A former Airbnb Superhost aims to remove the ‘coming out’ conundrum for LGBT+ travelers when booking accommodations through the 10+ million listings across major short-term rental platforms including Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, and HomeAway. FabStayz.com brings an end to travelers having to message hosts ensuring they are ‘OK’ with hosting a gay couple or member of the transgender community. The platform’s FabHosts are recognized LGBT+Ally hosts fostering welcoming safe spaces for all.
“Travel is about fun and exploration, coming out to a stranger is no way to kick-off a vacation,” says Robert Geller, Founder and CEO of FabStayz and himself an Airbnb Host. “Be your FabSelf wherever your travels take you. No more scouring listings for clues if the host is LGBT+ welcoming, an ally or member of our community. FabStayz wants to take away all the guesswork for the LGBT+ traveler.”
Geller shared that property owners listed on FabStayz will be some of the most experienced hosts who must meet the platform’s strict criteria of seven months minimum hosting on another major platform with at least 10 great to excellent reviews. Geller points out this criteria brings added security as hosts cannot join FabStayz without prior hosting experience. Additionally, all FabStayz hosts much agree to FabStayz diversity and inclusion statement.
“Our featured FabHosts are super at hosting,” exclaims Geller, playing on Airbnb’s ‘Superhost’ badges. “To date, 96 percent of featured FabHosts are allies wanting to be recognized as welcoming to the LGBT+ community. And, they’ve done so by purchasing yearly subscriptions to be featured on FabStayz.com.”
When developing FabStayz, Geller and his team also wanted to make it easy for hosts to join the site. Unique to FabStayz is that hosts do not have to create a new listing from scratch. Instead, their listing is uploaded from other major short-term rental platforms. This feature allows LGBT+Ally property owners to be listed on the site in a matter of minutes.
FabStayz beta v1.0 went live just weeks ago with its Fab100 Hosts, the first 100 to join the platform and now has over 500 listings. Featured listings include such unique properties as tiny homes in Portland, Oregon, a castle in France, a vintage RV on a hillside in Los Angeles, a restored firehouse in Chattanooga, TN, home shares, beach front condos, and guest suites throughout the United States, Brazil, Canada, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Panama, Poland, and United Kingdom.
Additionally, a FabOffer during the site's launch gives hosts the opportunity to experience the benefits of the FabStayz platform. LGBT+Ally Hosts with listings on Airbnb, Vrbo, HomeAway, Booking or TripAdvisor can get a six-month free trial subscription to be recognized on FabStayz.com.
Representing every letter of the acronym LGBT+, Geller’s diverse FabStayz team has their sights set on Airbnb’s 7M active listings in over 100,000 cities looking to gain a 3 percent foothold within its first 18 months, making it the largest LGBT+ accommodations platform.