "upgrades" to nicer/bigger properties which are vacant within an x-block radius, gift baskets (delivered by the likes of Postmates, UberEATS, etc.), local events, etc.
* Instant booking - this is HUGE. I very very often would book hotels past 6pm on the night of, or move/cancel stays based on work, airline schedules, etc. I don't want to wait to interact with a host - I just want a key.
* Amenities - Fast WiFi is a must, outlets by the bed are nice, and very important - gym access. No reason why AirBnb couldn't come up with an arrangement with e.g. 24 Hour Fitness to provide access passes to guests
* Room service - Partnership with Postmates/Caviar/DoorDash/etc. to bill directly to room, along with a preview of what's available
* Personal concierge - ala SPG Ambassador
* Perhaps most crucial to this list, is a concern for the employer, not me - the reason Amex/Concur have a duopoly over the enterprise travel market is not because of their partnerships or UI - it's because they offer integration with HR systems for things like emergency alerts (e.g there's been a terrorist attack in NYC - I need to know which of my employees are staying in a hotel near xxx). AirBnb should already be in talks with Workday/Zenefits/ZenPayroll and the likes to figure this out for tech startups - most likely to be early adopters.
AirBnb has a potenitally superior product as compared to SPG,Hyatt,etc. and a better interface than Amex/Hipmunk/Concur/Orbitz for Business. But corp travel is complicated, and customers are extremely finicky. Huge potential to get this right, huge opportunity if they do.
You have listed numerous reasons why AirBnB doesn't have a potentially superior product.
AirBnB has limited control over the guest experience. For instance, delivering instant booking would be difficult, and it can't guarantee consistently fast WiFi. It could conceivably incentivize hosts to offer certain amenities, but not all hosts will offer them, they won't be implemented the same way and in many cases this could negatively impact price. Where a host doesn't live up to AirBnB's standards, AirBnB would often have a limited ability to rectify the situation promptly.
Cobbling together features like gym access through partnerships is not very appealing. Depending on the location of an AirBnB rental, it could in many cases be incredibly inconvenient to have to travel to a gym, and folks used to staying at higher-end hotels are not going to be thrilled with access to 24 Hour Fitness. Gyms like Equinox have no incentive to partner with AirBnB so that somebody renting a room for a few nights can use a facility that members pay a premium to keep somewhat sheltered from the riff raff.
Apologies, I should have worded better - AirBnb has the potential to create a superior product.
You'd be surprised at the quality of both WiFi and gyms at high-end hotels.
Standard Xfinity 25 Mbps would have easily beat the outdated WiFi at most luxury hotels (many of these were early adopters of enterprise internet service, thus signed up for long contracts at now outdated speeds)
I would have killed to have access to a 24-Hour Fitness over the gyms at 99% of hotels I stayed at. Most were the size of a small room with 3-5 treadmills, a couple of cycles, and if I was lucky, some outdated weight equipment and a water cooler. I bought national access to any location, so I'd often opt to take a 5-minute Uber (another partnership opportunity) to a remote location rather than using the hotel gym.
I think there is huge potential for them to cobble together an experience with already-existing partners that meets and surpasses a luxury hotel experience. Loyalty programs are already heading here across the Travel industry (SPG+Uber, Delta+Emirates+SPG, United+Uber, etc.). AirBnb should be crushing these given their superior engineering talent and Bay Area location.
If they don't get to it quickly, then somebody else in SF will - Uber, Workday, Zenefits, Hipmunk...
It's exciting at first, and but repeated business travel becomes tedious over time. Points are your personal reward for that necessary evil in the time you spend away from your home, family, and friends in cars, shuttles, trains, airports.
And that's not even counting the cancelled flights, train delays, terrorism scares, lost baggage, crying kids, and other traveling issues.
I've had hotels cancel my reservation because my flight got in after 12am, and they assumed I wasn't coming. In a major city, that Airbnb host probably isn't around, let alone, going to wait for you to arrive 4-6 hours after your reservation start time.
I've used points to fly my wife and I to Hawaii, rent a car, and stay in an ocean front room for a week with no money out of pocket aside from $10 in award processing fees by United.
