tempur mattress - a selling point?

[Laura1395]

Hi

i have a chance of getting a very reasonably prized tempur bed for our airbnb apartment. Personally i love tempur but i am not sure how people on general like it, whether this would be a good spelling point or just something which divides views/deters guests.  Our guests come mainly from far east and Europe. Do you have experience of this, is it worth in terms of guest feedback if the price of the mattress is no problem? Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[Alexandra316]

@Laura1395 I love Tempur beds, and I do have one in the master bedroom at my cottage, which I list on Airbnb (although we mostly just use it ourselves). I haven't specifically had any compliments or complaints on it, so I'm going to say it's neutral. By contrast, I tend to get a lot of compliments about how comfortable my pillow-top mattress is at my primary Airbnb.

I think there's more of a polarized love-it-or-hate-it reaction to Tempur style mattresses, and I would consider something else, honestly.

[Andrew1191]

I am new to hosting and just published my listing two days ago.  I bought an expensive gel foam queen sized bed because in our travels abroad, my wife and I have had horrible beds to sleep on , so we spent $2390 Canadian on a bed.  Hopefully, it will help with our future reviews 

[Gordon0]

While I have a Tempur on my own bed, it's a standard (no-name) memory-foam on the Airbnb bed,  @Laura1395. I think spending too much is a mistake as a Tempur is probably aimed at a 'full-time' bed, not just a few nights here and there.

You don't have to spend that sort of money, @Andrew1191, on a bed, but I hope it brings many good reviews for you.  

[Andrew1191]

Perhaps it was a tad excessive but I have been on many cruises and resorts, plus a few bnbs in Cozumel and Alberta, Canada, that I thought it prudent to make the bed comfortable for my guests. Plus it makes a great guest room for when my mother-in-law visits!

[Ann72]

Ah, @Gordon0, to be so young and carefree that you wouldn't spend a month's salary on a bed - it makes me nostalgic for my lost youth!

Woody Allen once said his mother believed in God and carpeting - for me, it's God and beds, sheets, pillows, and towels.  To an embarrassingly obsessive extent.

The last time I bought a bed, I spent more on the mattress than I did on the bed.  Much more.  

So I'm definitely on Team @Andrew1191.

[Emilia42]

omg @Ann72,  haha, same here! If there is anything in life that I will spend money on it's bedding! In all other categories I'm pretty cheep! But a nice bed is a luxury like no other.

[Ann72]

@Emilia42, then you have to come visit me in New York so I can drag you to the linen department at Century 21!  Cashmere throws, Sferra sheets...am I tempting you???

[Robin4]

@Ann72 @Andrew1191 @Alexandra316  @Emilia42  @Laura1395 

Yeah I am with Andrew as well on this one.

When Ade was diagnosed with MS in 1994 we spent the next decade + doing very little but travelling because we knew we were not going to be able to do it in our 'golden' years.

We bought ourselves a motorhome and toured much of this country and we did a lot of overseas trips. I have absolutely lost track of the numbers of strange beds I have put myself into over the past two and a half decades. And when you do a bit of travelling you realise that the bed is the heart and soul of any stay.

Many times in caravan park cabins and motel/hotel rooms my heart sank when I realised I was going to have to spend a virtually sleepless night rolling around on little more than a mortuary slab with a balled up sheet set and smelly chenille bedspread that never got washed from one year to the next. Each night I would imagine what the last person who dribbled on that pillow under my head looked like!

After a while your dominant fear is what awaits you when you put the key in that door and open it.

When I decided to host I had all this experience to draw on, and my single most important pre-occupation was the bed....I wanted to make it special, an experience a guest was not going to be able to get anywhere else. The bed base, electrics and all the mechanics was second hand, but it was good quality. But from there we had everything apart from the pillows made and I seriously believe we provide a sleeping experience second to none!

I have found it is worth it. A listing might be un-impressive in lots of areas but, as long as the guest gets a good nights sleep they are prepared to overlook other inadequacies.

I think the rewards justified the effort!

@Andrew1191 , you made a good decision!

Cheers......Rob

PS: As a footnote to that, the best bed I ever slept on was on a Holland America line ship called the 'Noordam'. In 2011 we did a 21 night Mediterranean cruise and the bed  in our cabin was like sleeping on a cloud. When I set our listing up I used that Noordam bed as a yardstick for the comfort I wanted to provide!

Seems strange that such comfort should come from a ship's cabin but, there you go.....it did!

[Robin4]

@Laura1395  @Andrew1191  @Gordon0  @Alexandra316 

We have gone to a lot of trouble setting up our listing bed! It is specially made (8 ft long) and has 6 electric motors in it and is of course idealy suited for a Tempur memory foam mattress. 

We instead went for a pocket spring mattress made with very small springs which is strapped to the bed base sections with webbing so that the various sections of the bed can be raised and lowered.

It was a drawn out procedure to set it up so it would work ok but, the reason we did it that way, we list at an altitude location and temps in the middle of winter can drop to from zero to 4-5 c at night and, although the cottage is heated, we wanted to set the bed up with electric blankets so that guests can come in after a cold night out and climb into a toasty warm bed. No manufacturer will recommend electric blankets with a Tempur mattress so we have got around this problem with a more traditional approach. Also, the massage function of the bed would not have worked satisfactorily with a memory foam mattress.

Almost all our guests still say in our reviews, for comfort, it is the best bed they have ever slept on! 

It cost a packet of money, but it has been worth it!

Cheers.....Rob

[Alexandra316]

Sounds amazing @Robin4 ! As someone who suffers from lower back pain, I'm jealous!