New Airbnb like platform for women

We were able to get on-boarded fairly quickly. Perhaps as we pushed them a few days after submitting?

Per my other topic post, the platform is not well-designed. They probably can’t scale with their current model. Site operation is pretty poor. My guess is they let some college kids build it.

There are few listings and few members. There is little evidence that anyone books a stay: most stays have no reviews at all, even in major cities.

Not a good sign.

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I got a call from a Bridget who claimed to be representing Golightly today. They said they will be sending an invite in the next few days and apologized for the delay. LOL.
I hope this isn’t something they were hoping to monetize quickly and/or it’s just a little side hustle for them.

But then again maybe they will have found a nice niche.

Well, I thought they might be a non-starter, but I just got a booking from GoLightly. We’ll see how it goes!

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@LCL I’ll be interested to hear how it goes. Both the guest you get through them and how it is dealing with their platform. I was going to sign up when they first came on the scene, but it sounded a bit too millennial working gal oriented for me and I figured I’d wait for someone else to be the guinea pig and report back :wink:

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I have a listing but haven’t gotten any inquiries. I hope my calendar sync is working because I never look at it. LOL.

GL is a joke. Greater NYC: 16 listings, 3 are “exclusive”. Greater Philadelphia: 11 listings

None of these has a single review.

Excellent!

I suppose their timing, through no fault of their own, was a bit unfortunate. There is nothing like a global pandemic to stifle the growth of a hospitality sector start up, especially one as niche as this.

They have around 800 listings worldwide, and I’d like to think that once things settle down globally, they will increase that number, and the number of bookings.

Calling them “a joke”, when in actual fact they’ve only had around twelve weeks of normal trading out of the eleven months or so since launch, is pretty childish.

JF

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I can’t see why it matters how many listings they have- seems to me if their listings are nice places the fact they don’t have many means less competition. I’d much prefer working with a platform that only had one page of listings in my area than do battle with 300 other listings for decent search ranking.

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Yes GL is a joke, by any reasonable business metric. 4914 members total. The NYC / Philly area (most populated region of the eastern USA) has only 27 listings total with zero reviews.

They are HQ’d in Austin. 74 listings. Only one has a review. Nothing in the news about them for many months.

Clearly, it’s a total fail. Like others before them. Childish is attacking a logical position without supporting facts Of course, you can’t actually look any of those up for yourself - as a non-member

:rofl:

There’s no reason why a STR platform that is niche marketing has to have tons of listings. If people go to sites like that because they are looking for what the platform offers, be it women-only hosts and guests, LGBTQ-friendly, disabled access, etc, they aren’t necessarily interested in having a choice of hundreds of listings, they just want to feel secure in the knowledge they’ll feel welcome and safe in whichever listing they choose.

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Applying normal business metrics, to a niche hospitality sector start-up who had the misfortune to meet a global pandemic less then three months down the line, could be seen as a rather blinkered approach by many folks.

You’re the only person in this topic being so vocal about proclaiming them a “a joke” and a “total fail”, despite at least one member, @LCL, reporting a booking.

I don’t get it, what do you have against this company?

My view is that any business that provides competition, no matter how minor, to the current triopoly of OTA’s we currently have, deserves applause, not denigration.

Will they survive? I’ve no idea, but many long established names within the hospitality sector worldwide haven’t managed to get this far through the current health crisis, so Golightly must be doing something right. Even Airbnb haven’t turned in a profit since at least 2017, maybe even further back than that.

And they’re hiring:

Is that right?

https://travel.usnews.com/features/vacation-rentals-the-best-vacation-rental-sites-for-every-type-of-traveler

https://www.wsj.com/articles/airbnb-isnt-the-only-home-sharing-game-in-town-11605200663

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of Golightly’s death, at this time, may be exaggerated :stuck_out_tongue:

JF

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LOL! Applying business metrics to a business is exactly how one judges it. Regardless of “only few listings” the utter lack of stay reviews tells a bleak story.

Unlike you and muddy, we signed up from the start. We wanted them to succeed and are justified in our disappointment.

You and Muddy never bothered to sign-up at all. That is your real position. Not “applauding them” for merely existing.

Just quit while you are ahead.

That is so cool! Hope to hear about how it goes. I’ve been thinking about trying it. Do you by chance have an invite left?

I signed up to host through them yesterday without an invite or anything. Just went on their website. Was told it may take a few days to hear back but they called me yesterday afternoon and told me I was approved! They seem eager to take on new hosts - either that or they were happy about my location (I’m in the Denver, CO area and I don’t believe they have any listings in this area yet.)

I’m still waiting on the welcome packet email which I expect will go over all the details. I’m still not 100% sure I’m going to list through Go Lightly but I figured it was worth getting their information and hearing what they have to say! I’ll update if I end up listing and getting a booking through them :slight_smile:

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Is there anything to lose by trying it? It looks like the membership fee is waived until the end of the year, so I couldn’t find any reason not to do it - but did you find something I should consider?

No I haven’t - and so far from what I’ve read I agree there doesn’t seem to be anything to lose. I just want to read through the welcome email and make sure there’s nothing I didn’t miss.

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Can there be a man and 2 dobermans on the property and still list on GoL?

Yes, but one will need to be a bitch…

:wink:

JF

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I just got an invite to host on their site but I can already see why they will have a difficult time succeeding. They already required the booking person to be a woman, but in order to view the rentals you must register to see anything. Then they say that thee free membership to their site will end at the end of this year. So they expect guests to pay a membership in order to book on their site. Also, they do not make the occupancy tax payment for hosts, like airbnb and vrbo do. You, as a host, either have to do it yourself or pay $20/month to their affiliate to get it done. No wonder there are not many listings or guest reviews on their site. I don’t know if it worth my time/energy to create and manage my listing on their site. I wish the best for them though.

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