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Why are they using AirBnb rather than hotels, is it just price or is there something hotels don’t offer?
by uxhacker 5y ago
Why are they using AirBnb rather than hotels, is it just price or is there something hotels don’t offer?
- bpodgursky 5y agoWould you rather have your offsite in (1) a Tahoe ski cabin (2) a beach house or (3) the Holiday Inn conference center suite 2C?
- brendoelfrendo 5y agoYeah, hotels have really gone downhill since Holiday Inn achieved monopoly status and became the only option for hotel stays.
- joefife 5y agoKitchens. Away on business for a few days, would you prefer to cook healthy meals in your own kitchen and relax, or do you want yet another calorific restaurant meal?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Kiro 5y agoFor me, cooking is the opposite of relaxing. Being away is the perfect excuse for not having to cook at all.
- mrgill 5y agoAlways ordering take away can get very expensive, very fast. And very unhealthy unless, again, you're willing to spend good money. Cooking yourself is way cheaper. Sure, if money is not a problem, have someone else cook so you spend more time on improving the product/relaxing.
- cblconfederate 5y agoi ll take the latter in small quantities thanks
- fooker 5y agoDefinitely yet another delicious meal from a local restaurant, hopefully a cuisine I have never tried or at least cooked.
- corty 5y agoIt really depends on where you end up and what the local culture is around food, cooking and restaurants. I've been to places where restaurants are stellar, but I've also been where you would only get dogfood. Where, when asking locals about eating out, you get an answer like "only tourists are that stupid".
- Cederfjard 5y agoOut of curiosity, mind sharing where you were told the latter? I know what you’re talking about, but I’ve never been anywhere where it’s quite like that.
- dagw 5y agoRestaurant meals! No question. I cook 90+% of our dinners at home as it is. Getting a chance to go to a restaurant is easily the best part of business trips.
- Dyac 5y agoI was shocked when I went to the US that motels don't tend to have kitchens. In Australia and NZ, motels have at least a small kitchen area, if not a whole kitchen-diner room, and are like a small apartment really.
- dagw 5y agoIn Australia and NZ, motels have at least a small kitchen area I drove from Adelaide to Sydney via the Great Ocean Road a couple of years ago and basically none of the motels/hotels we stayed at had kitchen areas.
- pfranz 5y agoThere are a lot of hotels that offer kitchenettes. Generally, they're long term rentals, but you can get them for a few nights, as well. I'm guessing the large common spaces and more laid back environment are a big draws as well. I just did an AirBnb with a group of families for just under a week. We almost exclusively at in and the logistics around food was a lot of work. It was probably exacerbated because it was about 20 people with a huge range of ages (many with particular preferences), but not many dietary restrictions. We were concerned upfront about extra food or waste at the end of the trip. Every lunch was "leftovers or sandwiches," the last few meals were also leftovers, and we still threw out an embarrassing amount of food (and had at least 2-3 trips to the grocery store to restock). Want ketchup, salad dressing, or need paprika? Odds are you'll buy a bottle and toss the rest. Decide you want to eat out? You probably have a meals worth of food at home you won't need. We also spent time upfront figuring out if the kitchen had what we needed; like a toaster or a grill. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of cooking at these places. Their knives often suck, the layout isn't usually great, and they'll have cheap cutting boards or the dishwasher won't work. If it works for people, great. I imagine what works in practice is a few small things to cook at the AirBnB (like eggs or sandwiches) and mix that with takeout. And be ok with the waste and cost (traveling is usually pretty wasteful, anyway).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pj_mukh 5y agoAlso living/gathering room. Some hotels with home suite style rooms have this I guess.
- weird-eye-issue 5y agoLast thing I'm going to be doing is cooking while I'm on a business trip. I don't have the time or desire to do that. But kudos to people who find the time and energy to cook their own healthy meals
- fudged71 5y agoYeah I completely agree with this, as long as one or two people in your group are good cooks. It's low stress, great conversation starter, gets the crowd together, and in some cases an opportunity for teamwork.
- baby 5y agoI’m one of them, who only book airbnb when I travel for work. It’s just nicer imo. For the same price it feels cleaner, more homely, better location, more stuff (I lucked out recently and got a series of airbnb with like all the streaming services), etc.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y agoMy main gripe with B&Bs as opposed to hotels is that not all of them issue invoices, at least in Europe. Whenever I order via AirBnb or Booking.com, the main invoice has to be issued by the owners themselves (AirBinb will issue the invoice for their service fee only). At least this is how it was before the pandemic. With hotels, I never had any problems. At Hilton, my invoice waited upon arrival. In smaller Italian hotels, they would issue it at the last moment. But it was there. With B&Bs, I had to depend on my luck. They usually said they would issue the invoice, but sometimes they wouldn't. And it's hard to pressure someone living a few countries away.