I used points to fly my brother to an interview for his first job, which he aced and has been at for the last 3 years. And I still have points left for one more big international trip. It doesn't erase the original issues, but I feel like I got something in return for the trouble.
I spend around 25 days a year in a hotel, and I much prefer staying at AirBnB places than hotels, some of the hosts have been a lot of fun, but sometimes I just don't have time to jump through all the hoops of finding a place and making sure I can stay there and getting keys.
They really need a concierge service where our admin assistant can call someone and tell them "we need a bedroom for these days, with easy subway access to our NYC office" and have them sort out the rest.
I've been a business traveler (1-2 weeks/month) for a number of years and recently began shuffling in stints of airbnb.
I must admit Airbnb cannot beat the convenience and mental simplicity of business hotels. Flight cancelled, check-in at midnight, parking, need an ironing board, want to be left alone - no problem.
I typically Airbnb on travel where I expect the workload to be light or operating on reasonable hours (not coming in at 1am every night). It's really an experience thing for me (akin to going backpacking/camping) which often turn into great dinner conversation with customers - they're always amused. I've met a number of great people (I think most people can be, and Airbnb provides the venue) and I highly recommend it - just be prepared to deal with sometimes awkward/interesting situations, but such is life!
I question the success of this from a loyalty/perks perspective. Not for the business traveller, but for the employer. Most people don't realize this, but when your company signs deals with airlines and hotels, they get big perks in return for pledging dollars to those businesses. You get to designate X number of people for platinum status, even if they only fly or stay a few times a year. Those perks translate into huge upside for the occasional business exec who has to pay for a business class ticket, but be at the top of the list for a free first upgrade.
It might sound trivial to most people here, but it's a big part of the sales pitch when you're managing a large corporate travel department.
There's a key mental difference between traveling for leisure and for business.
When you are holidaying, you are looking for those little experiences that make every trip unique, and living in someone's home definitely adds to that.
But when you are traveling for work, anything that's not work is distracting. So one seeks 'familiarity', and that's where the experience of just getting back to a hotel with no surprises waiting wins.
It's the same reason I chose Starbucks to work from whenever I am traveling. I know I'll get the same environment, same mediocre coffee and similar wifi. No surprises, so I can GSD.
For me that exaggerates the contrast. One of the things that makes at least some business travel worthwhile is that I have the opportunity to spend at least a little time on distractions in the local environment, whether taking a walk or eating a meal. I don't go out of my way to seek out Starbucks though I'll go there if that's what is convenient.
That said, I generally try to simplify with respect to the hotel stay. I may or may not stay with a familiar chain but I'll generally book with something that looks to be a reliable business hotel.
Many firms won't let employees share a double hotel room due to the risk of sexual harassment violations (one employee stumbles in on the other having sex in the room, said employee may have grounds to sue the employer).
With that in mind, I assumed AirBnB Business Homes would be whole homes to avoid contact with an owner, other guests sharing the other rooms or situations that an employee might not be happy with - eg female employee staying alone in the home with a male landlord, etc.
But looking through it appears many are shared situations, which surprises me due to the potential for legal issues.
To those who will point to the incompatibility of AirBnB and business travel..... This is almost certainly something they are doing because people are already using AirBnB for business travel.
So, a front desk, loyalty points, instant bookings, avoiding the check-in/key issues, etc. These are all real. AirBnB will be disadvantaged in these areas.
But, in some cases its advantages outweigh these. Prices & Airbnb's stock of properties. I don't expect your average VP of Sales to be too excited about this, but I think business travellers are pretty diverse these days.
Problem with AirBnb for business is the uncertainty: booking & checking. If you were able to have a confirmed booking and there were iPhone locks it would solve a lot of issues. AirBnb could underwrite the purchase of digital locks.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 154 ms ] thread"Hi John, attached is your itinerary. You'll be landing in Boston at 9PM. Once you arrive, text Billy at 617-XXX-XXXX, you'll be sleeping at his place."
