How do you see the future of hosting in private homes?

Quincy
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

How do you see the future of hosting in private homes?

Quincy_0-1613651612238.png

Hello everyone, 

 

With short-term rentals momentarily on hold in several places due to the situation surrounding COVID, we've seen hosts across the globe offering more long term rentals.  

 

I've heard of some hosts trying to plan ahead for the future of hosting in their homes which can be quite uncertain at these times. However, let's keep our heads up and look forward to the future where we can (hopefully) continue hosting guests from all around the world again. 

 

How do you see the future of hosting in private homes? Is there anything that you have been specifically preparing for once things start to open up again? 

 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this. 

 

Quincy 

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49 Replies 49
Quincy
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

That's.... a lot of toilet paper @John5097!

 

 

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@Quincy I still get a pack every time I'm at the grocery store! Of course for a while it was hard to find  cleaning supplies or TP, and was lucky I had about a few weeks worth, so once supplies were back in stock got some extra a little at a time. When a hurricane is approaching all the shelves empty of food and everything.   

Robbie54
Level 10
North Runcton, United Kingdom

@John5097  ever wondered why it was hard to find cleaning supplies or toilet paper? Because vast swathes of people panic bought products that left vulnerable people without. I knew a few people that did that unnecessarily so, stocked up on bread flour for example when they didn't even bake.  However at the start of the 2nd lockdown supermarkets were full of everything, as people realised they didn't need to stock up. Strange times...

@Robbie54 yes I think everyone was aware there was a rush on groceries and supplies. Everything had limits for a long while so that helped. Not sure there is an excuse for the lack of mask for medial workers. Thankfully cases are dropping everywhere but has has been going on a long time now and could take years to vaccinate the entire world. I'm definitely keeping a few extra supplies in stock. Hurricanes really make you plan ahead. A little preparation can go a long way. 

Dale711
Level 10
Paris, France

Salut @Quincy,

The future of hosting in Private home shared living is surely Bright.

 

As more people move to urban areas in search of better lives and jobs,

our cities will grow like never before — making the world feel ever more crowded. Today, 

 

Try imagining the world in just over a decade’s time, almost 10 per cent of the world’s population will be living in just 41 megacities — those with more than 10m inhabitants — with Paris and New York estimated to be home to nearly 20m people, Shanghai to almost 30 m, and Tokyo is over 40 m.

 

Hosting in a private home and shared living, shared room. Range of things to be prepared

  • Arrange to the seat of chairs and tables to be at least 6 feet (2 meters) apart during shared meals or other events.  
  • Alter schedules to reduce mixing and close contact, such as staggering meal and activity times and forming small groups that regularly participate at the same times and do not mix.
  • Minimize traffic in enclosed spaces, such as elevators and stairwells. Consider limiting the number of individuals in an elevator at one time and designating one-directional stairwells, if possible.
  • Ensure that social distancing can be maintained in shared rooms, such as television, game, or exercise rooms
  • Make sure that shared rooms in the facility have good airflow from an air conditioner or an opened window.
  • Consider working with building maintenance staff to determine if the building ventilation system can be modified to increase ventilation rates or the percentage of outdoor air that circulates into the system.
  • Clean and disinfect shared areas (laundry facilities, elevators, shared kitchens, shared bathroom, exercise rooms, dining rooms) and frequently touched surfaces using products, more than once a day if possible.
  • Guidance and directives from state and local officials and local health departments
  • How your facility is helping to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
  • How additional information will be shared, and where to direct questions.
  • How to stay healthy, including video, fact sheet, and posters with information on COVID-19 symptoms and how to stop the spread of germs, how to wash your hands, and what to do if you are sick.

@Dale711   I think you've just described the future of hostels, rather than private homes.

Helen3
Level 10
Bristol, United Kingdom

Interesting @Dale711 

 

In the UK we have found the opposite as more people are working from home and as businesses find they no longer need expensive office space people are moving out of our major cities and have less reason to travel to them for work. 

I agree with  @Anonymous  your checklist sounds more suited to hostels then a room/s in a shared home

@Dale711 

You are probably right about major cities growing as they have adequate public mass transportation. In Seattle this dog takes the bus to the dog park and back by herself. In contrast a lot of growing smaller cities hit a wall with urban sprawl with gridlock traffic. Working from home also helps, but without mass transit roads can't keep up with demand. 
https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/dog-seattle-takes-bus-visit-dog-park-28208203 

@John5097  An additional obstacle to urban growth in the US is the proliferation of anti-density zoning laws, which severely limit new construction in the places where it's needed most. So you have the feedback loop where cities have to grow outward instead of upward, but the absence of affordable housing in the urban centers with good mass transit pushes lower-income workers out of the major cities and into car-dependent smaller ones. 

 

OK OK, I guess the future of urbanism is a very different topic 🙂

@Anonymous 

 

Absolutely that is often a contentious debate that flairs up between all the various community organizations and community leaders. Each city is at its own growth level. Ours right now promotes both but the transit system is completely inadequate despite raising local taxes. There is good doc on how New York developed its subway system in about 1920. Not because they were liberal but because it was complete gridlock. Our area can't even have subways if we could even afford them because he water is just beneath the surface, but yes this topic could go on and on. However as you say workers getting pushed further and further out, espically in the South East US. 

