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Depends where you go. NYC sure but in a smaller place I still usually prefer to have a house or ideally a cabin rather than staying at the sad chain hotel next

Depends where you go. NYC sure but in a smaller place I still usually prefer to have a house or ideally a cabin rather than staying at the sad chain hotel next to the highway

woodpanel 3y ago
Well the sad chain hotel next to the highway at least doesn't hyper-gentrify the neighbours out.
ghaff 3y ago
Most hotel chains are boring but they're mostly there to mostly not take away from the experience of wherever you're visiting or passing through. For the most part, I value predictability of accommodation over the possibility that it may be exceptional (or awful).
- ethbr1 3y ago
  I think this (experiential vs bland) and parent (urban vs rural) are huge components of the AirBnB experience. Generally speaking, most people prefer bed and breakfast experiences at their best: - Interesting home - Home furnishings / kitchen - Optional home cooked meals - Local recommendations - In a residential community However, there are only so many of those. Especially in urban areas, where an efficient supply of hotels already existed. Far fewer actual bed and breakfasts than AirBnB needs, once it went public. Consequently, it pulled an eBay/Amazon/Etsy and lowered its standards to increase volume to drive revenue. And in doing so, diluted and devalued their own product, because the worst experiences are synonymous with the best. What AirBnB should have done was recognize that they want to provide fundamentally different things: {Boutique bed and breakfast experiences} that meet strict standards but have lower volume (especially in urban areas) {Bland housing} that meets minimum standards but has higher volume Not doing so was an egregious marketing and product design failure on their part.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Yeah. I've certainly stayed at B&B's/small inns--especially outside of cities on vacation--and have generally appreciated the experience. Some were listed on AirBnB although that's not how I booked them 99% of the time. Not sure that "good"/vetted B&Bs is a VC-scale business model. I do book trips through agencies that arrange housing at places they've had experience with (doing so at the moment) but that's basically a specialized travel agency-level scale model--not a VC one.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      Agreed. And therein lays the bait-and-switch that AirBnB was forced to pull -- we'll market the best of our properties, but the average experience will be far worse. That's not a winning brand formula. Chain hotels, love them or hate them, are more honest about exactly what you're going to get.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        >Chain hotels, love them or hate them, are more honest about exactly what you're going to get. Yep. I'm almost certainly not going to single out my whatever Marriott brand chain hotel as one of the highlights of my trip. And, maybe I had a decent view out my window and maybe I didn't. But I pretty much knew what I was getting. There were almost certainly no issues with checking in if my flight was delayed. And I could leave my luggage at the desk if I wanted to walk around before departing the city. But it's a case where "meets expectations" is what I'm looking for. I get that others, especially traveling with friends or family, have different needs than hotels are generally setup to cater to and that's fine. And if someone with local knowledge can book me a place with more character that's generally good too. But I admit that neither I nor my parents when I was growing up ever felt a need to cook meals where I was staying.
        ethbr1 3y ago
        It finally clicked for me when my father pointed out that most hotels weren't in the business of providing luxury, but rather consistency. In the same way that McDonald's is. One newer Marriott brand that always flummoxed me was Moxy. Until I stayed in a few in Europe and realized "Oh, this is a Marriott hostel." Which we don't have the underlying reference for in the US.

Depends where you go. NYC sure but in a smaller place I still usually prefer to have a house or ideally a cabin rather than staying at the sad chain hotel next to the highway

woodpanel 3y ago

Well the sad chain hotel next to the highway at least doesn't hyper-gentrify the neighbours out.

ghaff 3y ago

Most hotel chains are boring but they're mostly there to mostly not take away from the experience of wherever you're visiting or passing through. For the most part, I value predictability of accommodation over the possibility that it may be exceptional (or awful).

ethbr1 3y ago
I think this (experiential vs bland) and parent (urban vs rural) are huge components of the AirBnB experience. Generally speaking, most people prefer bed and breakfast experiences at their best: - Interesting home - Home furnishings / kitchen - Optional home cooked meals - Local recommendations - In a residential community However, there are only so many of those. Especially in urban areas, where an efficient supply of hotels already existed. Far fewer actual bed and breakfasts than AirBnB needs, once it went public. Consequently, it pulled an eBay/Amazon/Etsy and lowered its standards to increase volume to drive revenue. And in doing so, diluted and devalued their own product, because the worst experiences are synonymous with the best. What AirBnB should have done was recognize that they want to provide fundamentally different things: {Boutique bed and breakfast experiences} that meet strict standards but have lower volume (especially in urban areas) {Bland housing} that meets minimum standards but has higher volume Not doing so was an egregious marketing and product design failure on their part.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Yeah. I've certainly stayed at B&B's/small inns--especially outside of cities on vacation--and have generally appreciated the experience. Some were listed on AirBnB although that's not how I booked them 99% of the time. Not sure that "good"/vetted B&Bs is a VC-scale business model. I do book trips through agencies that arrange housing at places they've had experience with (doing so at the moment) but that's basically a specialized travel agency-level scale model--not a VC one.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Agreed. And therein lays the bait-and-switch that AirBnB was forced to pull -- we'll market the best of our properties, but the average experience will be far worse. That's not a winning brand formula. Chain hotels, love them or hate them, are more honest about exactly what you're going to get.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      >Chain hotels, love them or hate them, are more honest about exactly what you're going to get. Yep. I'm almost certainly not going to single out my whatever Marriott brand chain hotel as one of the highlights of my trip. And, maybe I had a decent view out my window and maybe I didn't. But I pretty much knew what I was getting. There were almost certainly no issues with checking in if my flight was delayed. And I could leave my luggage at the desk if I wanted to walk around before departing the city. But it's a case where "meets expectations" is what I'm looking for. I get that others, especially traveling with friends or family, have different needs than hotels are generally setup to cater to and that's fine. And if someone with local knowledge can book me a place with more character that's generally good too. But I admit that neither I nor my parents when I was growing up ever felt a need to cook meals where I was staying.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        It finally clicked for me when my father pointed out that most hotels weren't in the business of providing luxury, but rather consistency. In the same way that McDonald's is. One newer Marriott brand that always flummoxed me was Moxy. Until I stayed in a few in Europe and realized "Oh, this is a Marriott hostel." Which we don't have the underlying reference for in the US.