Compared to a business hotel, it generally lacks in terms of concierge/information/predictability. But things like a full-size refrigerator, cooking facilities, and sofas can compensate (if that's what you're looking for).
Personally, when I travel on business, for a trip of a few days, I prefer a hotel. If it's longer, or if I expect to have to work from the rental site, I prefer an Airbnb.
All of which is available in many 3* brand name hotels -- Hyatt House, Marriott's Residence Inn etc.
However, do you really need a full-size fridge and cookies facilities when out and about for a couple of days? Most business people don't even cook back home, and you're talking about having to cook for yourself when you're on a business trip that someone's already paying for.
The complementary breakfast (Hyatt House and Hyatt Place are the best) and the evening reception or nice lobby with pay-for food would seem like a better option than full-size fridge and a cooker.
Adding a stove is nice if I want to re-heat something there, but it adds a lot of cleaning.
You usually lose the fridge and the microwave if you upgrade to 3.5* +, and gain the RFID-enabled minibar at perhaps 4*.
I just think it's a bit weird and honestly business renters aren't exactly ideal from a landlord standpoint. They are the most likely to think they're at a hotel and you're their cleaning lady.
Our guest have a checkout list that needs to be complete before they leave. I can't imagine too many business travelers would want to deal with that.
Can a business really save a lot of money by putting up their employees in "business-ready homes," like a twee Lower East Side room for $55/night that looks like a (very) young woman lives in it?
One would think that the lost productivity in dealing with a different landlord in addition to the often exciting/terrifying moments that come with an AirBnB stay seem to offset the cost of a business rate hotel. Productive employees, also receiving a salary and benefits while traveling, are worth more to me than saving $100-$200/night on a hotel stay.
The only place I've worked where something like this would fly was where "employees" could take some abuse: grad school. Maybe I am now an old soul, but I like boring, dependable hotels when I travel for work.
Private parking is a really good point, though. In a metro area that can shoot up the cost of the stay some if one must rent a car.
But you're right - the trick will be matching those properties with professional management.
I agree that after a certain point business travel becomes "soulless," but I figured it was due to being away from home instead of the surroundings. And the allure of accumulating hotel points to use at the high-end places is....alluring.
The only downside to AirBnB is the lack of daily housekeeping. Maybe there is room for a 3rd party service that caters exclusively to AirBnB hosts to provide regular housekeeping.
That all said, I'm not sure what this "Business Travel" service provides that you can't get from a regular booking. Is this just a shared AirBnB account for teams? Are there special business rates or liability insurance policies associated with it? This page does a fairly poor job of explaining the merits of creating a business account with them.
Is this really an issue for most people? I haven't ever stayed in an AirBnB but I've stayed in B&B's or similar (without the second B) that charged a one-time cleaning fee for the stay but not daily room service. (Presumably you could pay for additional cleanings if you wanted.)
Interestingly, at one point, Starwood was offering points for forgoing daily maid service but I only ran across that a couple of times and then they must have discontinued the experiment.
I know some people who are not that way that need more regular housekeeping, and prefer hotels because they provide that service. (Even though there is little to no guarantee that the housekeeping in a business-rate hotel will be any good.)
I would say the bigger problem isn't whether or not it is necessary for most people, but rather about breaking expectations. Many people have become so accustomed to daily housekeeping services in hotels that expect it as the norm.
The fact that the SPG experiment was apparently short-lived however suggests that you're probably right that this isn't how most people want the hotel experience to be.
As a result, we were able to negotiate a rate down from about 12,000INR/night to about 6500INR/night. The hotel is huge, has every amenity (in India, especially if you're flying solo, most business travelers are not likely to venture outside the hotel for dinner), is close to the office, and we're only paying about US$100/night.
I think Manhattan may be one of the few cities where this legitimately makes sense (due to general lack of hotels, or price gouging). SF, perhaps, but it depends where you're going to be for work and whether there are any huge conferences going on at the same time. One year at Dreamforce I booked late and ended up in a shared room at a craptastic rundown place near the Embarcadero. Perhaps not typical, but it does happen.
Otherwise in most cities: Hotels are more conveniently located, better serviced, much better priced, much easier to deal with, etc. etc.
