The Power of Airbnb Unique Stays

Over the past few years especially, one category of property that has been absolutely taking over the STR market has been the broader category of “unique stays”. Whether it’s a dwelling built into a natural cave, a geodesic dome, a treehouse, or a hilltop A-frame, both customers and platforms have been massively favoring these types of stays, with much higher prices, better occupancy rates, and great reviews. According to Airbnb themselves, hosts with unique stays earned over $1 billion on Airbnb in 2021 alone, giving an idea of the scale and success of these property types.

Keep reading to get a better picture of what’s going on with these unique stays, and how you can get involved.

What is a unique stay?

While “unique stays”, per se have only been specifically categorized as such for a few years on Airbnb and other platforms, they’ve existed pretty much since the platforms were founded. The basic idea is this: some properties offer very distinct advantages, experiences, aesthetics, or locations that really set them apart from other properties. This could mean a lake-front property with a dock and boats, an off-grid geodesic dome mountain house or treehouse, a house built into a cave, or houses with unique amenities like rock climbing walls.

The options are inherently endless, the only real restraint is whether it’s a kind of unique that guests are going to care about and find appealing.

While not inherent to them, the majority of these properties (or at least the top performers) also feature all of the other trappings of luxury stays: high-quality mattresses and bedding, premium coffee/snacks/amenities, luxury toiletries, etc. The combination of the traditional luxury trimmings with the wow factor that many of these properties provide is what truly puts them over the top for many guests.

Fairly early on in their development, Airbnb realized that these distinct property types (you can search by category for boats, ski-in/ski-out, farm stays, treehouses, etc. natively in Airbnb) were a big part of what people liked about the service, as opposed to staying in a generic hotel.

Over the years, Airbnb has made a number of changes to reward these types of stays, and make it easier for customers to find them. They’ve simplified filtering functions and categorization so that these home types are easier to find, and made them more prominently visible on the platform for customers.

Why unique stays?

At the end of the day, although amenities are certainly still important (guests aren’t going to be happy sleeping on a lumpy cot), what makes these properties special to people is the emotions and experiences associated with them. People are much more willing to shell out to wake up to a gorgeous sunrise over the mountains than for a stale hotel continental breakfast.

It’s very simple: these one-off, impressive, wow-factor properties invoke much more powerful emotional experiences for guests, which at the end of the day, is what they’re looking for. Everyone’s already stayed at too many generic town-houses, so people are looking for that next thing that’s going to invoke that true sense of awe, wonder, or inspiration.

Fundamentally as well, this gets at the core of why Airbnb’s/STR’s are truly appealing to guests in the first place. Let’s face it, hotels are almost always going to be more convenient, with generally more accessible locations, quick and easy check-in, a 24/7 concierge, and maybe a restaurant/bar on the ground floor. And it’s not as though an Airbnb is going to be appreciably cheaper, in many cases actually more expensive.

While there may be edge cases where convenience is a big factor (a ski-in, ski-out house for example), it shouldn’t be the most compelling offering of a property.

When convenience is the main concern, there are going to be better options. This isn’t to say convenience doesn’t matter. Hosts should always look to remove friction wherever possible. However, it does mean that hosts should focus on making sure that their properties DO appeal to this, wherever possible.

At the end of the day, what it comes down to is providing better hospitality. It’s about fostering compelling emotional experiences, whether it’s inspiration, a sense of discovery, comfort, awe, wonder, or simple joy. When people visit your property, how do they feel?

Benefits of unique stays.

The benefits of unique stays for owners, at the end of the day, are quite simple. The platform algorithms are going to reward you, and give guests more opportunity to find you, plus guests are going to have better experiences and leave better reviews, setting you up for even more success.

This adds up very directly to higher nightly rates and higher occupancy rates, which very simply, gets you more money.

That said, the benefits are bigger than just up-front performance. When you have a truly unique property, it becomes much easier to build out your direct bookings with new or returning guests, giving you much more stability and insulating you somewhat from the whims of the big STR platforms. A strong direct booking business is the holy grail for many STR’s, giving you much more stability, cutting out the middle man, and adding significantly to the valuation of your property.

How to capitalize on this trend.

So with all of this hype and benefit, how do you get involved? There’s a couple ways to be able to.

The quickest way to get involved is simply going to be buying an existing property, such as a cabin, a lake-front cottage, or a ski-in ski-out lodge that already has some wow factor that would qualify it. While this is going to be simple and easy, it’s often not going to be cheap, and may put you in a place where you have limited flexibility with what you can do with it.

An alternative to this is to look for opportunities to build from the ground up. Maybe you come across a piece of land in the mountains with a decrepit mobile home on it and build something that would automatically qualify, like an A-frame cabin. While this obviously gives you endless flexibility, it can be expensive, depending on the route you choose to go, and it’s almost always going to take quite some time, which in the STR game very directly means money. The longer a property sits empty and unfinished, the more revenue you’re missing out on.

A final alternative is to simply develop an existing home or property into a unique stay through amenities. While this definitely has its limitations (you’re going to have a hard time pulling off ski-in ski-out in the middle of a city), there are a few key types that are going to be inherently possible at most properties, for example Airbnb’s Apartment Therapy (high end design oriented apartments), Amazing Pools (pretty straightforward), Play (arcade games, pool/ping pong tables, etc), Bed and Breakfasts, Creative Spaces (music/art studios), and many more. Again, the limit is creativity, there are infinite options for any property. A great option here is to get in touch with a consultancy or furnishing company that’s able to set your property up to qualify for you (like us).

Regardless of the properties you own, there’s always potential to develop them into something more compelling for your guests. Remember, at the end of the day, what we’re doing is providing hospitality, and creating memorable experiences for guests.

As always, if you’d like to learn more generally about this, have some specific questions, or have a project or property you need some help on, get in touch with us, and we’re happy to talk.