MBA1381 Hotels vs AirBnB for Business Travel

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Hey O welcome to the Hunter $mba show. The power up your business needs to get to the next level every day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online and in today's episode you will learn what are the pros and cons to hotels versus Airbnbs with business travel. I do a fair bit of travel for business, for conferences, for meeting clients or seeing our team and there's always that question should I stay in a hotel or or an Airbnb? Where you stay while on business can greatly affect your productivity, your alertness and how much you get out of that trip. There's also the cost involved. There's a lot of hidden costs in both options that we are not really aware of at the start and creep up and we discover later on in today's episode. I'm going to go through the pros and cons for both as well as my personal recommendation for each situation. For business travel, this is totally not a one sided argument and depending on your needs for your business, for your personal space, for work and for recovery, one choice could not be so obvious. For every situation I'm going to Lay it all out and give you your game plan for accommodations when you travel for business. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. So let's get into the pros and cons of staying in a hotel versus an Airbnb when traveling for business. This could be a whole different episode if this was about vacation, about pleasure, about recharging the batteries. But we're talking about when you travel for work, whether it's going to a. Whether you're speaking at a conference or you're being an attendee, whether you're meeting clients, whether you're meeting staff members, team members, whether you're going for your own personal development. Most of the time, business travel is for a defined amount of time. Sometimes it's in one location, one city, and sometimes it's in several. So let's get into the pros and cons. Let's start with the hotels. Let's start with the pros. The pros of a hotel are actually many. Number one hotels are usually very conveniently located, very central in the city, very easy to get to from the airport, and often if you're going to a conference, the conference is actually in a hotel. So staying at the actual hotel is super convenient to just go straight up to your room after a long, tired day. So location is probably one of its biggest advantages. Second, if you like things very clean and tidy always, or you don't keep it clean and tidy yourself, then of course hotels comes with, you know, housekeeping, the making of the room, the changing of the towels, all that kind of stuff. And that's included in the price. And they clean up every day, even twice a day, if you want to. If you're tremendously busy at this business trip, whether it's at a conference or meetings, and it's just hectic, one of the advantages of hotels is room service. You know, you can get breakfast taken to your room, or even dinner or lunch. It's not always the healthiest meals, but it's getting better in a lot of hotels. This saves you some time. This is not a feature that you're going to find in many Airbnbs, if any. Another big advantage of hotels is that many of them have some sort of fitness center, a gym where you can just pop down and start working out, get your workout in, get the blood pumping, and you don't skip a beat for your fitness so you can have a restful sleep, so you can really feel energized for the day. I love this advantage of hotels. It's super convenient and it's included in the price of your room. So added bonus. Now, hotels can be more expensive per night than an Airbnb in major cities. But sometimes you can get a discount if your conference is offering some sort of discount code, some kind of group rate, and that's a big advantage. You can probably get the price down even less than an Airbnb in some cases. Another advantage is if you frequent the same type of hotels from the same chain. Like if you have the Hilton's honorist card, you can accumulate points and earn statuses and get free upgrades. So there are some perks for being loyal to hotels. That's not something that Airbnb has. I wish they did, but they don't. So those are the pros. The cons, unfortunately, is that, well, in general, hotel rooms will be smaller, especially outside the U.S. but even so, an Airbnb, a one bedroom Airbnb or even a studio Airbnb can be quite roomy and spacious. And that is not the case for most hotel rooms in major cities. Hotel rooms are also not that cozy, they're not that welcoming, they're very sterile. And it just reinforces this uncomfortable feeling of travel. We talked about price, but generally I found that hotels are are more expensive than an Airbnb. I do think that hotels can be a good value and a good kind of overall good price. If you're staying three nights or less, any more than three nights, then Airbnb's. When we compare apples to apples, like in the same city, Airbnbs will be a better value. This is just from my own experience. So let's jump into the Airbnb option. Airbnbs are great for business travel because you get the space you would like, right? I like a little space. I like to have a separate space to work at a desk. I like to have a little dining area so I can have my breakfast and kind of unwind. It's good to have a couch to read or to take down notes. And a separate bedroom. I like to have the one bedroom kind of set up in an Airbnb. So my relaxation, my sleep is separate from work and kind of getting things ready for the business. I often do a lot of work when I'm away on travel. Whether I'm at a conference or otherwise, I am getting things done on my computer and I like to separate those things in my space when I'm staying there. If I'm staying somewhere