When I travel for work, I often add additional time onto my trip to explore where I visit. Sometimes people don't have a sense of adventure, and this may not be for them. For people like this I believe you are correct, they will not enjoy this program.
Rant over, but for real I'd want to avoid airbnb surprises.
Having your own hotspot is generally a more pleasant experience, instead of having to re-authenticate all the time, and call the support when their inet is down or has ridiculously bad latency.
And I'm talking about brand-name hotels like Courtyard by Marriott, or Hyatt House / Hyatt Place.
I'm LOL'ing! Airbnb is often several times more expensive than the opaque 3* hotel deals on Priceline! Whatever they do, lowering trip costs is not one of them!
Just to give you an example -- I was able to book several 3* hotels in Austin during SxSW for about $50 per night, all the while craigslist and such were at $200/ni for one person, or $300/ni for two. Heck, some guy was even renting out his trailer for 1.2k$/week, or something like that!
Also, finding multi room hotel suites for a reasonable price is usually next to impossible.
Are you comparing published list prices, or the opaque prices through priceline / hotwire? Because I was clearly talking about opaque, which is a better comparison with Airbnb anyways, since you never really know what you're getting.
> Also, finding multi room hotel suites for a reasonable price is usually next to impossible.
You must be a novice hotel traveller, then. Pretty much all Hyatt House and Hyatt Place are suites that essential have two rooms (House would even have a door between them often), as well as Residence Inn and SpringHill Suites. Courtyard by Marriott has full suite rooms, too; surprisingly, very often the price difference between two-room suite and non-suite is like a symbolic $10 or $20, although you generally don't get any discounts if you require a suite, and can't use points for them, either. Hampton Inn (by Hilton) has two-room suites as an upgrade, too. I'm pretty sure other brands do, too.
Heck, you could even go opaque for two rooms, and ask for a connecting door, which most decent hotels always do have.
And Airbnb is even more expensive than Craigslist. At least here in Austin, the hosts figure that the extra security etc should come for free, and they shall maintain their supposed margins, so, they pass all of the fees back to the guests!
Other downsides of airbnb: booking isn't instantaneous as with a hotel (wait hours or days for confirmation from owner), checkin has to be pre-arranged and requires you get in touch with the owner (i.e. no 3am red-eye check-ins), each place you stay is slightly different amenities versus hotel chains which all have the same brand of pre-wrapped toothbrush when you forget yours. These might seem trivial but when you travel a bunch it's the little things that hurt the most.
Story: I once had to wait for 2 hours to check into an airbnb in SF since the owner was in Africa and his mother forgot to leave his key where he said it would be.
Time will tell if this is a smart move or just AirBnB smashing together something that it already has anyway. But I'm curious if anyone has an insight.
Looking at the photos of the "business-ready homes" on https://www.airbnb.com/business/signup, I can assure you that there is nothing that would make me prefer the "AirBnB experience" over, say, a stay at the Mandarin Oriental or St. Regis. Hotels generally might get a bad wrap, but the quality of the accommodations and conveniences offered at the higher end of the market are very hard to compete with, elite status and hotel points not even taken into consideration.
Lisabon is another city good for cheap luxury hotels. Trivago is a great hotel aggregator.
When I travel privately, I'm willing to pay to avoid all that crap.
I don't care about getting a gift basket or gym membership or being recognised personally at check-in. Perhaps if I travelled significantly more it would make sense. WiFi and a power socket next to the bed is enough.
The downside was mostly that we couldn't instabook, there's still some required interaction with the host. It means you need to be there on time and so does your host. If something goes wrong, you're at the mercy of a random person to fix it whereas in a hotel there's normally some chain of command.
For instance, our outbound flight was 6 hours delayed (different city) and we arrived at 3am. We were thankfully booked into a hostel for the first two nights with 24 hour reception. If we'd gone for Airbnb, we would likely have been sleeping on the street.
We had a great stay because Airbnb worked. If something had gone wrong, it would have been hell.
Not necessarily or even probably since it's a popular perk and most companies are sensitive to sending their employees on the road.
