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I'm honestly shocked that business travelers want to stay in AirBnBs. If I'm traveling for business usually I'm traveling to some major city and need to be near

by tempsy 7y ago

I'm honestly shocked that business travelers want to stay in AirBnBs. If I'm traveling for business usually I'm traveling to some major city and need to be near or in the downtown commercial area, in which case it almost always makes more sense to stay in a downtown hotel when possible. Also, when traveling for business in general you want to minimize the surface area of "travel surprises" and a chain hotel is a pretty safe bet most of the time. The only time I've considered an Airbnb (and in those cases have only picked the ones that are basically professionally managed) is if the hotels are outrageously expensive for whatever reason.

grmtony 7y ago
As a frequent business traveler I’ve had great experiences with using Airbnb as an alternative to hotels. Getting a nice Airbnb just helps break up the business travel monotony. Every hotel room looks and feels the same, as we all know. Getting an Airbnb helps me ever so slightly to feel a little bit more at (a) home on business trips.
- dannykwells 7y ago
  Who needs to feel at home on a business trip? At least hotels don't pretend. Airbnb is like the uncanny Valley of comfort. It's not home, it's not not home. And verrry heterogeneous.
- tempsy 7y ago
  Yeah, I mean it's fine most of the time, but if something happens (e.g. a delay and you get there at midnight) I like knowing that 1) a hotel is going to be in a busy, well-lit area downtown 2) the lobby will be open and there's going to be someone there to help me and 3) there will probably be a restaurant or bar or something I can go to within the hotel to eat at if there's nothing else around. Again, it goes back to minimization of travel-related risk. Personally there's nothing about staying at someone else's "home" that give me any feeling of being at my "home".
RijilV 7y ago
It really depends. For a business week give me a hotel, I don’t want to deal with weird checkin or and odd setup. If I’m at a remote office for two weeks or more, I want a real kitchen and laundry. Personally I use VRBO rather than Airbnb, but the idea is the same. Don’t know I as a business traveler need special things from a rental site, but it’s a market I won’t fault them for trying to get in on.
ninedays 7y ago
"I'm honestly shocked that business travelers want to stay in AirBnBs." "it almost always makes more sense" "most of the time" "if the hotels are outrageously expensive for whatever reason." I don't understand how you can be so shocked when you, yourself, already listed the reasons why people wouldn't want to stay at a hotel. Because for all the time where it doesn't "almost always makes more sense". I remember one time where I traveled to a big city for a couple of days and had the unfortunate experience to find out there was a big conference during the week and the prices of hotels have increased dramatically (making it non affordable for almost all human being) Airbnb can be a superior offer in that case. You will not witness the same degree of price discrepancy between the price of airbnb room and a hotel room (a hotel room price can change to 4x its normal price in case of special event in a city).
- jobigoud 7y ago
  > a hotel room price can change to 4x its normal price in case of special event in a city Airbnb also encourage hosts to enable what they call Smart Pricing. The host define a min and max price and the algorithm autonomously determines a price based on supply/demand for similar listings and other parameters. The bracket can be very wide, on my listing they suggest min/max to be 35€ and 150€, while we actually rent the high season at 60€. I guess in case of a specific event and all Airbnbs in the neighborhood are booked, you could also have a 4x multiplier sometimes.

by tempsy 7y ago

grmtony 7y ago

As a frequent business traveler I’ve had great experiences with using Airbnb as an alternative to hotels. Getting a nice Airbnb just helps break up the business travel monotony. Every hotel room looks and feels the same, as we all know. Getting an Airbnb helps me ever so slightly to feel a little bit more at (a) home on business trips.

dannykwells 7y ago
Who needs to feel at home on a business trip? At least hotels don't pretend. Airbnb is like the uncanny Valley of comfort. It's not home, it's not not home. And verrry heterogeneous.
tempsy 7y ago
Yeah, I mean it's fine most of the time, but if something happens (e.g. a delay and you get there at midnight) I like knowing that 1) a hotel is going to be in a busy, well-lit area downtown 2) the lobby will be open and there's going to be someone there to help me and 3) there will probably be a restaurant or bar or something I can go to within the hotel to eat at if there's nothing else around. Again, it goes back to minimization of travel-related risk. Personally there's nothing about staying at someone else's "home" that give me any feeling of being at my "home".

RijilV 7y ago

It really depends. For a business week give me a hotel, I don’t want to deal with weird checkin or and odd setup. If I’m at a remote office for two weeks or more, I want a real kitchen and laundry. Personally I use VRBO rather than Airbnb, but the idea is the same. Don’t know I as a business traveler need special things from a rental site, but it’s a market I won’t fault them for trying to get in on.

ninedays 7y ago

"I'm honestly shocked that business travelers want to stay in AirBnBs." "it almost always makes more sense" "most of the time" "if the hotels are outrageously expensive for whatever reason." I don't understand how you can be so shocked when you, yourself, already listed the reasons why people wouldn't want to stay at a hotel. Because for all the time where it doesn't "almost always makes more sense". I remember one time where I traveled to a big city for a couple of days and had the unfortunate experience to find out there was a big conference during the week and the prices of hotels have increased dramatically (making it non affordable for almost all human being) Airbnb can be a superior offer in that case. You will not witness the same degree of price discrepancy between the price of airbnb room and a hotel room (a hotel room price can change to 4x its normal price in case of special event in a city).

jobigoud 7y ago
> a hotel room price can change to 4x its normal price in case of special event in a city Airbnb also encourage hosts to enable what they call Smart Pricing. The host define a min and max price and the algorithm autonomously determines a price based on supply/demand for similar listings and other parameters. The bracket can be very wide, on my listing they suggest min/max to be 35€ and 150€, while we actually rent the high season at 60€. I guess in case of a specific event and all Airbnbs in the neighborhood are booked, you could also have a 4x multiplier sometimes.