- mrgill 5y agoI think the email confirmation with the payment is enough for tax purposes?
- KptMarchewa 5y agoIdk about other countries, but in Poland you need special VAT invoice that mentioned your company by name and tax id. Regular receipts don't have that.
- brnt 5y agoIn certain jurisdictions only documents signed with the blood of firstborns will do. O, and please dont forget the stamps. All of them. O, and make sure the initial of your second name isn't missing, otherwise you might well be someone entirely different and we couldn't even think of processing the request. And that's just to get reimbursed, for tax purposes we have an extra set of requirements. Of course.
- gchadwick 5y agoPresumably they're hoping to get some team bonding out of this. Everyone in their own hotel rooms doesn't make for a good bonding experience. Everyone with a private space to go back to along with some nice communal living areas works a lot better. Using a hotel would feel like going to a conference or any other usual business travel and the companies doing this are likely looking for a different feel.
- pcthrowaway 5y agoHere are the reasons I've generally preferred airbnbs over hotels: - price is often better - more control over location / amenities - transparent discounts for longer stays. I don't need housekeeping every day, I do need to able to afford a month of lodging sometimes though - Having a kitchen is really nice. Even if you don't want to cook, it's nice to be able to make coffee, drinks, microwave something Also, I've found wifi connectivity so much less reliable at hotels than at Airbnbs, but I'm excited about the "host wifi check" tool mentioned in this article
- buro9 5y agoIndividual hotel rooms are expensive, single bed shared hotel rooms lack any private space, but apartments can be cheaper than both whilst offering individuals private bedrooms. For multiday stays being able to just have a normal sized fridge and a kitchen worktop can mean breakfasts and lunches can be done for very cheap... meaning modest sustenance budgets cover evening meals more comfortably. For stays that straddle weekends the locations of apartments can lead to happier employee weekends than them waking up in the business district due to zoning placing the hotels there (which in a lot of American cities felt like it translated into the eateries being closed at the weekend and only the homeless roaming around as most people live in suburbs that have all the life). Bear in mind most travellers will not have rental vehicles, and public transport can prove indecipherable and confusing, so a lot of people travelling for business are on foot and if they're in a nicer suburb their non-working time can be very comfortable.
- bakuninsbart 5y agoAdding to that, it is more flexible compared to a hotel on who and how many people can come. At the startups I worked at, these meetups where usually a weekend of drinking/barbecuing at a lake-house close to the city we are based in, which means people can stay over night, but don't have to, and few things have to be rigorously planned.
- sokoloff 5y agoCooking meals together and having the natural rhythm of multiple days mean that not every topic has to wrap up in the 55 minute slot allocated to it. I was initially skeptical but am a complete convert to the 3-day, 2-night minimum, stay in a house, grocery shop together and cook every meal in format. (Practical exception as needed, such as for 4/3 trips where the first evening is a late arrival and a dinner out works better.) The number of topics that got addressed/finalized while chopping vegetables or around a fire pit in the evening is likely at least equal to what we did discussing in structured setting in the living room. (And yes, it’s a way to make 40 hours of “work” fit into 3 days, while being cheaper than 3 days times 7 people in hotels and restaurants. They can be exhausting and if you don’t like your team in the office, it’s probably not going to get better as ersatz flat mates.)
- christkv 5y agoWe would do this gathering all the leads and architects and spend Monday to Friday at a remote nice cabin to plan out the year with lots of breaks to do whatever you wanted no forced interaction other than the 4-5h of focused work each day. The goal was to make sure people knew each other and personal relationships formed. It helped people understand each other roles and better map their action to stakeholders. It reduced the friction a lot since big architectural decisions would have buy in from everyone.
- voidfunc 5y agoReading this entire post and I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. Love my job, will go the extra mile if necessary and have had many many positive interactions and experiences with coworkers but I do not want cohabitate with any of them ever for any period of time. Get me a fucking hotel room and ill be happy as a clam between 9am and 7pm for work stuff. Take me out for dinner and drinks if you want some informal team building. Dont torture me though by making me hang out, cook with and sleep near my coworkers for the other 10-12hrs of the day.
- alistairSH 5y agoCaptive audience. Everybody is forced to work/socialize 24 hours/day for as long as the retreat lasts. Sure, cooking for a group might be less expensive, but I have serious doubts that's a primary reason for using a rental home vs hotel/conference space. And as an aside, as somebody with dietary restrictions, being forced into dining with people who don't share my diet is very off-putting. Add in my co-workers who are vegetarian, vegan, or completely boring (bland, beige American food is all they'll eat) and it's a nightmare. No thanks.