Always put down your own loyalty/elite number when booking the reservation. Always charge everything (meals, sundries, drinks, etc) to the room to maximize loyalty points.
To the spirit of your question, almost always the employee.
>booking isn't instantaneous as with a hotel (wait hours or days for confirmation from owner), checkin has to be pre-arranged and requires you get in touch with the owner (i.e. no 3am red-eye check-ins),
As for these points though, I agree that I mostly don't want to deal with this sort of thing when I'm traveling on business. I want a 24 hour desk that I can just roll up to a 2 in the morning if need be and I need to be able to cancel on short notice. On vacation, I'm often willing to deal with something more interesting/less cookie cutter but for business I mostly want "just works."
In some locations, I know where the deals probably are, whether because of company-negotiated rates or just past experience. But $50-$100 (or more)/night cheaper is not at all unusual compared to just choosing my default chain in a large city. (Though sometimes the price of the large chain is fine.)
And just last night I happened to get an email from a hotel I've stayed at previously in SF about a special. Turns out it was about $150/night cheaper than a rate I had locked in at another hotel just to make sure I had somewhere to stay for an event in late August. So I cancelled and switched. Took 5 minutes to save about $600.
My basic point is that, especially in expensive cities, there's a big difference between even doing just a quick search and just staying at the usual.
The other objections regarding amenities aren't too worrying, because 40% of AirBnB stays are through commercial operators that presumably are able to offer hotel-comparable amenities.
Although I was at full liberty to do so (and expense it), I never chose to stay in an AirBnb. To make this feasible for me, I think AirBnb would need several things:
* Some sort of loyalty program with PERSONAL benefits to me - this would best manifest itself as a credit in my personal account
* Status - SPG Platinum greatly enhanced my traveling experience with perks such as recognition on check-in, upgrades, gift baskets, etc. I didn't care about most of this, but AirBnb could certainly implement aspects such as "upgrades" to nicer/bigger properties which are vacant within an x-block radius, gift baskets (delivered by the likes of Postmates, UberEATS, etc.), local events, etc.
* Instant booking - this is HUGE. I very very often would book hotels past 6pm on the night of, or move/cancel stays based on work, airline schedules, etc. I don't want to wait to interact with a host - I just want a key.
* Amenities - Fast WiFi is a must, outlets by the bed are nice, and very important - gym access. No reason why AirBnb couldn't come up with an arrangement with e.g. 24 Hour Fitness to provide access passes to guests
* Room service - Partnership with Postmates/Caviar/DoorDash/etc. to bill directly to room, along with a preview of what's available
* Personal concierge - ala SPG Ambassador
* Perhaps most crucial to this list, is a concern for the employer, not me - the reason Amex/Concur have a duopoly over the enterprise travel market is not because of their partnerships or UI - it's because they offer integration with HR systems for things like emergency alerts (e.g there's been a terrorist attack in NYC - I need to know which of my employees are staying in a hotel near xxx). AirBnb should already be in talks with Workday/Zenefits/ZenPayroll and the likes to figure this out for tech startups - most likely to be early adopters.
AirBnb has a potenitally superior product as compared to SPG,Hyatt,etc. and a better interface than Amex/Hipmunk/Concur/Orbitz for Business. But corp travel is complicated, and customers are extremely finicky. Huge potential to get this right, huge opportunity if they do.
AirBnB has limited control over the guest experience. For instance, delivering instant booking would be difficult, and it can't guarantee consistently fast WiFi. It could conceivably incentivize hosts to offer certain amenities, but not all hosts will offer them, they won't be implemented the same way and in many cases this could negatively impact price. Where a host doesn't live up to AirBnB's standards, AirBnB would often have a limited ability to rectify the situation promptly.
Cobbling together features like gym access through partnerships is not very appealing. Depending on the location of an AirBnB rental, it could in many cases be incredibly inconvenient to have to travel to a gym, and folks used to staying at higher-end hotels are not going to be thrilled with access to 24 Hour Fitness. Gyms like Equinox have no incentive to partner with AirBnB so that somebody renting a room for a few nights can use a facility that members pay a premium to keep somewhat sheltered from the riff raff.
