Day 14: A host who enriches passion by hosting an Experience.

Nutth0
Host Advisory Board Member
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Day 14: A host who enriches passion by hosting an Experience.

 

Hello everyone, my name is Nutth I am a fulltime host. I moved from Bangkok to Chiang Mai and renovated my family’s house to a homestay.  It has been nearly 2 years since I joined Airbnb. My listings are private rooms so I meet my guests in person including spending time with them in the kitchen or at restaurants nearby. After I finish checking in my guests, I always have some spare time left so I decided to join Airbnb Experiences.

 

The differences between hosting guests in your home and Airbnb Experiences is that to be an Airbnb Experiences host you have to submit an idea and the Airbnb team will look into it and approve your photos and the activity you would like to lead. I joined the first group of Airbnb Experiences hosts when they just started in my city. It took about 3 weeks before I got an email saying my experiences will be live! (Nowadays it only takes 2 days to get verified )

 

I host 2 Airbnb experiences. Firstly, "Follow a Monk's Trail to the Sunrise" which is a hike in my backyard that covers a mountain. Secondly, "Snap Chiang Mai with a Vintage camera" an introduction to analogue photography. The idea comes from my previous guest who enjoyed taking pictures in my garden. I host this experience at a time when my Airbnb guests go to explore the city. I then turn my garden into a studio and at the same time also introduce the participants of my experience to the neighbourhood which has the reputation as an artist area. Besides all the experiences that I host, I also enjoy spending some spare time doing some sports with my partner. 

 

Hosting Experiences does not just offer me extra money but it's a great opportunity as nightly rates in South East Asia are very low compared to the USA. Booking a room in my home and hosting experiences is quite similar but with experiences, I get to charge per person and not per night. It feels like I get more reservations without having to build a new room.

 

I get to learn a lot of things that help me improve my hosting skills because of the short timespan of each experience (only 2-3 hr.) I learned how to read the mood of people, and taught them how to be open-minded to each other in a limited amount of time. Luckily, most Airbnb experiences guests are friendly. After 5 months of doing this, I have found people who appreciate what I’m doing in daily life. The replies that I receive also ignite my positive hosting perspective again.

 

Just look around your home or your own daily activities and maybe you'll find inspiration into creating your own idea for an Airbnb experience 🙂

 

Me and my co host with Airbnb experiences guestsMe and my co host with Airbnb experiences guests

 

38 Replies 38
Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Huma0  I think the furniture refinishing idea is a really fun one. And Rebecca's suggestion of the postcards is great.

I don't think it's even necessary for guests to be able to take home what they did. You could have a little side business where you resold the upscaled furniture if your guests did a nice job on it.

I could envision it like this- You pick up small pieces, like a stool or a nightstand (a longer-term "experience" guest might be able to have time to do a bigger piece) for a few pounds. The cost of that, and the materials, paints, etc. used factored into your "experience" fees. Then you advertise refinished pieces for sale. When the piece sells, you take a photo of the piece with the happy buyer next to it and send it to the guest with the profit earned from selling the piece (minus a % for you being the middleman).

So not only would your experience guest enjoy the skill you teach them, they could have a wonderful surprise one day weeks or months later to receive a photo of their piece being rehomed and a little $ showing up in their bank or paypal account. Some may be inspired to start doing refinishing as a profession.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Sarah977careful, you are giving me an excuse to buy lots of vintage furniture, which is a habit I've had to strictly control!

 

Great business model though. I can definitely see it working. One would just have to think about is how to sell the furniture (Ebay sprngs to mind but I've found it takes much longer to sell things on there than it used to) and where to store it in the meantime...

Nutth0
Host Advisory Board Member
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Haha ... now you got an reason to buy more 🙂

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Nutth0

Congratulations Nutth, you have come so far in a couple of years, and I love your photography experience. Coming from the film industry you would have so much professional personal knowledge to pass on to people, many of whom would not have any idea what an analogue camera was!

 

My father was a keen photographer Nutth, and he started shooting 16mm black and white movie film  back in the 1930s. In 1952 he bought a  French CIG colour movie camera, and I still have those 16mm films, of my sister an I as children going to school, and the zoo........ in colour, although they are too brittle to play any more and unfortunately our 16mm projector has become lost along the way.

I am thinking about having these films transfered to digital, but Nutth, it would not be the same.

 

Good on you mate....keep the past alive!

 

Cheers.....Rob

Nutth0
Host Advisory Board Member
Chiang Mai, Thailand

@Robin4 I will do my best! To keep the past alive.

Helen427
Level 10
Auckland, New Zealand

@Nutth0

 

You bring back so many happy memories of when I used to host English Language School children from over the globe, including the delightful Thai people.

 

I got myself into a spot of bother though with the use of the word La Korn when I farewelled my French students  parents after a dinner in my home as it mean "Stupid" in French and "Goodbye" in Thai!

 

I had a great laugh about that one with a recent guest who is of French origin who also thought it was funny.

 

The joy of languages merging

 

All the best

Nutth0
Host Advisory Board Member
Chiang Mai, Thailand

Wow this is cool! I will use this when I meet my French or Canadian guests ( Who speak French ) ... But I will make sure I explain them first!

Quincy
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hey @Nutth0,

 

Lovely topic! 

 

I always find it very interesting to hear about Airbnb Experiences as I haven't seen that many people talking about it here on the CC. 

 

(p.s. I really like the photo:)) 

 

 

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Nutth0
Host Advisory Board Member
Chiang Mai, Thailand

@Quincy  thanks for invitation me to the activity. Also big thanks for helping me corrected my gramma.