Clarksville, a historic district of Austin, Texas, has lately emerged as a stylish dining and shopping enclave. Among the area’s most compelling new businesses is La Embajada, a design shop housed in a 1923 Craftsman bungalow. Combining the hospitality and interiors expertise of its founder, Raul Cabra — who has designed tableware for some of Mexico City’s most celebrated restaurants, including Rosetta and Pujol — La Embajada presents a refined, regionally diverse selection of Mexico’s artisanal offerings. A series of small rooms display vintage and contemporary furniture, from stately midcentury armchairs and 1970s glass sconces to a minimalist agave fiber rug by the Oaxaca-based textile artist Trine Ellitsgaard. The house is also an actual residence. Cabra often stays in the bedroom up the creaky stairs, and he’s recently made it available for short-term stays (bookings include a daily basket of baked goods from Austin’s Swedish Hill). Guests can purchase the room’s handmade décor, such as a pair of sleek bedside lamps in milky white onyx, a 1960s La Malinche dresser and a bedspread from a Michoacan manufacturer that once supplied Herman Miller. Downstairs, glassware, candles and gifts fill a section modeled after a typical general store in a small Mexican town. But La Embajada’s heart is its inviting kitchen, where visiting chefs cook elaborate meals and staff prepare ice cream and coffee. In another twist, every bespoke detail — including a hammered copper sink, caramel-colored tiles and waxed pine cabinets — can be custom-ordered for one’s own home.
Is Vrbo's Nick Saban Ad Trolling Airbnb Rooms?
28.08.2024 - 23:39 / skift.com / Brian Chesky / Dennis Schaal
Vrbo has a new ad featuring legendary Alabama University football coach and current ESPN analyst Nick Saban as a nightmare vacation rental host. He soaks in a hot tub with with a clearly unsettled couple seeking privacy, tells them they can shower for five minutes maximum, and warns there’s “no fun” allowed.
With around eight seconds remaining in the one-minute ad, a narrator says, “Meanwhile, at a Vrbo, when other vacation rentals make you share your turf with a host, try one you have all to yourself.” It finishes with a family seated at a table on an outdoor deck with a view of a lake or an ocean in the background.
Vrbo’s ads over the past couple of years have been taking veiled pot shots at Airbnb, and this one, which is called Relax, Host Free Stays, seems to be no exception. It’s main message is that guests shouldn’t have to put up with a lack of privacy and overbearing hosts.
Airbnb launched Airbnb Rooms to much fanfare in the summer of 2023. Sharing a room in a host’s vacation rental or apartment was billed as a affordable alternative for budget minded guests, and it comes with the opportunity to meet a cool host and to soak in the local vibe.
For example, this Airbnb listing in Avon, Colorado, touts the fact that guests can “stay with Nicki,” an esthetician.
Airbnb Rooms hasn’t been one of the company’s biggest hits.
“The reality is the biggest issue with Airbnb Rooms is just a small percent of our business,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told financial analysts during an earnings call in August. “It’s a very small percentage. So even if it – no matter how fast it grows, it’s off a very small base. It’s however going to be started by providing a room in house. It’s very affordable. It’s very popular for Gen Z, but it is off a very small base. And so you’re not going to see a major change to the growth rate of the company based on that.”
Airbnb had no comment on the latest Vrbo ad.
Vrbo’s Nick Saban ad will be aired nationally in the U.S. on TV starting this weekend, according to an Expedia Group spokesperson. Vrbo is an Expedia Group vacation rental brand.
The final image in the Vrbo ad includes its logo and the words, “Official Sponsor of the College Football Playoff.” It also sponsors the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl.
The campaign will also feature out-of home advertising, “stadium signage, partnerships and other activations,” the Expedia Group spokesperson said.
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