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AirBNB opportunities due to rampant deception?

Xavier X

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View attachment 40501

This guy has a point about airbnbs having a silly model in some respects

Haha, the guy in that video sounds like a moron. There are all kinds of airbnb listings, even hotels. So if all he wants is to get instant booking, arrive at 2 am and trash the place on his way out, he can still get that on airbnb.

Only difference is he'll be held accountable in his reviews. Which brings us to what I suspect is his main gripe.
 
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Ronak

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Had both great and poor experiences with airbnb/vrbo.

When it's good, which is 75% of the time, it can be an amazing experience. The other 25%, usually they have your back.

If you're traveling with family, it introduces an element of uncertainty- we had to scramble last minute and actually ended up leaving a city early because the accommodations were so poor. When you get in at 10pm and the place is filthy, you could be left with some poor choices. Then again, the same thing can happen with hotels, but usually you know what to expect, and there is better recourse- my favorite was being upgraded to a multi room suites on 2 occasions in China- felt like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone 2.
 

Kak

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MTF

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I'll take my current view in a quiet rural valley in a simple but nice house every single day over your resort in the most exclusive superior room :D

1.jpg
 
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MTF

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I find it funny how the thread started with someone shitting on AirBNB and then several posts later it's defending how great AirBNB is:rofl:

Because it was taken out of context. If you took the time to read the posts carefully you'd see that the reason why I started defending Airbnb was twofold:
  • I still love Airbnb and am mostly angry at the dishonest people who operate there, not Airbnb the company in itself (though they could make some improvements to filter shitty listings). Airbnb always got my back when I dealt with dishonest hosts. I can't imagine my travels without Airbnb. I didn't want anyone to hate the company because I had several bad experiences in a row. At the same time, I wouldn't mind a solid competitor to Airbnb (currently, there are none that are international).
  • A few people mentioned hotels as an alternative to which I had to respond stating why to me it's not an alternative at all. It's like telling a guy who loves driving 4x4 but sometimes struggles to find a good new 4x4 car to try a convertible instead because they're flashy and cool.
 

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I'll take my current view in a quiet rural valley in a simple but nice house every single day over your resort in the most exclusive superior room :D

View attachment 40512
What do you do out there if you don’t smoke cigars? Looks like a personalized hell. Needs a few totes of acid to dissolve the organic matter.

7E759CB1-BD40-4B8A-BE27-AED297F6D2B8.jpeg

This is what it looks like when you turn the camera around. :rofl:

Let’s look inside this beauty!

82A781CB-20E6-43E9-A1F6-815FF34112A5.jpeg

I can see the appeal! The simple life. :rofl:
 
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Successful Steve

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Fortunately I’ve never had any issues with any Airbnb, from the Smoky Mountains to Moscow, I’ve enjoyed them all. Just stayed at a nice Airbnb cabin in West Va a week ago.

I also only exclusively use Turo to rent my cars. I have gotten some dirty cars, but so had Enterprise given me dirty cars too.
 

Salossa

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They hope that you will have nowhere to go and you will agree to any terms.
 

VTK

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We have a listing for an AirBnB Experience and from an INSIDERS perspective of the Tours & Activities industry, I'd say it's the single best platform for researching a good activity in a city. The rating system is brutal and unforgiving for operators and if you're not consistently providing some serious value you will not be in the highest-rated and reviewed experiences on the platform.

That's different from their accommodation sector but still, thought it might be useful to know.
 
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MTF

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Coming back to the original thread idea, here are some of my observations for potential business opportunities:

1. Houses (specifically houses because apartments are way easier to find) with outdoor areas (gardens, terraces) that are equipped for wealthier digital nomads who want to rent the place for at least a month (fast Internet, privacy, nice kitchen, comfortable beds, etc.).

This may be a relatively small niche but I'm pretty sure there are more people like me who are happy paying a premium for a nice house in a quiet area with privacy. I don't want an apartment and I don't want a house with neighbors three feet away on each side as is often the case in the neighborhoods with vacation villas.

2. A local Airbnb alternative with hand-picked and well-filtered places of a specific nature (for example, rural getaways) that pass strict quality criteria.

There's something like that in Poland called Slowhop.com: Skocz w miejsce z klimatem (there's an English version so check it out) where you can rent awesome countryside getaways. As far as I know, many of the listings they have are exclusive to their site which shows they are pretty good at competing with Airbnb.

They have a blog where they regularly highlight the best places depending on what they offer. For example, here's a list of places with large windows and beautiful views: 12 slowhopowych miejsc z dużym oknem i pięknym widokiem

Check this place out:

3. Speaking of digital nomads, that's maybe a bit less related to the topic, but with an ever-growing number of countries offering digital nomad visas, you could pick one of these markets and focus on offering accommodation, help with the visa, help setting up a new (temporary) life with stuff like gym passes, car rental, bike rental, etc. You could even just be a guy who's on the ground and checks in person the places your clients are interested in renting to make sure there are no hidden surprises there.
 

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