Hear Me Out: In Defense of Short-Term Rentals

For today’s post, I’m tackling something that has caused a firestorm of controversy in the travel community: short-term rentals. (Also I’ve always wanted to use the phrase “firestorm of controversy.”)

There has been a lot of talk about the evils of short-term rentals. Here’s a list of the common complaints I’ve heard:

- It’s ruining the character of neighborhoods;

- It’s driving rental prices up in those neighborhoods, and driving the locals out;

- It’s putting small, family-run hotels out of business;

- God only knows who’s staying in those short-term rentals! It could be criminals! What about the children, won’t someone please think of the children, etc.

I’m sure there are more.

Yes, the big short-term rental companies might — and probably are — responsible for most of those things. In Paris, there was a call to ban Air BnB-type short-term rentals from the city for all of these reasons and more. One official claimed that only rich kids rented these apartments, and they did nothing but party, wake the neighbors, and trash the residences.

This, and the fact that I’ve never actually seen a defense of these rentals, tells me that folks who don’t use short-term rentals don’t really know why some of us do.

Well, here’s why.

They’re cheaper, sometimes by far.

Hotels are expensive. Smaller, boutique hotels are even more expensive. Both always have been, especially the latter.

Both are also only getting more expensive… some say to turn a profit because of the loss of their business to short-term rentals. For the amount of space you get — and the limitations — $200+ per night really adds up after a while.

Depending on the short-term rental, I can average $150 per night for a space with a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom. I am careful with my short-term rental bookings, and when I’m looking to save money, I can’t find anything better than a short-term rental.

Comfort and relaxation

You’re not just paying for the room. You’re paying for an apartment, or a house, or a portion of an apartment or a house. More space almost always equals more comfort.

Let’s face it: some days, you just need a vacation from your vacation. Especially if you’ve booked yourself into a fast-paced “vacation” in a major city like Paris or Rome. Some days you want to maybe sleep in a little, or turn in earlier at night with a good book. There’s no shame in that.

In a hotel, cleaning starts around 10:00 AM, so you either have to be dressed and out of the hotel room by then, or put the “do not disturb” sign up and go for a day without cleaning. And for the amount of money you’re spending on a hotel room, skipping a day of cleaning can feel like a bummer.

I have been in a number of hotel rooms lately without a fridge, much less a mini bar. (And if they do have a mini-bar, it’s like $10 for a bottle of water.) It seems they’re phasing them out. Therefore, if you want a glass of wine in the comfort of your own space, or some breakfast in the morning without having to face a stranger before your first sip of coffee, then figure out a tip on top of paying a zillion dollars for room service, you’re out of luck.

In a short-term rental, you get to sleep in as late as you want. Yes, you need to clean up after your own damn self, but your mother raised you right, and for the amount of money you’re saving, you can handle it. Also, it can feed into the feeling that you’re really living in a city, to have to clean your own space.

You can lounge on a comfy couch while you read your book. And when you feel like it, you can go into the kitchen that you stocked (see below) and have a delightful snack. You can have a leisurely morning or two, drinking coffee and eating breakfast in your jammies without having to present yourself to the world just yet.

And washing your clothes in the sink, getting them only kind of (maybe??) clean, then having to have them sit and air dry, or pack them damp? Or having to take time — and more money — out of your scant vacation hours to go to a local laundromat and sit there for two hours while you wash your clothes? A thing of the past when you get a short-term rental with a washer/dryer. I have never packed as light as I do when I can stay in short-term rentals.

Experiencing life as a (sort-of) local

Yes, it speaks to the first point on the “short-term rental bad” list, but it’s true. Not only am I living in an apartment and not a hotel, which means I’m passing locals in the hall, and, in many cases, in the neighborhood itself as I walk up to the door, but living in one of these apartments assures that I won’t be doing “only things tourists do.”

These aren’t hotels, so I need basic necessities. I have to go to the shops — or, preferably, the local outdoor produce markets — to get food for the apartment. If I run out of TP, same deal. Since I always rent a place with a washing machine, I get to go to the store in a foreign country and figure out which is laundry detergent and which is fabric softener… and sometimes get it very, very, baby-powder-fresh-scented wrong.

These are errands. Things I run on a Saturday morning when I’m at home. Things that locals do. And when I stay in a short-term rental, I am experiencing life as a local, stocking up on the basic necessities and being exposed to a different culture’s daily life. It gives me a deeper understanding — and appreciation — for that other culture, and adds to the fun and adventure.

