A few people reading this may be aware that upon returning to NZ, Lydia and I decided to list our spare room on Airbnb. We got the idea from our good friend Hayden who has had his guest room listed on the platform for a couple of years and has really enjoyed being a host while also being able to earn a little extra money (without having someone sharing his space all the time like a full-time flatmate would).
Fortunately for us, Hayden has worked as a photographer for the last decade or so and, when I mentioned to him that I’d like to set up a listing, he offered to take our photos for us – and, wow, did they come out great or what.
With the photos in hand, I spent an evening writing a thorough description of the property that included everything I thought I would want to know if I was booking in at ‘A Lion’s Roar from the Zoo’ (you can quite literally hear the lions from our place!) We almost exclusively stayed in private room Airbnb’s during our travels through the UK and Europe so I was able to able to draw on that experience too while I was putting the listing together.
Within 24 hours of listing our place, we were booked out by 3 different groups for the next 10 days and it hasn’t slowed down since! It’s been a great experience being able to play a small part in people’s travels over the summer holidays with guests coming from a wide variety of places. Given the initial success of our listing and the enjoyment I get out of it, it got me thinking that Hayden and I could be doing this for other people. I’m betting there’s a lot of people out there who would be great hosts and have a lot of fun doing it but don’t have the time to invest into setting up a great listing.
So, I’m really stoked to announce that Hayden and I are launching Big Air Limited – a social enterprise focussing on setting up high-quality and highly-effective Airbnb listings. Big Air specialises in listing spare rooms and guest-houses which wouldn’t be traditional candidates for an ordinary rental. We want to be doing our part to help put an extra dollar or two in the back-pocket of ordinary Kiwi’s while also making a contribution to solving NZ’s housing crisis. In the early days, 10% of all sales will be donated to the Wellington Night Shelter and we will be looking to scale this up as we become more established.
We completed our initial pilot, worked through a few teething issues, and were stoked with the results our first customer experienced. So now, we’re looking to get things moving with the next stage of our pilot.
If you’re interested in listing an Airbnb with us or finding out more about Big Air, you can visit:
- Website: https://bigair.nz/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigAirNZ
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bigair
We are super excited as Big Air fits neatly alongside side our other work commitments and we feel this is a great way to make a difference in Wellington and, in due course, across New Zealand as a whole.
If you’re reading this (and got this far!), we would really appreciate a follow on our LinkedIn and Facebook pages and if you could keep us in mind for anyone who could make use of our services. Thanks in advance for your support.