In partnership with
Airbnb is rebuilding its luxury program. Skift reported it based on what CEO Brian Chesky told property managers. Airbnb declined to comment, so this is a report and not an announcement.
If your first reaction was a groan, I get it. I had the same one. You've spent years building client relationships, vetting villas, and fixing problems at 9 p.m. so your clients never see them. It's fair to be wary when a giant platform says it wants the same clients.
Here's what we know. The program is called Luxe. Airbnb bought Luxury Retreats in 2017 for a reported $300 million and launched Luxe in 2019 with more than 2,000 handpicked homes. The 2020 layoffs cut it short. Today it covers fewer than 1% of listings, and each home gets inspected in person.
Now a thank-you to the villa operators on this list, and an honest one. You hold exclusive relationships with your owners, and you've earned them one stay at a time. I don't know what Airbnb's rebuild means for your catalogue. I hope it means your homes stay off their app. If you're working to keep it that way, thank you. Our clients' trust in you, and in us, depends on it.
Here's the part I keep coming back to. A badge can tell a guest a house is good. It can't tell them the house is right for their family. It can't line up the jet, the driver, the guide, and the dinner table so they all fit. And when something breaks, a platform opens a ticket. You pick up the phone.
That's judgment, coordination, and someone who answers. Those three things are what clients pay you for, and nobody can download them.
Here's something to try this week. Write two sentences on how you choose villas and what you do when one lets a client down. Put them on your site or in your next client email. Say it before anyone else says it for you.
Writing those two sentences about how you choose villas is a marketing job. It's a small one, though.
About three months ago, I began building something for the bigger picture: M.A.P., the Marketing Advancement Program for Luxury Travel Businesses.
M.A.P. is an eight-week private program. We look closely at your business, find the marketing constraint that matters most, then build the strategy and assets and put them to work. You leave with a 90-day plan.
It's a different kind of help from the services I built around individual requests. The aim is to work out what your marketing needs before deciding what to do more of.
If you're curious, reply MAP and I'll send you the program details document.
Your marketing should make it easier to grow your business.
Alex
The ice cream shop that makes money when it's cold
28 Wishes sells ice cream in Los Angeles. Below 70°F, sales fall about 20%. The weather is out of their hands. Rent isn't.
So the owners started putting about $20 a day into Kalshi weather markets, taking the cold side. The days that keep customers away now pay something back.
This is hedging. Big companies have done it for decades, buying protection against bad weather, fuel spikes and rising rates. It used to take a broker, a trading desk, and an order size no corner shop could meet.
Kalshi opens it up. Contracts on weather, fuel prices, inflation, tariffs and regulation, starting at a few dollars. Take a position on the outcome that would hurt you. If it hits, the payout softens it. If it doesn't, the contract expires and the good month was the point.
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