again four nights or more, I like to look at the Airbnb option first. Airbnb has really improved over the years. They have really upped their game with the quality and the filtering of hosts. So you can stay some really nice places in most major cities. Overall, if you're staying four nights or more, I find that Airbnbs are more affordable, even though they tack on a service fee, like a cleaning fee. And in most cities, I also like the feeling of having a host, somebody I go to that can answer my questions, that can give me recommendations to restaurants. This is especially important if you're going to a city for a conference and you want to take some people out to dinner, want to do some meetups. A local host can really give you some tried and true recommendations, and they can help you get around if you need some help with that. Overall, the experience of staying in Airbnb, in my personal opinion, if I'm staying a bit longer, is just more comfortable. Now, a couple caveats. I mentioned the gym or, you know, a fitness center with hotels. If I'm staying in a city where I can't go for a run, I can't do any exercise outside. It's cold, it's, you know, New York in December, something like that, then it's a good idea to find an Airbnb that's close to a gym that you can, you know, kind of just pop in and pay the day fee or maybe you're a member of in your local town. So there's ways around it. Now, Airbnbs are everywhere. You can get Airbnbs that are right in the city, that are a little bit outside, you can save some money. So location is not really a big issue. If you book in advance, you need to book in advance because it is slim pickings. You know, Airbnb, you know, major cities can get booked out really quickly. If you wait too long and you book late, last minute, you know. So what you want to really do is book as advanced as possible when you know your dates. Also, if you have an Airbnb and you're renting a car in the city that you're at, most Airbnb's will offer parking, whether it's free on street parking or a driveway. This is fantastic. Most hotels will charge for parking, which is an additional cost. Now, the cons of Airbnbs is that no cleaning on a daily basis, but if you're a tidy person, that's great. And often these Airbnbs have washer and dryer, and you can filter for that, and you can do your own laundry. There's no loyalty program that really sucks. And there's no room service, so that's a little bit of a downside. An alternative, of course, is to use like a grubhub or a Uber Eats and they can deliver to your residence your Airbnb. But not all cities have those options around the world. So there you have it. Here's my recommendation. As soon as you know your dates for business travel and you know it's more than three nights, four nights or more, go and try to find an Airbnb that is local as possible, as close as possible to where you're going to be doing business with the conferences. Whatever it is, this is my recommendation. It's really comfortable. It really allows you to have more of an enjoyable experience and you can save a bit of money if you're in the city and you're traveling for three nights or less. Check out the hotel option first, but then compare it to Airbnb. You might be surprised. Sometimes you can find something great at a low price. Some hosts don't charge a, you know, service fee or something like that. I do want to mention if you're going to be doing some city hopping in your business travels, whether you're going to three cities in a row and you're spending two or three nights in each city, I do recommend going the hotel option because it's just easier to check in and check out in a hotel versus an Airbnb. An Airbnb is really good for a longer stay. There's a little bit more involved when you check in and check out because you are staying in somebody's house. Most hotels you can just leave your room and it's automatic. Checkout is pretty easy. So if you're going to several places, few nights each time, the hotel option is probably best for you.

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To wrap up today's lesson, if you have an executive assistant, somebody on your staff that helps you with your travel planning, give them this rule of thumb. Three nights or less. Check all the hotel options. Four nights or more. Check out Airbnb first. Give them some criteria. What do you like the most? Do you like a one bedroom option or is the studio fine? What about Internet speed? Make sure the Internet is good. What about location? Maybe you want to walk to everything. And if fitness and a gym is really important, then make sure that you're close to a gym or it's included. So like in a hotel. Thank you so much for listening. I hope today's episode was helpful. If you love what you hear, hit subscribe on whatever you use to listen to podcasts so you make sure that when the next episode is available, it's right on your device. All ready to go, Ready to hit play. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Business travel can be hectic. It can be tiring, especially if you're traveling far to get to where you're going internationally. You know you're on a flight for 10, 15 hours. It's best to that you try to make it as easy as possible with the accommodations. You're going to make it as convenient as possible. You want to lower the chance of aggravation and getting even more tired and frustrated in your travel. Why? Because you want to perform at your best. You're here for business. You're here to get better. You're here to learn. You're here to network. You're here to build relationships. You want to make sure that you are fresh and ready to go. Thank you so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode freeride Friday. I'll see you then. Take care.

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