Are you afraid to decorate your Airbnb? Does the pressure of needing eye-catching design overwhelm you, even though you know you need it to stand out from your competition? Do you wish there was someone to guide you through the process painlessly?
If so, don’t miss Episode 56 of the Host Coach Airbnb Investing Podcast where experiential design experts Heather and Erin, of Pink Wall Designs, share how intentional design can boost your short-term rental’s rank position... and which amenities are worth spending on!
Read on to learn the importance of amenities and specialty rooms in your Airbnb to help you maximize cash flow and return on investment, AND Heather and Erin’s free tech hack to help you find your Airbnb guest avatar along with what that avatar is looking for in a listing!
Topics discussed in this episode:
- What is experiential Airbnb design
- How experiential design impacts rank position and bookings
- The tech hack to find your guest avatar before you buy/design
- The least expensive design element with the biggest impact
- What to avoid spending lots of money on in your Airbnb
- How to press the “easy button” on Airbnb design
Host Coach Airbnb Podcast Episode 56 Show Notes:
How did you two get together and become short term rental Airbnb designers?
We were both doing our own Airbnbs and then in discussion when we met, we realized that there's such a need for design and there's no one that we really know of who's doing this. So that's where the idea flourished.
What is pink wall designs and what's your goal?
Pink Wall Designs is a hospitality interior design company. So that encompasses vacation rentals, boutique hotels. It even encompasses cafes, restaurants - anything where a guest or a customer is coming to experience an experience. So that is the essence of the business. We're growing in every direction that makes sense. We have virtual design - that's our biggest product that we sell in our business. We do have instances where we will go out to properties if the property qualifies. We also have a marketing arm.
How Airbnb Design Differs From Home Design
I'm really curious what you said about experiential design and designing for guests. How do you think that type of design differs from your typical homeowner's interior design?"
We preach this all the time. When it comes to experiential and the hospitality world, you are designing for your guest avatar or target market. So it's a specific guest that is going to that location and that property. We always have to remind our clients it's not about what you want, it's about what your client is going to want.
If you have a secondary living space or something of that nature, it absolutely should be utilized for an Airbnb amenity room or something experiential. We've done karaoke music rooms before in properties where there's a bar cart, a little bar area, a high top, a karaoke stage, a microphone. And then a crazy photo op area with a big neon sign and a dance floor. So if you walk into this secondary living room, you're completely transported. You feel like you've gone out to a karaoke bar. Would it be something that you would necessarily want in your personal home? Maybe not. But after we've done our research and figured out what people are looking for. We know that people want to rent a space to have an experience. So at that point, it should just be data and numbers that are driving your design decisions.
Why Experiences Matter in Airbnb Design
Why do you believe experiences are so important to guests and success as an Airbnb host?
To be honest, I think culturally where we are moving as a society is everyone is sharing online, whether that's Instagram, TikTok, even with family group chats on WhatsApp. Everyone wants to share with somebody what they are doing. So that is photos and videos because everyone has a device in their pocket, right? And, do people want to share a photo of somebody in a regular looking kitchen, or do they want to share the photo of themselves in a beautifully designed kitchen? It's mostly the latter, right? So, that's half of it. And then the other thing is we want and expect that for our own personal enjoyment. When you leave your house, you want to have an experience. So in the hospitality space, you have two opportunities with design to hit both of those desires.
What is an Airbnb Guest Avatar
Can you explain what a guest avatar is?
An Airbnb guest avatar is the target market that you're targeting with your short term rentals. It looks different for every property based on its location and demographics. Is it a group of traveling girls for bachelorette party, or is it a family who has small children? Once you figure that out through market research and you understand who's going to be visiting the surrounding area as well. If you're in Disney you're going to be targeting a lot of children, right? If I've got a little condo in downtown, Toronto versus, a cabin at the lakes, that's going to be a different type of guests that I'm attracting and want to give a different type of experience to.
If you're clear on who your guest avatar is, you can design and market to this guest avatar. But, that doesn't mean that you're going to be cancelling out other people. Because if you have a condo in Toronto, as you said, you're not going to get families staying in that - maybe the one off, but generally speaking just because of the location and the style of the property... that property is canceling out that group of people. So, you may as well go "all in" and continue with the design to be the best in that demographic. Let's call it: couples in their twenties or young professionals. That's probably more so who's going to be staying in a city condo. And people sometimes hear guest avatar and they're like, "Oh I don't want to niche and cancel out other types of people." but your property and location is doing that anyway. It's okay to just go all in. There's going to be enough people to support your short term rental in that guest avatar category.
I completely agree. I really appreciate that both of you have owned your own short-term rentals and still do. It's great to interview people who not only have professional experience, but personal experience as hosts and investors.
Lessons from Designing Their Own Airbnbs
So what are the three most important things you've learned from designing your own Airbnbs?
I would definitely say, doing your market research and understanding who your guest avatar is. To piggyback onto what we last said, when you appeal to everybody, you appeal to nobody. Make sure you go all out on who you're targeting. Definitely invest in amenities and making sure that you have those specialty rooms within your Airbnb, if possible. When I say amenities, it doesn't always need to be a pool or a hot tub. It could be a few games. If you are in that condo or the karaoke room that we were saying and then the final one, don't be afraid to go bold, right? This isn't your primary residence. This is where you can put some wallpaper up use bold colors.
And to add to the last one that you said it's important to go bold for a few reasons, right? A, for the experience when people walk in, they want to be excited, obviously the sharing aspect that we talked about, but also think about how is your property showing up online, whether that's on Airbnb, OTAs, or a direct booking website, right? If you see a white kitchen with white bar stools are you gonna stop on your computer and click on it? Probably not. But, f you see a nice bold beautiful looking very unique design whether you end up booking or not, you're probably at least going to click on it just to check it out. And what does that do? It helps push your listing to the top because now it's being more clicked on and then SEO gets involved.
