What are everyone’s thoughts on shorter-term rentals, like 30 minutes to 4 hours (if it was an option)? Would you host people if they wanted to take a nap mid-day or needed to recharge for a bit if they were on, say, an airport layover?
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Really? You think that’s what’s really going on?
Make sure you have a GOOD cleaning crew available, multiple sets of linens, stock up on disinfectant, and forget about any precautions for Covid.
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This has been mooted so many times and I think that at one time there was an app for this sort of thing. Plus, there are various sleeping pods (if that’s what they’re called) in airports and places like that for people who want to nap or recharge. (Or screw, which is far more likely).
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Hell no! I think that would attract cheatters or hookers. I do a min. of five nights so it’s less cleaning. Can’t imagine having to wash all the linen and clean the bathrooms just for a four hour stay. Not worth my time.
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I had a request once, last minute, for a road tripper who wanted to arrive at 8 am and sleep until about 1pm then shower and hit the road again. He instant booked and then messaged me about his request. I was willing but the problem was he wanted a discount because he’d “only be using the room about 6 hours.” I explained that I still had to do the same amount of cleaning and it would preclude me from renting the room that night. He proceeded to argue with me about the discount, and insisting that I could clean the room in the two hours between his departure and my check in time.
So I canceled his reservation. He said he was already in town so I don’t know with his situation if he was able to find a place or not.
I would absolutely be willing to do a few hours rentals but it can’t cost me money.
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I agree with you. We’re willing to do rentals of a few hours (and have done), but for the price of a whole night’s stay.
We have had three or four individuals book to arrive after midnight and leave several hours later, like 6 a.m. They were on long road trips and needed a place to sleep a few hours, shower, and go. No problem at all.
I can easily stay up to greet them and get them situated. They then leave before I’m up and often before my husband is up.
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It’s the day sleepers that are the problem. They don’t always realize that a host might have back to back bookings. Not only will I not give you a discount but you are costing me a night if you leave at 1 or 2 in the afternoon. Also if you do give someone odd hours you need to make sure they understand it’s by the night 3pm to 11 am the next day, not by the hour.
During the pandemic I had one couple who arrived fairly late and asked for a late checkout. They arrived around midnight and wanted to stay until 4 pm. Basically he would work all day online and then they would drive at night to the next stop and do the same thing. Since I was blocking one or more nights between bookings I didn’t mind accomodating and he did ask before booking, not after.
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Obviously, the notion conjures visions of illicit activities (prostitution, drug use, black market sales, etc.), and I would bet you’d get a much higher percentage of those types of guests than with a 1-day minimum stay. Hosts in some areas have already learned that a 1-day minimum stay combined with less than a 24-hour advance notice attracts these types of stays.
Airport layovers seem like a stretch since it’s extremely unlikely you’d have a listing inside the airport and getting from the airport to your listing would be costly and time consuming, especially if cheap hotels right next to the airport offer a free shuttle bus, like they do where I live. A more palatable use for travelers would be a place right on a busy highway for people driving long-distances to rest. In general, if a guest needs to take a taxi to get to your listing or pay to store luggage, the cost advantage of your listing just won’t be there.
That aside, your goal would be to increase the number of bookings per room and the profit to go along with it. However, if it’s successful, the overhead would be really high; maybe even high enough that it would only make sense for a hotel-like facility with dedicated employees since you’ll need to do cleaning multiple times per day at any hour. I think it would be a problem for one person to manage everything even if there was only one or two rooms (again, if it was successful with multiple bookings per day).
The biggest problem I see is finding a platform to support it. Airbnb obviously doesn’t support multiple bookings to the same room in the same day, nor do any of the major short-term rental platforms, so you’d be on your own for marketing and payment processing.
We have had one day sleeper. He paid for two nights, which made it fine for us.
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I do not even do one nighters anymore. If I were doing one nighters then sure, stay as short a period of time as you need but I would not discount it a penny.
RR
If someone is renting a place from 3 pm to 11 am (which are my check-in/check-out hours) then as @RiverRock says, it’s up to them how long they use it but they’d have to pay the full price. And with a fairly high cleaning fee to discourage one-nighters I can’t see any reason why anyone would want to.
So if they only wanted to use it for a couple of hours, that’s up to them but they’d still pay top prices because I needed 3 - 4 hours to turn over each apartment before COVID cleaning protocols.
In 2018 I wrote about the ‘nap cafes’ that were available in NYC and at that time the cost was $25 for a 45-minute session. So no-one would be interested (I assume) in paying a couple of hundred dollars for an apartment for that time.
I’ve only once had an inquiry about it and the bloke wanted a place where he could be guaranteed absolute silence in the middle of the afternoon so that he could sleep. I simply couldn’t guarantee it. Although I live in an amazingly quiet place, I can’t guarantee that the landscapers next door might fire up their leaf blowers or a dog might start barking.
I think that anyone offering ‘nap times’ should be able to guarantee quiet and if I can’t then not many people can.
It makes no difference to me whether a guest stays for 18 hours or 18 minutes as long as they pay the same - and they’d be crazy to.
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Excuse me, 30 minutes? That is just wrong on so many levels! 
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By the way, I hope that the OP knows that some hotels do this and have been doing for a few years. If I remember rightly, the fees are about 75% less than they would be for the night. (There’s a site called, I think, Dayuse?)
I’ve no idea whether they are still doing it.
I remember from when I was first in the States 26 years ago there were hotels that rented rooms by the hour. They made no pretense that it was for naps. 
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But if you need a nap in El Paso TX that won’t help. There is no where here that offers a similar service not even at the Airport. I’ve been in one of those rent by the hour lounges at DFW and it was not perfectly quiet.
My place is currently about $75 a night all in for a guest but last I looked many months ago there were a good number of less expensive places here. I just can’t imagine that many would be available last minute.
Still this is a niche that Airbnb could probably exploit rather easily if they cared to do so.
You can easily google for hourly-rate hotels in your area. If you live in a big city, there’s a good chance there’s one nearby for your convenience .
I know “Day Use” to be rooms that are available during daytime hours where you can get a room from say 9am-4pm (which is normally across the check-out/check-in times) without having to book 2 days. Maybe it applies to hourly rate rooms, too.
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Bad actors aside, I imagine that a powernap could potentially make or break someone’s day! 
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Yeah, I think DayUse and HotelsByDay are the biggest players in the space (for hotels). Last time I checked I think they had 4-hour minimums and weren’t super cheap.
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I think you’re right. I remember that most were 9 - 5? That still allows the housekeeping staff to get into the room with a 6 - ? stay. Probably a 6pm check in because of a discount? Hotels are so different than Airbnb rentals.
Winston Churchill was reknowned for power naps. He could make himself fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I don’t think 30 minutes is long enough…for sleep or anything else! 
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In Mexico they are known as NoTell Motels.
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