Airbnb recreates house from Up, launches series of iconic film stays

The sleek mansion successful the hills overlooking Las Vegas could person been featured connected MTV’s Cribs. But the item of Aubrey Garza’s play enactment determination wasn’t the palatial rooms oregon the marble fireplace. It was gathering her Airbnb host: Christina Aguilera.

The recreated location from Pixar’s Up volition beryllium suspended successful the air.

“It conscionable felt similar a dream,” Garza, 26, said. When she was increasing up, her chamber was decorated with posters of the popular star. Garza had nabbed 1 of the “once-in-a-lifetime” promotional stays that Airbnb has occasionally listed successful caller years.

The popular, if rare, listings person included not lone backstage hangouts with celebrities but besides stays successful a Barbie mansion modeled connected the 1 from the deed movie and a replica of Shrek’s swamp dwelling successful the Scottish Highlands.

On Wednesday, Airbnb announced that it was expanding stunt promotions similar these nether a caller imperishable class called “Icons,” featuring antithetic and ambitious partnerships with brands and celebrities

At a quality league successful Los Angeles connected Wednesday, Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s main executive, introduced the inaugural slate of Icons listings.

It was headlined by a replica of the floating location from Up, the 2009 animated Pixar film, balloons and all. With the assistance of a elephantine crane, the location volition beryllium suspended precocious successful the aerial implicit the New Mexico desert.

The interior of the Up location has been matched to the film.

Asked whether the house, which does not look to beryllium connected to the crushed by pipes oregon wiring, had plumbing and electricity, the institution said it was “fully functional.” Asked for details, the institution said the location “is connected to a generator and different utilities that volition beryllium disconnected and reconnected earlier and aft flying.”

Other listings see a re-creation of the mansion from the X-Men ’97 cartoon, built to look two-dimensional, and the Minneapolis location wherever Prince’s quality lived successful the 1984 movie Purple Rain.

Only a fewer radical person been capable to enactment successful Airbnb’s erstwhile fantastical listings, but the institution said it expected astir 4000 customers to publication stays successful Icons listings successful 2024.

Another 10 listings are slated to spell up by the extremity of the year. Booking periods volition vary. Dates for the Up location are unfastened done mid-September.

With Icons, Airbnb is hoping to capitalise connected the occurrence that earlier listings person achieved arsenic promotional tools, ready-made for Instagram selfies and eye-catching headlines, Chesky said. (Yes, we fell for it.)

He pointed to the occurrence of Airbnb’s collaboration with Mattel implicit the summer, which brought the Malibu DreamHouse to beingness up of the merchandise of the blockbuster Barbie film. The buzz funny different brands.

“I deliberation what they’ve seen is that these anterior Icons person go taste sensations, rather literally,” Chesky said successful a telephone interview.

The Barbie listing got 2 to 3 times arsenic overmuch property sum arsenic erstwhile Airbnb went nationalist successful 2020, Chesky said. The Shrek Swamp listing was viewed connected the level much than 200 cardinal times.

For a motion of what customers tin expect, the two-night enactment that Garza won by submitting a booking petition for the Las Vegas mansion (“Hosted by Christina,” according to the listing) earlier this twelvemonth offers a clue.

Garza, her older sister and 2 friends chatted with Aguilera implicit drinks and meal wrong an ornate mansion with solid walls and precocious ceilings, an infinity excavation with chic platform chairs, a lofty balcony with sweeping views of the metropolis and pink-accented furnishings acceptable for a girls play getaway. (The lodging was free; each Garza had to wage for was the formation there.)

For Airbnb, the payoff of specified listings is successful maintaining relevance and simultaneously generating a reliable watercourse of affirmative attraction that tin assistance antagonistic the antagonistic property reports it has faced implicit hidden costs, hidden cameras and the disruptive effects that short-term rentals tin person connected communities.

Sean Hennessy, an subordinate prof astatine the Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality astatine New York University, said the Icons inaugural appeared to beryllium an effort by Airbnb to “change the narrative” and rekindle the allure it enjoyed successful its aboriginal days, erstwhile it became highly fashionable successful a abbreviated play by offering travellers an alternate to staying astatine a hotel.

“Most radical lone ever unfastened our app erstwhile oregon doubly a year, and we’ve got to conflict to marque definite they deliberation of america each azygous year,” Chesky said successful a telephone interview. “So this keeps america apical of caput and culturally relevant.”

Airbnb hopes the task volition assistance with planetary markets arsenic well. One of the listings announced Wednesday is simply a weeklong enactment aboard a circuit autobus with Feid, a Colombian reggaeton creator fashionable successful Latin America. Another includes an overnight enactment successful India hosted by Bollywood prima Janhvi Kapoor.

Though Chesky expects Icons listings to gully thousands of guests, that fig represents a minuscule stock of Airbnb’s 150 cardinal users. Still, helium said, the class represents the aboriginal of Airbnb.

“So this successful of itself is not a stand-alone business, but it’s much than conscionable immoderate selling promotion,” helium said. “It’s a gateway to Airbnb becoming much than a spot to stay.”

This nonfiction primitively appeared successful The New York Times.

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