The glossy mansion within the hills overlooking Las Vegas might have been featured on MTV’s “Cribs.” However the spotlight of Aubrey Garza’s weekend keep there wasn’t the palatial rooms or the marble hearth. It was assembly her Airbnb host: Christina Aguilera.
“It simply felt like a dream,” Ms. Garza, 26, stated. When she was rising up, her bed room was embellished with posters of the pop star. Ms. Garza had nabbed one of many “once-in-a-lifetime” promotional stays that Airbnb has often listed lately.
The favored, if uncommon, listings have included not solely personal hangouts with celebrities but in addition stays in a Barbie mansion modeled on the one from the hit film and a duplicate of Shrek’s swamp dwelling within the Scottish Highlands.
On Wednesday, Airbnb introduced that it was increasing stunt promotions like these underneath a brand new everlasting class known as “Icons,” that includes uncommon and impressive partnerships with manufacturers and celebrities
At a information convention in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s chief govt, launched the inaugural slate of Icons listings.
It was headlined by a duplicate of the floating home from “Up,” the 2009 animated Pixar movie, balloons and all. With the assistance of a large crane, the home can be suspended excessive within the air over the New Mexico desert.
Requested whether or not the home, which doesn’t look like linked to the bottom by pipes or wiring, had plumbing and electrical energy, the corporate stated it was “totally practical.” Requested for particulars, the corporate stated the home “is linked to a generator and different utilities that can be disconnected and reconnected earlier than and after flying.”
Different listings embrace a recreation of the mansion from the “X-Males ’97” cartoon, constructed to seem two-dimensional, and the Minneapolis home the place Prince’s character lived within the 1984 movie “Purple Rain.”
Just a few individuals have been in a position to keep in Airbnb’s earlier fantastical listings, however the firm stated it anticipated roughly 4,000 clients to e book stays in Icons listings in 2024.
One other 10 listings are slated to go up by the tip of the yr. Reserving intervals will range. Dates for the “Up” home are open by means of mid-September.
With Icons, Airbnb is hoping to capitalize on the success that earlier listings have achieved as promotional instruments, ready-made for Instagram selfies and attention-grabbing headlines, Mr. Chesky stated. (Sure, we fell for it.)
He pointed to the success of Airbnb’s collaboration with Mattel final summer time, which introduced the Malibu DreamHouse to life forward of the discharge of the blockbuster “Barbie” movie. The thrill different manufacturers.
“I feel what they’ve seen is that these prior Icons have turn into cultural sensations, fairly actually,” Mr. Chesky stated in a cellphone interview.
The Barbie itemizing acquired two to a few occasions as a lot press protection as when Airbnb went public in 2020, Mr. Chesky stated. The Shrek Swamp itemizing was seen on the platform greater than 200 million occasions.
For an indication of what clients can count on, the keep two-night keep that Ms. Garza received by submitting a reserving request for the Las Vegas mansion (“Hosted by Christina,” based on the itemizing) earlier this yr presents a clue.
Ms. Garza, her older sister and two buddies chatted with Ms. Aguilera over drinks and dinner inside an ornate mansion with glass partitions and excessive ceilings, an infinity pool with stylish deck chairs, a lofty balcony with sweeping views of the town, pink accented furnishings match for a women weekend getaway. (The lodging was free; all Ms. Garza needed to pay for was the flight there.)
For Airbnb, the payoff of such listings is in sustaining relevance and concurrently producing a dependable stream of constructive consideration that may assist counter the damaging press reviews it has confronted over hidden prices, hidden cameras and the disruptive results that short-term leases can have on communities.
Sean Hennessy, an affiliate professor on the Jonathan M. Tisch Middle of Hospitality at New York College, stated the Icons initiative gave the impression to be an effort by Airbnb to “change the narrative” and rekindle the attract it loved in its early days, when it turned extraordinarily fashionable in a brief interval by providing vacationers a substitute for staying at a resort.
In a cellphone interview, Mr. Chesky stated: “Most individuals solely ever open our app a couple of times a yr, and we’ve acquired to battle to verify they consider us each single yr. So this retains us high of thoughts and culturally related.”
Airbnb hopes the venture will assist with worldwide markets as nicely. One of many listings introduced Wednesday is a weeklong keep aboard a tour bus with Feid, a Colombian reggaeton artist fashionable in Latin America. One other contains an in a single day keep in India hosted by the Bollywood star Janhvi Kapoor.
Although Mr. Chesky expects Icons listings to attract 1000’s of friends, that determine represents a minuscule share of Airbnb’s 150 million customers. Nonetheless, he stated, the class represents the way forward for Airbnb.
“So this in of itself just isn’t a stand-alone enterprise, nevertheless it’s extra than simply any advertising promotion,” he stated. “It’s a gateway to Airbnb turning into greater than a spot to remain.”