You'd be surprised at the quality of both WiFi and gyms at high-end hotels.
Standard Xfinity 25 Mbps would have easily beat the outdated WiFi at most luxury hotels (many of these were early adopters of enterprise internet service, thus signed up for long contracts at now outdated speeds)
I would have killed to have access to a 24-Hour Fitness over the gyms at 99% of hotels I stayed at. Most were the size of a small room with 3-5 treadmills, a couple of cycles, and if I was lucky, some outdated weight equipment and a water cooler. I bought national access to any location, so I'd often opt to take a 5-minute Uber (another partnership opportunity) to a remote location rather than using the hotel gym.
I think there is huge potential for them to cobble together an experience with already-existing partners that meets and surpasses a luxury hotel experience. Loyalty programs are already heading here across the Travel industry (SPG+Uber, Delta+Emirates+SPG, United+Uber, etc.). AirBnb should be crushing these given their superior engineering talent and Bay Area location.
If they don't get to it quickly, then somebody else in SF will - Uber, Workday, Zenefits, Hipmunk...
It's exciting at first, and but repeated business travel becomes tedious over time. Points are your personal reward for that necessary evil in the time you spend away from your home, family, and friends in cars, shuttles, trains, airports.
And that's not even counting the cancelled flights, train delays, terrorism scares, lost baggage, crying kids, and other traveling issues.
I've had hotels cancel my reservation because my flight got in after 12am, and they assumed I wasn't coming. In a major city, that Airbnb host probably isn't around, let alone, going to wait for you to arrive 4-6 hours after your reservation start time.
I've used points to fly my wife and I to Hawaii, rent a car, and stay in an ocean front room for a week with no money out of pocket aside from $10 in award processing fees by United.
I used points to fly my brother to an interview for his first job, which he aced and has been at for the last 3 years. And I still have points left for one more big international trip. It doesn't erase the original issues, but I feel like I got something in return for the trouble.
They really need a concierge service where our admin assistant can call someone and tell them "we need a bedroom for these days, with easy subway access to our NYC office" and have them sort out the rest.
But yes, if you are just one guy for a night or two, a hotel is more convenient.
I must admit Airbnb cannot beat the convenience and mental simplicity of business hotels. Flight cancelled, check-in at midnight, parking, need an ironing board, want to be left alone - no problem.
I typically Airbnb on travel where I expect the workload to be light or operating on reasonable hours (not coming in at 1am every night). It's really an experience thing for me (akin to going backpacking/camping) which often turn into great dinner conversation with customers - they're always amused. I've met a number of great people (I think most people can be, and Airbnb provides the venue) and I highly recommend it - just be prepared to deal with sometimes awkward/interesting situations, but such is life!
It might sound trivial to most people here, but it's a big part of the sales pitch when you're managing a large corporate travel department.
When you are holidaying, you are looking for those little experiences that make every trip unique, and living in someone's home definitely adds to that.
But when you are traveling for work, anything that's not work is distracting. So one seeks 'familiarity', and that's where the experience of just getting back to a hotel with no surprises waiting wins.
It's the same reason I chose Starbucks to work from whenever I am traveling. I know I'll get the same environment, same mediocre coffee and similar wifi. No surprises, so I can GSD.
That said, I generally try to simplify with respect to the hotel stay. I may or may not stay with a familiar chain but I'll generally book with something that looks to be a reliable business hotel.
With that in mind, I assumed AirBnB Business Homes would be whole homes to avoid contact with an owner, other guests sharing the other rooms or situations that an employee might not be happy with - eg female employee staying alone in the home with a male landlord, etc.
But looking through it appears many are shared situations, which surprises me due to the potential for legal issues.
So, a front desk, loyalty points, instant bookings, avoiding the check-in/key issues, etc. These are all real. AirBnB will be disadvantaged in these areas.
But, in some cases its advantages outweigh these. Prices & Airbnb's stock of properties. I don't expect your average VP of Sales to be too excited about this, but I think business travellers are pretty diverse these days.