I love that. One of our pillars for short term rental success is Make It Pop. And I think that's what you're talking about. Make it pop off the screen. Maybe they book it, maybe they don't, but you're getting the click through and you're wowing the customers.
Tools for Airbnb Market Research
Are there any specific tools that you recommend people get started with as they're doing the market research for their property?
Everybody listening to this probably knows about AirDNA and Price Labs as obvious research tools. I think people really overlook TikTok because TikTok's algorithm is still pretty green so it's very honest. And so people are going on to Tiktok first to check out this new spot in X, Y, Z city. I'll give an example. Let's say you're going to open up a short term rental in Houston, Texas you can just go on Tiktok and type in the search bar things to do in Houston Texas. Right away you're going to see restaurants, and you're going to see all these different reasons why people are going to Houston, Texas. Right then and there, you can start making your notes: I'm seeing that a lot of bachelorette groups are going to Houston, in the last six months. Why is that? Oh, there's this really cool bar that's just opened up in this area. Maybe if I'm looking to buy an Airbnb in Houston, I want to be close to this bar. Maybe there's a concert theater that just opened or whatever, all of that stuff will start to populate and you can connect the dots, why people are going to the city, and what they need. It's not going to be exact numbers, but it's in real-time and extremely accurate on exactly what your guest avatar and what your target marketis doing and what they want. It's free. We love free!
The Least Expensive Design Element with The Biggest Impact
Dovetailing on free, what is the least expensive design element that you think has the biggest impact for short term rental?
I would say wallpaper and paint. You can go onto Wayfair's clearance department and you're going to see fun, funky patterns, fun colors, and I think those treatments on normal furniture will make an impact in the room.
Do you recommend doing whole room in the wallpaper or just doing an accent wall? I think I even saw on your social media, you wallpapered a ceiling?
Yeah. On a budget, all it takes is just one accent wall or even doing it on the ceiling. We've also done single feature walls before with clearance section wallpaper for $75. It can be very inexpensive.
The Most Expense Design Element with the Least Impact
On the other side of that, what are some of the most expensive design elements that you should maybe avoid?
In terms of an overspend, I would say accent chairs. Although they provide extra seating, which is always great, in a short term rental you don't have to overthink it. Get an inexpensive accent chair that looks great, that's contributing to your design. But know that a lot of people aren't really going to sit in them. So they're not going to get that much wear and tear.
I think prioritizing and figuring out what amenities will perform the best for your property and location is important. A lot of people think having a hot tub is what's going to make or break your Airbnb, but not necessarily, right? The cost of setting it up, the cost of maintenance, the constant turnover. If you're having more of a one night stay, you don't really want that hot tub, because then you have to drain the water. You have to do all the maintenance. We can tell you across portfolio 10, many of which do have hot tubs, we've started adding infrared saunas as an alternate amenity with lower maintenance.
They're a little bit more rare, right? Most people have probably been in a hot tub in their life. Not everyone has been in a sauna. So it's a bit more of "Ooh factor" becase less people have saunas in their properties.
Best Advice for New Airbnb Investors
What is your best advice for a new Airbnb investor who's just getting started?
First of all, hire a design company. I know people are going to hear that and be like it's my first one, but all the more reason why you should take the design seriously. I think everyone's afraid on their first one. They want to do it themselves, but all the more reason, to not get a mediocre ROI. You're going to be able to scale faster. And then secondly for someone just starting out, try not to penny pinch so much.
I think people are afraid to spend money, even let's say you're doing the design yourself. You'll get a cheaper this and a cheaper that, and long-term, you're going to have to replace it and it's just going to cost you more money. Scared money doesn't make money really applies here. So realize that you're going to spend a bit, but you're going to see it come back to you.
Could you explain how virtual design works and ballpark what kind of investment they might be looking at?
Yeah, that is our most popular service, because it's very seamless with our processes. We start off on a kickoff call just to understand your direction, who's your target market, we discuss budget and timeline. Then from there, we go do our thing with the design: we give you mood boards for every room, floor plans, a set up guide that literally anybody can follow whether it's you, your family, or an assembly team that you choose. And then we guide you throughout the rest of that experience up until you get your photos. They can be shared with us so we can see the design as well. I
Our pricing definitely varies because every property is so different. Are we talking about that Toronto condo versus the four bedroom home? We do offer free consultation to give the client inquiring their own proposal. On a low end, you're probably payig around $2,500 all the way up, and we do single room designs as well. We've had people say, "Hey, listen, my Airbnb is new. It has an okay design, but I do need that pop for my hero photo on Airbnb. Can you just do the living room?" We're happy to that. and that gets them a little bit more ahead cause at least they can put that photo on Airbnb.
How to Connect with Pink Wall Designs
A listener could have a property, and maybe it's performing marginally, and you could do a statement room to make the difference and make it stand out in listings, and then use the cashflow if to continue to invest to update room by room. There's a lot of ways to have beautiful design. So now that we've enticed everyone, what are the best ways for our listeners to reach out to you, Heather and Erin, and to learn more about Pink Wall Designs?
Instagram is the easiest. We're at @PinkWallDesigns - you can see some of our work and get to know us a little bit better. You can book a consultation directly from Instagram as well, and it's completely free.
So there you have it. You now know why experiential design compels guests to book your Airbnb. While you shouldn't be afraid to go bold, how great design can literally boost your short term rentals rank position and which amenities are worth spending on!
If after listening to this episode, you feel the need for a short term rental support, we do offer Airbnb coaching packages so schedule a free 30 minute Airbnb coaching session to see how we can help lighten your load and get you to your goal faster!!
