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🤔 Should Alexa be in Airbnb's?

🤔 Should Alexa be in Airbnb's?

The pros and cons of connected vacation rentals

VoiceBrew is the #1 newsletter for Alexa and Google Assistant enthusiasts

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Should Alexa be in Airbnb's?

Alexa and Airbnb's

This past weekend, while I was watching college football, I opened up my laptop to look for Airbnbs in Moab, Utah. Every year my college friends and I do a class trip, and this place is simply awesome so I'm dying to get back.

As I was searching through various options, my Alexa notified me that a package had been delivered, which sparked a thought: how are people using Alexa devices in their vacation rentals? And should they be using these devices in Airbnb's or VRBO's? Here's what I found, hopefully, this helps regardless if you are an owner or a guest.

Tips and Tricks

Airhost Academy has a great blog post on the subject. They decided to include a couple of Alexa devices in some of their rentals as a test. According to their data, at least half of their guests interacted with Alexa at least once. Most of the time it was to play music since their Alexa was hooked up to a Sonos speaker.

They also found that Alexa worked really well with some of the other smart home technology they are using at their properties. For example, they use smart locks and WiFi security cameras for guest safety. They said Alexa helped them automate a few functions including turning on all of the smart lights whenever the smart lock was unlocked.

Alexa can also even act as a concierge, which we thought was kind of neat. There is a virtual concierge app that can notify guests about their checkout time and even take a survey to see how the stay was. If you are an Airbnb owner, it might be wise to notify guests that the property has an Alexa before they book and include an additional heads-up in a welcome binder.

Privacy Concerns

Now, we were curious to see if having an Alexa helped or hurt bookings. Quite frankly, some of the discussion boards were pretty split, meaning some people liked having Alexa while others didn't. Here's a sample:

Pro: "We recently went to Panama for a month and it was weird to me not having Alexa to set my cooking timers and play my favorite music. "

Con: "For me, as a guest, a home automation system would actually be a reason to not book a home. Even if the devices I was aware of were disabled, I would question the host's motivations given all the privacy issues."

So, there you have it, a quick primer on Alexa and Airbnbs. What do you guys think? If you own a vacation rental do you use Alexa or any other virtual assistants at your properties? And how about if you're a guest? Would you prefer or not prefer an Alexa in the property? Let us know!