The company helping you to automate your Airbnb: KeyNest expand their key handover service to North America
- KeyNest¹ is a sharing economy startup that helps Airbnb hosts give property access remotely to guests and cleaners.
- KeyNest have expanded their sharing economy key exchange service to over 30 cities across North America
- The expansion will allow Airbnb hosts to welcome their guests remotely whilst also increasing footfall for independent local businesses
- KeyNest’s launch in North America is evidence of the short-term rental industry’s massive growth
KeyNest today announces the expansion of its key exchange service to the USA and Canada, in a move that will allow Airbnb hosts in over thirty major cities across North America to share keys with guests and cleaners without meeting them in person. KeyNest partners with local independent businesses, where hosts can drop off their keys. The keys are then tagged, stored securely and can be collected by third parties, saving hosts time, effort and money.
Hosts have traditionally welcomed guests in person, but KeyNest allows hosts to give property access even if guests are running late or the host is out of town. KeyNest already has over 2,000 stores in 10 countries across Europe and Australia, covering cities such as London, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona and Rome. The new expansion will see stores being added in New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, Miami, Vancouver, Chicago and Montreal, amongst other cities, allowing one third of the USA and Canada’s Airbnb hosts to share keys with their guests remotely.
In recent years vacation rentals have been through a massive boom. The value of short-term rental stays are predicted to reach over $130 billion by 2022² - a massive increase on the 2017 figure of $82.9 billion. The USA alone has 660,000 listings on Airbnb, which is almost 10% of the global total of 7 million.³ The vacation rental industry has even seen interest from traditional hotel brands such as Marriott⁴ and AccorHotels.⁵ The benefits of the vacation rental boom are shared with local businesses thanks to partner stores seeing increased footfall from tourists and receiving a commission for every key collection. Typical partner locations include cafes, grocery stores, hotels and baggage storage facilities at train stations.
“As Airbnb hosts ourselves, we know how difficult it can be to deal with something as simple sounding as handing over the keys to a guest. Guests are often late for check-in due to delayed flights and hosts have to change plans in order to give them the keys. Using KeyNest hands flexibility back to both the host and the guest, provides an emergency access option, and puts back into the local economy by including stores in the vacation rental boom.” said co-Founder Marc Figueras.
Oliver Harrison, former private equity consultant at CIL Management Consultants, has been appointed to head the North American division, a role that will see him growing KeyNest’s network of property managers and partner locations. Oliver Harrison said of the expansion, “North America is Airbnb’s largest market but much of the ecosystem of services surrounding short-lets remains underdeveloped. We’re very excited to bring an easy way to share keys to so many people for the first time”.
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² https://skift.com/2018/07/17/why-short-term-rentals-are-mainstream-and-booming/
³ https://news.airbnb.com/fast-facts/
For more information please refer to keynest.com or contact Edward Bate: edward@keynest.com, 0203 633 4599.
About KeyNest: KeyNest uses RFID technology to provide secure and convenient key exchange for Airbnb hosts, professional property managers and busy urban residents. When KeyNest customers aren’t able to hand over keys in person, they drop their keys off at a KeyNest location where they can later be collected by guests, cleaners or friends. In 2017 KeyNest became the UK’s first official partner of Airbnb through the Host Assist programme, and has welcomed over 600,000 guests to date. From an original 2016 launch of ten London stores, KeyNest now operates over 2500 stores across the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the USA, with a key moved across its network every 45 seconds.