Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, January 10. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
25.12.2023 - 13:13 / skift.com / Willy Wonka / Star Wars / Srividya Kalyanaraman / James Bond
This year has been an eventful one for short-term rentals around the world: The boom-bust saga and seeming unending fights about new regulations.
One aspect of the business that gets overlooked is themed rentals. Airbnb’s Barbie House in Malibu, the Hobbiton in New Zealand and Booking.com’s latest Willy Wonka-inspired rooms in Los Angeles and New York City are all examples of themed accommodations. Often categorized as “unique stays” for data purposes, these are becoming a sub-category of their own.
Let’s start with Orlando. By some rough estimates, 79% of Orlando’s rental market consists of entire home rentals. Kissimmee, Florida, which is 30 minutes south of Orlando with over 30,000 vacation homes, is touted as the vacation home capital of the world.
It is mandatory for those operating in this busy market to differentiate themselves. And if one can hitch a ride on the backs of Disney World and Universal Studios – why not?
“Themed rentals put you at the top of the category, and you’re just piggybacking off of Universal Studios’, Disney’s and SeaWorld’s marketing dollars to bring people to the area and your property sits at the top and is getting rented,” said Josh Luttrell, co-founder of Home Theme Orlando, which specializes in theme-based renovations.
Luttrell is also a realtor in the area who works exclusively with investors interested in themed short-term rentals. His company, Home Theme Orlando, does room renovations to turn them into specific themes inspired by Star Wars, James Bond, princess castles, superheroes and more.
Home Theme Orlando, founded in 2020, manages 30 themed properties, has done 60 full-home renovations, and about 200 individual rooms.
Oliver Wallace, CEO of Shine Villas, which manages 100 properties in and around Disney World, acknowledges the benefits of Orlando.
“It’s a very busy market with around 60,000 vacation rental properties,” Wallace said. “So we tell owners they’re going to be full at Christmas, at Thanksgiving, and spring break. Orlando never really has an off-season because the weather’s great, and here we have resorts that are built that can only ever be used for short-term rentals, servicing the Orlando theme park family destination.”
If you’re wondering how these themed rentals are for business, let’s break this down: The Barbie house in Malibu, owned by a private family estate, which Airbnb listed for a limited period this summer, may be valued at $10 million due to its connection with the iconic doll, according to Ruby Home, a luxury real estate firm in California.
These rentals are good for branding too: The Barbie house was Airbnb’s most popular listing ever with over 250 million social media impressions.
That’s why Luttrell thinks themed rentals
Good morning from Skift. It’s Wednesday, January 10. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
Short-term rental data provider AirDNA has acquired vacation rental software and channel management system Uplisting for an undisclosed sum. This marks the company’s foray into the property technology business.
During the pandemic, doing jigsaw puzzles became a form of meditation for me (and thousands of others) and I’m still doing them four years later. Puzzles have come a long way from the dusty old landscapes and cat illustrations you may still have on your basement shelf; dozens of new brands (many of them women-owned) have popped up and they’re creating beautiful, unique, statement-making works of art that are fun to do and worthy of framing.
Good morning, and happy new year, folks. Hope 2024 is off to a good start. Today we’re considering the opportunities and challenges of themed rentals, and an important court decision in Hawaii. We’ll also take a peak into 2024 with a forecast.
-18.1 percentage points vs. 2019 for November. Occupancy for Hawai‘i’s hotels was 72.9 percent in November 2023.
The 1.5 billion euros construction project is a state-of-the-art facility projected to generate 3,000 construction jobs and 3,000 permanent jobs that will not only stimulate the local economy of Athens, but will also have an immediate positive impact on Greece’s economy as well.
The survey compared hotel rates across 40 European destinations for December 31, with prices at all hotels with a central location and rated three stars or more in each destination recorded.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour made headlines even before it began — by overwhelming booking platform Ticketmaster and drawing attention even from the U.S. Senate.
It appears American Express' pilot program of a luxury vacation home rental platform is doing well enough to expand to new destinations and invite more members into the mix.
Happy Thanksgiving, folks! I know you’d rather carve a turkey than open your inbox, so we will keep this brief.
AvantStay confirmed late Tuesday afternoon it cut 37 employees, or nearly 10% of its workforce. Responding to a Skift inquiry, the Los Angeles-based vacation rental property manager tied the layoffs to platform and tech improvements, adding that the company is profitable.
If you’ve seen a tweetstorm about the alleged “Airbnb collapse” and are wondering if the data seems too dramatic – you’re not alone, or even wrong.