Ability to cook, and save even more money

I recently got slammed on a Travel + Leisure Facebook post about how much I love cooking when I travel. I was told something akin to, “…vacation is not about cooking, you silly little philistine. Vacation is about having the little people cook for you.” I not-so-politely, and actually quite vehemently, disagreed.

As I mention above, besides the fact that you’ll always spend less money making your own meals than ordering three meals a day in restaurants, shopping at the local markets and testing out even a dead-simple spaghetti and marinara sauce, with local Italian tomatoes, local Italian basil, local Italian fresh-baked crusty bread… it can all make it seem like you’re a gourmet chef. On our honeymoon in Florence, my husband did exactly that, and it’s still one of the best meals I’ve ever had.

And when we went shopping for the ingredients in a small, local market, the shopkeeper was delighted that we were not there to buy the cheesy souvenir, but instead… his actual cheese.

More space for a family or friends traveling together

Perhaps one of the biggest catalysts for using a short-term rental — especially after our kid was born — was space.

I have found it rare that a hotel room has two separate spaces for a family traveling together. When a hotel does have that room, it is horrifically expensive. Even if a hotel room has a couch and a bed, it’s rare that the couch is a pull-out. If we order up for a separate cot for our kid, we’re still all sleeping and living in one room, and now the room that’s not configured for the cot has gotten twice as small.

No, if a hotel can accommodate three people, it is always more expensive, and almost always in the same room.

Our kid is a teenager. They need their privacy now, but in most places it’s illegal for them to be in an entirely separate hotel room. (And even if they were, that $200+ per night has just turned into $400+ per night.) So a hotel is just awkward and uncomfortable for us.

Only a short-term rental apartment offers an extra bedroom (not just a bed, or a fold-out couch, or an old uncomfortable order-up cot squeezed into the room) for a family traveling together.

Only a short-term rental offers a living room so one person can stay up late and read, and the other can go to bed. Or so the two parents can share a glass (or, who am I kidding, a bottle) of wine while the kid sleeps happily away in their own room with their door closed.

So I looked up the cost difference for an upcoming trip to London. When I can actually find a hotel that can accommodate the apparently rare(??) situation of two parents and one child traveling together, I would need to spend anywhere from $500 to $1500 per night for a room with one bed and a fold-out couch or a family room in the rare cases where a hotel has them. (And most of the time, family rooms are in faceless, corporate chain hotels with absolutely zero charm and populated by travelling business people.) Our short-term rental in the same neighborhood with two bedrooms, three beds, one bath, a living room, dining room, kitchen, and rooftop deck costs…

wait for it…

hold onto something…

$180 per night.

So… what now?

I don’t deny that short-term rentals are driving up the prices of hotels, driving small hotels out of business, and making cute little local neighborhoods more touristy. I travel enough that I see it. In a recent short-term rental — in an old, gorgeous 15th century palazzo just off the Campo de’ Fiore in Rome — every apartment on our floor and the floor down from us was some sort of short-term rental. I really do get it.

But to rail against short-term rentals without understanding why those of us who choose them continue to do so is missing a really important piece of the puzzle, and that piece can help the future of hotels.

Perhaps hotels can reconfigure some rooms to allow for bigger and cheaper multi-person and family rooms. It’s not just families who want bigger spaces with more options for separate bedrooms, it’s friends traveling together, too. At the very least, if the room comes with a couch, even always making it a fold-out for no extra charge would go a long way.

It also really does help to plop a mini-fridge in a room, and have it turned on when the the housekeeping staff turns over the room so it’s cold when the new guests arrive.

And if hotels can’t do that with their existing spaces, they could try buying some property nearby and annexing apartment spaces. Folding those into the standard hotel model would be a great way to go.

My favorite hotel in Rome, called Hotel Navona, is run by a family who has owned the palazzo that the hotel is in since the sixteenth century. They have standard hotel rooms in one area, then separate one and two bedroom apartments in other areas of the building. Yes, they’re still more expensive than a short-term rental, but they also come complete with the option of a prepared breakfast in the morning and 24/7 desk service… and all the other hotel amenities if one so chooses.

The only way we can begin to address the issues of what short-term rentals are doing to small, family-run hotels is to understand why people choose them over hotels in the first place.

Maybe none of my suggestions make sense in the real world of owning and operating a hotel. But clearly, something’s got to give. Increasing costs is not going to engender hotels to the short-term rental crowd.

With real, careful, and fair examination of why these big short-term rental companies are so successful in the first place, and some creative thinking on the part of these small hotels and the hotel industry in general, we may begin to stem the tide.

What are your thoughts on short-term rentals? Or do you have your own tips for booking accommodation in Europe? Let me know!