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The difference is not the duration of the stay but the type of stay:
you let rooms and you are a live-in host.
when we travel, we rent full units with no living host, typically a house, a property, or, in a big city, and apartment. The unit is ours for the duration, and nobody but us may get into the unit while we rent it. This is also how we rent out a house of ours as an STR.
Yes, but I donât understand how that relates to amenities provided to guests.
Every host prices their rental, regardless of whether it is an entire unit,or a private room or suite in the hostâs home according to their expenses and the profit they want to make.
Itâs no more or less expensive for me to provide toilet paper and soap for the duration of a guestâs stay than it is for a host of an entire house. My guests have a private ensuite bathroom, itâs not like they are sharing the same soap and toilet paper Iâm using.
And they are going to use the same amount of toilet paper and soap whether they have a bathroom in my home or whether they have a bathroom in an entire house.
And they arenât âlodgersâ. They have their own private bedroom and bath with an outside entrance. They are welcome to use my kitchen, and some do, but some guests I barely see.
I think it would be weird to not have pretty complete supplies for a shared STR â like the host gets to have TP and soap but the guest doesnât (if they have a separate bathroom).
I donât mind buying TP, shampoo, etc. after a small starter supply runs out if itâs a multi-person standalone rental such as a beach house.
I remember my very first guest on AirBnB some 12 years ago, I didnât realise I needed to supply everything in the kitchen, The guest was ok about it; they went out and bought it, From then on, we have supplied it, beginners mistake.
They had everything else, like bedding towels and TP, all ended well.
Being near a beach gives a host a great excuse to provide inexpensive beach stuff that the guests really appreciate.
Some of these are also helpful for the host. For example, Iâve heard hosts complain that guests take the lovely, pristine bath towels to the beach - so provide beach towels.
A cheapo styrofoam cooler is a good idea, also folding beach chairs and a beach umbrella.
Sunscreen is a good idea (if youâre somewhere warm, even if itâs not near the beach) but I prefer to provide a good-quality brand name.
Thatâs not because Iâm snooty but because a cheap variety wonât be as efficient and I donât want guests saying (or writing in a review) 'the host provided a budget sunscreen and I was badly sunburned".
Aftersun cream is a good idea too. And here in Florida, bug spray, definitely.
We have a place with a pool thatâs not too far from a beach with good snorkeling. I provide two types of beach towels - one type for on-property (the big, fluffy ones) and another for off-property (lightweight microfiber ones). The guests love the thin ones because they are so easy to fit in the beach/snorkel bags so they donât usually take the good ones. In eight years, weâve only lost two or three good beach towels (excluding bleach stains and wearing out), although we are a fly-to location (St Lucia in the Caribbean).
I buy all of them at Costco. I stocked up on the thin ones when they were $5US each on clearance and throw them in my luggage when I go to our house (thereâs no Costco in St Lucia!)
I live in a beach town but donât normally provide beach towels, for two reasons- I have limited water supply sometimes, so the less laundry the better, and beach towels tend to disappear- people sit down to eat somewhere or have a beer and forget the towel they hung over the back of the chair. One guest left hers on a booze cruise.
I do ask if guests need a beach towel, though- I do have some. But I find a lot of guests bring their own and many, both men and women, prefer sarongs- they take up no space, weigh nothing, you can lie on it, dry off with it, or wrap it around yourself. And sand doesnât stick to them- a quick shake and the sand is gone.
While the microfiber beach towels sound practical, I really wish people would understand the environmental and health hazards of microfiber and stop buying the stuff. Itâs really horribly poisonous stuff that is polluting our water, air and bodies and will be for generations to come.
But in most cases they are getting a discount. In my houses there was a 3 day minimum, a discount for 7 days, and a further discount for 4 weeks. I provided enough amenities for about 6 days.
Practically, there really wasnât enough room to store a months worth of toilet paper in either house.
Not sure if you missed reading what I said upthread- I said if the guest is paying full price it doesnât make sense to not provide the same amount of amenities for longer stays than short ones, only if they got a discount.
But it also seems to me to depend on the amount of the discount. If a guest has to spend an equal amount of $ to buy things a host normally provides without a discount, itâs not really a discount at all.