@Anonymous , your not taking the thread far off the path, its all connected, luckily the US has lots of choices unlike many of the old world epicenters that have lots of people and very little land available.   Covid may actually have hastened a move to the country that has been a long time coming.   Old US Cities which were inappropriately used as congregate centers to  serve the tired and poor handouts have become unsustainable and vestigial at the same time.   Re-rurafication is the answer to decompressing the poverty congestion that ensures those trapped only see folks in the same hopeless/ helpless shape as they.   

 

Government supported housing and projects in big cities were good for Government, thats why they put them there together in little boxes with no room to grow.  It was easier to distribute and communicate with people when a wired telephone at best and a mail box most likely was all we had to keep track of folks that needed services, welfare, food stamps, mental and medical health, education or training.  

 

Like most Business travel and even many offices- thanks to Cell Phones, internet and Zoom, compacting people into poverty silos is not necessary anymore nor is it good for the folks it was designed to assist.    As a proud Ruratarian , I can say that there are lots of villages, towns, lands and places to live out here where there is no wrong side of the tracks and folks of all types, incomes, colors and religions live side by side (with space between to spare) and there are opportunities they would never have in trash compactor inner city colonies that have been the death of so many good people since they were created.   

 

Those of us that live and thrive in the boonies have been living pretty well during the Pandemic not just hanging out in egg carton apartments hoping not to die from the neighbors covid breath in our air ducts.  Our Nation is land rich and resettlement throughout the country is the future that makes sense for all that want a better life for their loved ones, its a pathway to living the American dream not dying in sprawl and urban decay.   Thats my 2 Phennig for what thats worth Andrew, Stay well, JR

@Melodie-And-John0  In the US, if you follow back to their origins most of the zoning laws and development policies that created the concentrated urban poverty and extreme inequality you're describing, what you see laid bare is a history of often-explicit racial animus. The flesh of a city is always young and dynamic, but the bones are old - and without an extraordinary amount of intervention, the sociopolitical diseases of the segregationist past will keep leeching out and infecting the patient. 

 

Well, the pandemic is one hell of an intervention.

 

I'm an urbanite by choice, and even in lockdown I would rather have in an egg carton in a big city than a palace in the boonies. But cities are also full of people who would prefer life in a community more like yours, if it afforded opportunities equal to their skills and interests.  And smaller towns are also full of young folks who are bored out of their minds and would love to live in the city, but the cost of housing puts it out of reach. So the best outcome here would be for enough skilled remote workers to decamp to the boonies that cities become more affordable to those who love them. A broader dispersal of the tech industry from the Bay Area is something I gladly welcome.

 

Coming back around to the topic, I also hope to see similar trends in tourism here in Europe. If the heavy concentration of tourists in the capitals is dispersed outward to lesser-known towns, that opens up an opportunity for former tourist-trap neighborhoods to evolve into something more appealing to locals. But I don't foresee this as a long-term trend after lockdowns are over. The young people who fled cities under lockdown are still longing for all the choices they used to have for dining, culture, relationships, and nightlife, and rural places aren't about to reinvent themselves to fulfill those desires. Many of the people who in prior years might have taken their 2-week vacations to do a 5-city Euro Trip will soon become digital nomads spending 2 weeks in the same 5 cities and working from their Airbnb. I  don't plan to accommodate this - when this pandemic is over I don't ever want my home to be a full-time office again.

Debra300
Level 10
Gros Islet, Saint Lucia

What I really enjoy about this community is when hosts share their hosting preferences, which often are profoundly influenced by their rental type and location.  I agree with what @Anonymous said regarding choices of living in larger cities vs rural or small town.  I am actually on the opposite end of the spectrum from him in regards to wanting guests who will stay in my spaces for a few weeks at a time.  I think that the area where I live offers more than what can truly be appreciated in a few days, and welcome people to see more of what's going on than just the beach and Pitons.

 

In my own personal traveling style I prefer autonomy, and choosing when to interact with hosts.  This was taken into consideration when I built the house, and purposely have the rental spaces on a different floor than where I live.  For this reason, I want my guests to be self-sufficient in their suites, and will gladly interact with them in common spaces on the premises.  I don't need to sit down with them  in my living space for us to become more acquainted.  

 

I will admit that I've not read most of this thread, and this may have been mentioned already, but I do believe that homeshare hosting will see an increase in the minimum length of stay due to the additional level of cleaning and down time between bookings that many hosts have incorporated into their business model.  

Helen427
Level 10
Auckland, New Zealand

Oh @Dale711 that sounds like much the same common sense way of living as we do today, with the exception of far too higher population ..

It's interesting reading through early 1900's archives because some explorers and academics assumed through no fault of their own, the simply didn't have the means/ resources to know, that because a land mass could accommodate xyz number of people that the population was the same.

In today's day and age, academics have zilch excuse for getting that information incorrect

 

@Quincy @John5097 @Dale711 @Paul1255 

 

Life here in New Zealand is much the same, we all still give each other a hug or a handshake, life carries on as normal, with the exception of our dearly beloved and missed international travlers

Dale711
Level 10
Paris, France

Salut @Anonymous , @Helen3 ,

 

We provide economy accommodations in dormitory shared room and private room in the listing with the different properties.

 

From last 6 months till present 80 percent are complete guest.

They are mostly local guest from suburbs and other city in France. Professional  and work in Paris for retail outlet, supermarkets, internship and student. 

 

We’re planning strategies and preparing a better guidance, particularly move out some furniture, consideration for common space in our facility, to prevent spread of COVID-19 in housing setting.


Create plan to maintain safe operations in shared housing, clean and disinfect shared area to prepare future opening for tourists and local guests.